How the Rolling Stones’ Early R&B Covers Sparked the British Blues Boom and Created Cream and Fleetwood Mac

The Rolling Stones didn’t just play American R&B—they treated it like a mission statement. Their 1963 cover of Chuck Berry’s “Route 66” and 1964’s “Little Red Rooster” (a Willie Dixon song originally done by Howlin’ Wolf) brought gritty Chicago blues straight into British teen consciousness. At a time when the UK pop charts were full of Merseybeat and clean-cut harmonies, the Stones insisted on raw slide guitar, harmonica, and a deliberately unpolished vocal attack. That sound became a template for a whole generation of British blues musicians who wanted authenticity over sheen.

The direct line from those Stones recordings to the formation of Cream and Fleetwood Mac is startlingly short. Eric Clapton was in the Yardbirds when the Stones’ blues covers were topping the UK charts; their success convinced him that pure blues could be commercially viable, not just a cult taste. In 1966 he left the Yardbirds for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, then immediately formed Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker—a power trio that expanded the Stones’ R&B framework into psychedelic, long-form jams. Peter Green, also a Bluesbreakers alum, took a more haunting, melodic approach after hearing the Stones’ slow-blues covers. When he formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967, he named it after his rhythm section and built the early setlist around the same Chicago standards the Stones had revived, but with his own ghost