As the elder statesman of
British blues, it is
John Mayall's lot to be more renowned as a bandleader and mentor than as a performer in his own right. Throughout the '60s, his band,
the Bluesbreakers, acted as a finishing school for the leading British
blues-rock musicians of the era. Guitarists
Eric Clapton,
Peter Green, and
Mick Taylor joined his band in a remarkable succession in the mid-'60s, honing their chops with
Mayall before going on to join
Cream,
Fleetwood Mac, and
the Rolling Stones, respectively.
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John McVie and Mick Fleetwood,
Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser (of
Free), John Almond, and
Jon Mark also played and recorded with
Mayall for varying lengths of times in the '60s.
Mayall's personnel has tended to overshadow his own considerable abilities. Only an adequate singer, the multi-instrumentalist was adept in bringing out the best in his younger charges (
Mayall himself was in his thirties by the time
the Bluesbreakers began to make a name for themselves). Doing his best to provide a context in which they could play Chicago-style
electric blues,
Mayall was never complacent, writing most of his own material (which ranged from good to humdrum), revamping his lineup with unnerving regularity, and constantly experimenting within his basic
blues format. Some of these experiments (with
jazz-rock and an album on which he played all the instruments except drums) were forgettable; others, like his foray into acoustic music in the late '60s, were quite successful.
Mayall's output has caught some flak from critics for paling next to the real African-American deal, but much of his vintage work -- if weeded out selectively -- is quite strong; especially his legendary 1966 LP with
Eric Clapton, which both launched
Clapton into stardom and kick-started the
blues boom into full gear in England.
When
Clapton joined
the Bluesbreakers in 1965,
Mayall had already been recording for a year, and been performing professionally long before that. Originally based in Manchester,
Mayall moved to London in 1963 on the advice of
British blues godfather Alexis Korner, who thought a living could be made playing the
blues in the bigger city. Tracing a path through his various lineups of the '60s is a daunting task. At least 15 different editions of
the Bluesbreakers were in existence from January 1963 through mid-1970. Some notable musicians (like guitarist Davy Graham, Mick Fleetwood, and
Jack Bruce) passed through for little more than a cup of coffee;
Mayall's longest-running employee, bassist John McVie, lasted about four years.
The Bluesbreakers, like
Fairport Convention or
the Fall, was more a concept than an ongoing core.
Mayall, too, had the reputation of being a difficult and demanding employer, willing to give musicians their walking papers as his music evolved, although he also imparted invaluable schooling to them while the associations lasted.
Mayall recorded his debut single in early 1964; he made his first album, a live affair, near the end of the year. At this point
the Bluesbreakers had a more pronounced
R&B influence than would be exhibited on their most famous recordings, somewhat in the mold of younger combos like
the Animals and
Rolling Stones, but
the Bluesbreakers would take a turn for the purer with the recruitment of
Eric Clapton in the spring of 1965.
Clapton had left
the Yardbirds in order to play straight
blues, and
the Bluesbreakers allowed him that freedom (or stuck to well-defined restrictions, depending upon your viewpoint).
Clapton began to inspire reverent acclaim as one of Britain's top virtuosos, as reflected in the famous "
Clapton is God" graffiti that appeared in London in the mid-'60s.
In professional terms, though, 1965 wasn't the best of times for the group, which had been dropped by Decca.
Clapton even left the group for a few months for an odd trip to Greece, leaving
Mayall to straggle on with various fill-ins, including
Peter Green.
Clapton did return in late 1965, around the time an excellent
blues-rock single, "I'm Your Witchdoctor" (with searing sustain-laden guitar riffs), was issued on Immediate. By early 1966, the band was back on Decca, and recorded its landmark
Bluesbreakers LP. This was the album that, with its clean, loud, authoritative licks, firmly established
Clapton as a guitar hero, on both reverent covers of tunes by the likes of
Otis Rush and
Freddie King and decent originals by
Mayall himself. The record was also an unexpected commercial success, making the Top Ten in Britain. From that point on, in fact,
Mayall became one of the first
rock musicians to depend primarily upon the LP market; he recorded plenty of singles throughout the '60s, but none of them came close to becoming a hit.
Clapton left
the Bluesbreakers in mid-1966 to form
Cream with
Jack Bruce, who had played with
Mayall briefly in late 1965.
Mayall turned quickly to
Peter Green, who managed the difficult feat of stepping into
Clapton's shoes and gaining respect as a player of roughly equal imagination and virtuosity, although his style was quite distinctly his own.
Green recorded one LP with
Mayall, A Hard Road, and several singles, sometimes writing material and taking some respectable lead vocals.
Green's talents, like those of
Clapton, were too large to be confined by sideman status, and in mid-1967 he left to form a successful band of his own,
Fleetwood Mac.
Mayall then enlisted 19-year-old
Mick Taylor; remarkably, despite the consecutive departures of two star guitarists,
Mayall maintained a high level of popularity. The late '60s were also a time of considerable experimentation for
the Bluesbreakers, which moved into a form of
blues-
jazz-rock fusion with the addition of a horn section, and then a retreat into mellower, acoustic-oriented music.
Mick Taylor, the last of the famous triumvirate of
Mayall-bred guitar heroes, left in mid-1969 to join
the Rolling Stones. Yet in a way
Mayall was thriving more than ever, as the U.S. market, which had been barely aware of him in the
Clapton era, was beginning to open up for his music. In fact, at the end of the 1960s,
Mayall moved to Los Angeles. Released in 1969,
The Turning Point, a live, all-acoustic affair, was a commercial and artistic high point.
In America at least,
Mayall continued to be pretty popular in the early '70s. His band was no more stable than ever; at various points some American musicians flitted in and out of
the Bluesbreakers, including
Harvey Mandel,
Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor, and Don "Sugarcane" Harris. Although he's released numerous albums since and remained a prodigiously busy and reasonably popular live act, his post-1970 output generally hasn't matched the quality of his '60s work. Following collaborations with an unholy number of guest celebrities, in the early '80s he re-teamed with a couple of his more renowned vets, John McVie and
Mick Taylor, for a tour. It's the '60s albums that you want, though there's little doubt that
Mayall has over the past decades done a great deal to popularize the
blues all over the globe, whether or not the music has meant much on record. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
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