The wider rhythm and blues boom overlapped, both chronologically and in terms of personnel, with the later and more narrowly focused British blues boom. The blues boom began to come to prominence in the mid-1960s as the rhythm and blues movement began to peter out leaving a nucleus of instrumentalists with a wide knowledge of blues forms and techniques.N. Logan and B. Woffinden, The NME Book of Rock 2 (London: W. H. Allen, 1977), , pp. 61–2. Central to the blues boom were John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, who began to gain national and international attention after the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings.T. Rawlings, A. Neill, C. Charlesworth and C. White, Then, Now and Rare British Beat 1960–1969 (London: Omnibus Press, 2002), , p. 130. Peter Green started a "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after Clapton's departure to form Cream.
