HE GAVE Rod Stewart his first proper gig and the Rolling Stones an early support slot.

He inspired Eric Clapton to play the guitar. And when Reg Dwight left Bluesology to go solo, he made his new stage name from the band's saxophonist, Elton Dean, and singer, Long John Baldry, as a tribute to the man to whom, as Elton John, he would later dedicate the popular Someone Saved My Life Tonight.

And these are just three of the many connections Long John Baldry made as one of the cornerstones of the British blues of the 1950s and 1960s.

Baldry had become fascinated with the blues very early in his life. Television was by no means an every day item in households in the late 1940s.

But the Baldrys had one in their home in Haddon, Derbyshire, and at the age of eight John heard Sonny Terry's harmonica blues Stone Fox Chase on a programme called Kaleidoscope and decided that this was the music for him.

He settled on guitar rather than harmonica, however, and by the age of 12 he was playing along to Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy records on his 12-string acoustic. Three years later he made his first public appearance and was soon hired to accompany American bluesmen, including Champion Jack Dupree and Memphis Slim as The World's Greatest White 12-String Guitar Player.

A year later, the British folk guitar legend Wizz Jones spotted Baldry at Charing Cross Station, carrying a guitar case bearing the inscription "Long John". With his 6ft 7in frame and well-groomed appearance, Baldry cut an imposing figure and Jones easily tracked him down to the Gyre & Gimble coffee house in Soho, where the still teenage Baldry would hold court.

By this time Baldry had already met and befriended Woody Guthrie's old travelling companion, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and would soon be regarded as the real deal blues troubadour about town.

Alexis Korner, the father of the British blues scene, recruited Baldry into the seminal Blues Incorporated, home to Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker of Cream, various Rolling Stones and innumerable other notables. Korner and the band's co-leader, harmonica player Cyril Davies, had an ongoing dispute about the style of blues they should be playing and when Davies opted for a harder, purer strain instead of Korner's jazzier approach, Baldry went with him to form the Cyril Davies All-Stars.

It was a brief adventure.

Davies died suddenly and Baldry took over the band, renaming them The Hoochie Coochie Men. He added a young Rod Stewart on harmonica and occasional vocals, having first assured Rod's mum that he'd pay her son and make sure he behaved himself.

He did more than that, though. Stewart recalls Baldry as almost a father figure who taught him how to be a performer and who would gently reassure him if he messed up on-stage.

AFTER THE HOOCHIE COOCHIE

Men, Baldry formed Steampacket with Stewart, Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, pausing only to appear, at the Beatles' insistence, on their first worldwide television transmission, Around the World with the Beatles.

Steampacket, managed by 1960s entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky, soon ran into business disagreements and, sensing disaster, Baldry quickly hired a band he heard in popular 1960s haunt the Cromwellian Club, Bluesology, as his new backing band. The Elton John connection was made and Baldry quite literally saved his new pianist's life, thwarting an attempted suicide.

Big voiced ballad singers were now in fashion and Pye Records thought Baldry might be their answer to Tom Jones.

His throat lubricated by liberal pulls on a bottle of brandy, Baldry turned the first song they gave him, Let the Heartaches Begin, into a number one hit in 1968 and his life entered a new phase. He appeared on the Royal Variety Performance that year and had further hits including Mexico, the 1968 Olympic Games theme, which drove Baldry mad with its overexposure.

In the early 1970s, when he tried to return to a bluesier style, Baldry found that his British audience had moved on and the album that Rod Stewart and Elton John produced for him, It Ain't Easy, was given a more favourable reception in North America and Canada.

Canada particularly suited Baldry and he decided to settle in Vancouver. He enjoyed Canadian hits with Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll and a version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, recorded with Kathi MacDonald, who sang with his band, the Mississippi Hippies. His deep voice also found him ready work in commercial voice-overs and, later, providing the voices of cartoon characters.

He still loved to sing the blues and his albums recorded over the past 15 years included the wryly-titled It Still Ain't Easy, Right to Sing the Blues and a tribute to another great hero of his, Leadbelly.

His trips back to Britain were infrequent. There was a memorable appearance at the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh during the 1990s when, immaculately dressed as ever, he gave a glimpse of the acoustic troubadour from the Gyre & Gimble days. More recent trips found him singing with 1960s revivalists the Manfreds - aptly enough since he was once shortlisted to replace his old pal Paul Jones in their parent band, Manfred Mann, and took great pleasure in finally getting the job.

Long John Baldry, singer, guitarist and songwriter; born January 12, 1941, died July 21, 2005.