Mick Ralphs (81) was born March 31, 1944 in Stoke Lacy, a small village in Herefordshire, England. As a kid he was not really too impressed with the music of the time, as it did not possess the rawness he was looking for.
He began playing guitar after being inspired by a song he heard on Radio Luxembourg.
“It was Green Onions by Booker T and the M.G’s,” he later said in an interview. “Up to that point I wasn’t that into music. The music of the day when I was growing up was syrupy pop like Cliff and the Shadows. It was all very white sounding. I listened to Radio Luxembourg and I heard this song that turned out to be Green Onions.
“I loved the nasty guitar of it and the groove. I had never heard anything like it before and that inspired me to want to play guitar like that. It basically got me into blues and soul music and people like Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry. That was the trigger, I heard it and thought, ‘Yes, I like that.’”
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