Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau promoted concerts of all sorts in Europe beginning in the 1950s, but they left their mark in blues history with the groundbreaking American Folk Blues Festival tours of the ’60s. Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Memphis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Little Brother Montgomery, J.B. Lenoir, Lonnie Johnson, Victoria Spivey, Big Joe Williams, Sleepy John Estes, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Hubert Sumlin and many more appeared on these tours, occasionally billed as the American Negro Blues Festival, which introduced live blues to a European audience that has formed a major core of support for touring blues artists ever since. Lippmann and Rau formulated the concept to appeal to the already-established jazz audience in Europe, but what transpired had more to do with emerging rock ‘n’ roll musicians who soaked up the musicians of the American legends and gave the world new British variations on the blues via the likes of the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds and the Animals. Lippmann and Rau also recorded the AFBF artists in the studio and in concert and featured them in television specials, providing a treasure trove of albums and DVDs for generations of blues aficionados to come. Lippmann, a former jazz drummer and magazine writer, was born on March 17, 1927, in Eisenach, Germany, while Rau, a law student in his early years, was born in Pforzheim on March 9, 1930. They staged the first AFBF in 1962 and presented it as an annual event until 1970, using Willie Dixon and drummer Jump Jackson as Chicago contacts to locate and book the musicians. The festival was held again in 1972, 1981 to 1983 and 1985. AFBF albums appeared on several labels, including Lippmann and Rau’s L+R imprint. The pair continued to present jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and pop acts in the 1980s and ’90s, and Rau remained active after Lippmann’s death in Dreieich, Germany, on May 18, 1997. Materials compiled from their decades in the music business form much of the Lippmann + Rau Music Archive (formerly the International Jazz Archive Eisenach) in Lippmann’s home town.
