Keith Richards has reflected on the one period when he felt the blues genuinely lost ground: the rise of Motown in the 1960s. While the Rolling Stones guitarist built his career on homage to blues pioneers such as BB King, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, and watched the genre survive waves of disco, hip hop and electronic music, he recalled Motown's slicker, more polished sound briefly making traditional blues feel outdated in America, even as British bands were reviving it abroad.

Richards described how blues musicians' US audiences shrank as "American Black music was starting to slide into Motown, which was far more slick and more organised," leaving them feeling sidelined at home just as interest from British fans surged. He noted the strangeness of this new European following, joking that bluesmen saw "a bunch of wimpy English guys with long hair" embracing their music. The article credits London's blues scene, and acts like Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac, with reinvigorating the genre and keeping the 12-bar blues at the heart of rock and roll.