John Mayall | New Music And Songs | John Mayall About John Mayall 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. 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, were 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, who moved into a form of blues-jazz-rock fusion with the addition of a horn section, and then retreated 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, which was chronicled by Great American Music's Blues Express, released in 2010.

The '60s albums are what 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. Continuing to record and tour into his eighties, Mayall released A Special Life, recorded at Entourage Studios in North Hollywood and featuring a guest spot by singer and accordion player C.J. Chenier, in 2014. The album was universally celebrated as one of his best. A live archival recording of the Green, McVie, Fleetwood-era Bluesbreakers was released in April as Live in 1967. Meanwhile, the bandleader, his co-producer Eric Corne, and his seven-year old group -- Rocky Athas, guitar; Greg Rzab, bass; Jay Davenport, drums -- were in the studio. They emerged with Find a Way to Care, a set that showcased Mayall's highly underrated keyboard playing on a set of originals and vintage covers including Percy Mayfield's "The River's Invitation." The album was released in the late summer of 2015.

~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi Hear more of John Mayall - Mayall History John Mayall Bio 2015 || John Mayall Short Bio 2016 - .DOCX For VENUES For over 50 years, John Mayall has served as a pioneer of blues music, rightly earning him the title, "The Godfather of British Blues". In 2013, John signed with producer Eric Corne's label, Forty Below Records, and has since been experiencing a true artistic and career renaissance. This revival continues with the release of a brilliant new studio album titled Find a Way to Care, produced by John and Eric at famed House of Blues Studios in Encino, California. About the new album Corne says, "I really wanted to feature John's keyboard playing on this record. He's truly one of the most lyrical, economical and underrated keyboardists around. We also wanted to change things up a bit after the success of A Special Life and the addition of a horn section on several tracks was a really fun way to do that.

As good as the last album was, I think this one is even better." On the new album, John adds harmonica on two songs as well as a classic guitar track reminiscent of Hubert Sumlin or Muddy Waters on the latter's legendary "Long Distance Call". He is joined by his killer touring band: Rocky Athas (guitar), Greg Rzab (bass) and Jay Davenport (drums). The release of Find a Way to Care comes on the heels of Mayall's internationally-acclaimed, A Special Life released in 2014. "I'd easily put this one among Mayall's best efforts - and that includes 'Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton,' 'A Hard Road' and 'Blues from Laurel Canyon!'" (about.com) In April 2015, John and Forty Below thrilled the blues world with the release of the historical Bluesbreakers album, Live In 1967, featuring the three original members of Fleetwood Mac: Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. "Sunken treasure doesn't get much better" (Classic Rock Magazine).

Live in 1967 - Volume Two followed in 2016 and was hailed as a "welcome second helping" by Rolling Stone, and "essential listening" by Blues Music Magazine. John Mayall was born on the 29th of November 1933 and grew up in a village not too far from Manchester, England. It was here as a teenager that he first became attracted to the jazz and blues 78s in his father's record collection. Initially it was all about guitarists such as Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, Josh White and Leadbelly. However once he heard the sounds of boogie woogie piano giants Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis, his desire to play in that style was all he could think of. At the age of 14, when he went to Manchester's Junior School of Art, he had access to a piano for the first time and he began to learn the basics of this exciting music. He also found time to continue learning the guitar and, a couple of years later, the harmonica, inspired by Sonny Terry, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.

After his two years at art school, he joined the art department of a major department store while starting to build up his own record collection that was to be his source of inspiration. At age eighteen, when he was due for National Service, he spent three years in the Royal Engineers as an office clerk in the south of England and in Korea all the time playing whenever he got a chance. As no one seemed to be interested in this type of music, John felt pretty much of an outsider throughout his twenties up until 1962 when the news broke in the British music magazine Melody Maker that Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies had opened a club in Ealing devoted to blues music. After Britain's ten year traditional jazz boom had about run its course, a new generation was ready for something new. Out came the amplifiers, guitars and harmonicas and out came young enthusiasts from all over the country eager to form their own groups. This was all the encouragement thirty-year old John needed and, giving up his graphic design job, he moved from Manchester to London and began putting musicians together under the banner of the Bluesbreakers.

Although things were rough at first, the music quickly took off thanks to the popularity of the Rolling Stones, Georgie Fame, Manfred Mann, The Animals and Spencer Davis with a young Steve Winwood. John also backed blues greats, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Eddie Boyd and Sonny Boy Williamson on their first English club tours. After a couple of years and many personnel changes, Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds and John quickly offered him the job as his new guitarist. Although John had previously released a couple of singles and a live LP for Decca, the now classic collaboration between Eric and John resulted in the all-time best-selling classic album, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton. However, by the time it was entering the charts, Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce had left to form Cream. So began a succession of future stars who would define their roots under John's leadership before leaving to form their own groups. Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood became Fleetwood Mac. Andy Fraser formed Free, and Mick Taylor joined the Rolling Stones.

In 1969, with his popularity blossoming in the USA, John caused somewhat of a stir with the release of a drummer-less acoustic live album entitled The Turning Point, from which his song, "Room To Move" was destined to become a rock classic. Attracted by the West Coast climate and culture, John then made his permanent move from England to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles and began forming bands with American musicians. Throughout the '70s, John became further revered for his many jazz/rock/blues innovations featuring such notable performers as Blue Mitchell, Red Holloway, Larry Taylor, and Harvey Mandel. In 1982, motivated by nostalgia and fond memories, John decided to re-form the original Bluesbreakers. Mick Fleetwood was unavailable at the time so John hired drummer Colin Allen to join with John McVie and Mick Taylor for a couple of tours and a video concert film entitled Blues Alive. Featured greats were Albert King, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Etta James. By the time Mick and John had returned to their respective careers, public reaction had convinced Mayall that he should honor his driving blues roots. In Los Angeles, he selected his choices for a new incarnation of the Bluesbreakers.

Officially launched in 1984, it included future stars in their own right, guitarists Coco Montoya and Walter Trout. Throughout the '80s and '90s, John's popularity went from strength to strength with a succession of dynamic albums such as Behind The Iron Curtain, Chicago Line, A Sense of Place, and the Grammy-nominated Wake Up Call that featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Albert Collins and Mick Taylor. In 1993, Texas guitarist Buddy Whittington joined the Bluesbreakers and, for the next ten years, energized the band with his unique and fiery ideas. Making his recording debut on Mayall's Spinning Coin album, he proved to be more than equal to following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors. Other modern classics followed; Blues For the Lost Days and Padlock On The Blues, the latter featuring a rare collaboration with his close friend, John Lee Hooker.

On Along For The Ride, Mayall re-teamed with a number of his former mates, including Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, as well as ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Steve Miller, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Otis Rush, Gary Moore and Jeff Healey. The younger generation was well represented by teenage guitar sensations Shannon Curfman and Jonny Lang. In 2002, Stories debuted the Billboard blues charts at #1. At a 70th Birthday celebration in aid of UNICEF in Liverpool a concert was filmed, recorded and released as a DVD and double CD in December 2003. Along with the Bluesbreakers, it featured old friends Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber. The BBC also aired an hour-long documentary on John's life and career entitled The Godfather of British Blues to coincide with the release of Road Dogs. In 2005, John was awarded an OBE on The Queen's Honours list.

In the Spring of 2007, John Mayall's 56th album release, In The Palace Of The King, was an entire studio album that honored and paid tribute to the music of Mayall's long-time hero of the blues, Freddie King. All garnered great reviews, critical and popular acclaim and represented Mayall's ongoing mastery of the Blues and his continuing importance in contemporary music. In addition, over the last ten years, Mayall released live recordings on his own online label, Private Stash Records. (Some still available from his website johnmayall.com.) They included Time Capsule (containing historic 1957-62 live tapes), UK Tour 2K, (from a 2000 British tour), Boogie Woogie Man, (a selection of solo performances), Cookin' Down Under, (a live DVD from Australia) and No Days Off, (another British live show) and a 3 volume CD set of live performances covering the years 1970 to 1998 entitled Historic Live Shows. In October 2008, John made the decision to permanently retire the name "Bluesbreakers" and move on to make a brand new start.

It was a sad occasion to say farewell to Buddy and the guys after twenty years of great music and camaraderie but things had reached another turning point. This caused quite a stir in blues circles and led to rumors about total retirement. Happily for the fans, early in 2009 Eagle Records called upon John to come up with a new album. Feeling much revived after a couple of months off the road, he put together a new band for the project. A few years ago, Buddy Whittington had introduced John to a fellow Texas guitarist, Rocky Athas and he recalled how impressed he'd been at the time. Luckily he answered John's call and was eager to come on board for the proposed album. With the need for a rhythm section of dynamic strength, John turned to bassist Greg Rzab who recommended his fellow Chicagoan Jay Davenport on drums. Finally, the three guys were put together with keyboardist Tom Canning and within two days of meeting up in Los Angeles, the album Tough was in the can. It had taken all of three days in the studio and ever since its release, and a growing schedule of world tours, a new era was born. Soon after its release Tom left to pursue other projects.

A leaner four piece line-up gave John more room to stretch out as an instrumentalist and the band's chemistry hit new heights. For the next seven years, John and the band continued to tour extensively throughout the world, and racked up their usual target of over a hundred shows per year. In 2010 a concert in London was filmed, and Live in London was released as a double CD and DVD through Private Stash. After being invited to do a guest spot on Walter Trout's latest album, John met engineer/producer Eric Corne. John was so impressed that he asked Eric to record his new album A Special Life. Greg, Jay and Rocky flew in for the sessions which took less than a week to record and the end result is one of John's best albums ever, with it's deep devotion to blues and roots music. The album was released in 2014 to rave reviews, followed by an extensive tour of North America, Europe, and The UK to celebrate John's 80th birthday. Early in 2016 the co-producing team of John Mayall and Eric Corne assembled at the House of Blues studio in Los Angeles to record a new album with Rocky, Jay and Greg entitled Talk About That.

This time around John wrote most of the songs that cover a wide range of exciting new material and are enhanced by some rock solid horn arrangements. The sessions also feature a guest appearance by guitar legend Joe Walsh on a couple of tracks and the album is scheduled for release in early 2017. 2016 brought yet another change in the evolving Mayall history when serious Texas thunderstorms prevented Rocky Athas from making a festival date and John, Greg and Jay were compelled to perform as a trio. As fate would have it, the sound they came up with lent an amazing new slant to John's music and subsequently led him to explore the possibilities of making music as a trio. Unfortunately, this would mean a guitarist would now not be required as John was heading in a new direction. A sad parting of the ways, but Rocky has been supportive of John's decision. For information on what's happening next for him please check his website at: So with a very full calendar of touring booked from coast to coast and all over the world, the John Mayall saga continues with his music as vital as it has ever been. John Mayall on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music.

Biography 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. 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, were 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, who moved into a form of blues-jazz-rock fusion with the addition of a horn section, and then retreated 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, which was chronicled by Great American Music's Blues Express, released in 2010.

The '60s albums are what 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. Continuing to record and tour into his eighties, Mayall released A Special Life, recorded at Entourage Studios in North Hollywood and featuring a guest spot by singer and accordion player C.J. Chenier, in 2014. The album was universally celebrated as one of his best. A live archival recording of the Green, McVie, Fleetwood-era Bluesbreakers was released in April as Live in 1967. Meanwhile, the bandleader, his co-producer Eric Corne, and his seven-year old group -- Rocky Athas, guitar; Greg Rzab, bass; Jay Davenport, drums -- were in the studio. They emerged with Find a Way to Care, a set that showcased Mayall's highly underrated keyboard playing on a set of originals and vintage covers including Percy Mayfield's "The River's Invitation." The album was released in the late summer of 2015.

~ Richie Unterberger Top Albums Alexis Moon and the Suns Present “John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton” | Travalanche The Vaudeville of David Bowie » Alexis Moon and the Suns Present “John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton” July 22 of this year will mark the 50th anniversary of the seminal 1966 album John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. The album had been recorded in March of that year; this Sunday, Alexis Moon and The Suns will get a jump on the celebration by performing the entire album live at The Treehouse at 2A. Most people vaguely know of the Bluesbreakers as a footnote – – several of its alumni went on to fame with bands that achieved mainstream chart success: Eric Clapton, who went on to Cream, Derek and the Dominoes and a solo career; Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie, who formed Fleetwood Mac; and Mick Taylor, who was the first replacement for Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones. The Bluesbreakers’ initial incarnation lasted from 1963 through 1967.

The personnel for the album in question (the group’s second) included singer, keyboard and harp player John Mayall; guitarist Eric Clapton; bassist John McVie; and drummer Hughie Flint. Clapton got special billing because he was already a legend by that point. He had left the popular Yardbirds earlier that year especially so he could play blues with Mayall (he’d objected to the pop psychedelic direction of the Yardbird’s 1965 hit single “For Your Love”). Clapton proved too contrary even for the Bluesbreakers though — that’s him reading a “Beano” comic on the album cover photo above; he said he’d did it as a rebellious gesture. (Many people refer to this record as “the Beano album” rather than by its unwieldy, uncatchy proper name.) And of course he left the band right after this to found Cream. John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers were at the leading edge of the second wave of the British Blues Boom.

Many of the key groups of the first wave, such as the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones, had broadened their mandate by including soul, pop and rock ‘n’ roll in their repertoire, and achieved scads of hit singles as a result. By contrast, the second wave bands were purists, relatively speaking. They were like a branch of the folk movement: very earnest, very serious, and very committed to authenticity and technical virtuosity, even at the expense of mass commerciality. It was these bands John Lennon was affectionately parodying in his 1968 song “Yer Blues”, although the song and his performance are so raw and brilliant there is a tendency to regard it as straight up homage. (Contrast it with, say,what the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band or Frank Zappa might have done with a similar assignment). When Lennon performed “Yer Blues” live with Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell in 1968 on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus it was an example of life imitating art. Of course the musicians of the British Boom were imitating someone themselves: the original black American blues artists.

I’ve profiled close to 100 of them in the Blues section of Travalanche . (I first got interested in the music by my brother who played in a number of blues bands when I was growing up. He played drums in a trio with the great Duke Robillard ; often sits in with Roomful of Blues ; and even once backed John Hammond Jr. I haven’t queried him but he is just the right age to have been heavily influenced by the Bluesbreakers and the album in question, and he brings the same kind of purism to his playing. On some level, he is why this blogpost even exists.) The selections on John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton include songs by Little Walter , Freddie King, Robert Johnson , Ray Charles, Otis Rush, Mose Allison, et al, and some originals by Mayall and Clapton. One tune, “Steppin’ Out”, is closely associated with Memphis Slim. Sunday’s line-up includes Alexis Thomason (vocals), Keith Hartel (lead guitar), Charles Roth (keyboards), Tom Shad (bass), and Ray Kubian (drums). I got to hear some of their rehearsal the other day: they were duly amazing.

The photos below are from that session. Thomason and Hartel sat down with me for a little interview right after: Trav: How did all this come about? Rhythm Section: Ray Kubian and Tom Shad Alexis: Tom Shad brought us together. I’ve known Tom for almost 20 years; we both performed with Joe Gallant’s Illuminati Orchestra. With various line-ups, we’ve done tributes before, including David Bowie and Hüsker Dü. It was Keith’s idea to do one for the Bluesbreakers album. Keith Hartel Keith: This is something I’ve always wanted to do. Rock and roll lead guitar playing is blues based. This is the album that started that and no one ever really topped it. It’s really a rock album. Eric Clapton was already a major blues players but he had quit the Yardbirds and lived at John Mayall’s house for a while and had access to his record collection. He studied very deeply and listened to a lot of people he hadn’t listened to before. This is largely a record of him absorbing a lot of that stuff.

Also, Clapton was playing a 1960 Les Paul, which had been discontinued, and playing it through a Marshall amp, which was brand new at the time. So this was the first time this particular sound, which we’re all so used to, had ever been recorded. And afterwards, everything sounded like that. This album was ground zero for that sound. Also, this material was originally recorded in live performance with Jack Bruce on bass, but the recording came out badly, so they re-did it in the studio. So it’s structured as a perfect set of music. Trav: It’s interesting to hear it with a female singing vocal; reminds me a little of Big Brother and the Holding Company (though with a better band). Alexis Thomason Alexis: I love Janis Joplin ! I think it’s fair to say rock and roll has a masculine energy. I feel comfortable with that kind of male energy. It doesn’t feel foreign to me. I don’t mean that so much in the sense of gender; it’s just that, man or woman, you just have to have balls. I listened to both Mayall and Clapton’s vocals. They’re so steeped in blues.

I’ve been working on nailing the chromaticization and phrasing. It’s so quirky. Trav: What were some of the challenges? Keith: Trying to get everything “as is”. Clapton’s method was to steal people’s licks, all these stock gestures that he would put together. He was the first person to turn it into rock. He was very much into Freddie King at this point. The interesting thing about this album is that those sounds hadn’t yet been “rockified”. But if was influential. Jimi Hendrix was a fan, he famously sought Clapton out when he came to England. Jeff Beck bought a Les Paul when he heard this album. But it’s under-appreciated now because everyone emulated it, so now everything sounds that way. This album is not yet as freaky or far-out. It’s about discipline and tradition. Clapton created a vocabulary out of all this archetypal stuff. Trav: What’s your favorite song in the set? Keith: “Little Girl”. It’s one of the originals. You can hear influence that would lead to stuff like Cream and Led Zeppelin. Alexis: And it’s so fun to play! Trav: What’s next?

Alexis: We’re hoping to do more than one show of this set. Also, I’d like do some psychedelic rock, but to come at it from the other end, less in the hippie jazzy Grateful Dead sense (which I’ve done and I love) but harder. Maybe something like Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Charles Roth **************** That’s another show I’d like to see. Alexis Moon and The Suns will be performing John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton at the Treehouse at Avenue A (25 Avenue A) this Sunday (January 17, 2016). The show will begin with an opening set by Hugh Pool at 9pm. Share this: John MAYALL’S BLUESBREAKERS - Live in 1967 Volume 2 (Out 6 May 2016 on Forty Below Records)WithGuitars Posted by: Joe Gessin , April 10, 2016 A leading figure in the 60s British Blues Boom, keyboard player John Mayall has played the blues for over 50 years, often fronting his own star filled band.

Famously featuring ex Yardbird Eric Clapton in the mid 60s, the band went through innumerable so many line-up changes. John Mayall, and more importantly the Bluesbreakers, were a significant influence on the blues scene to come. After a number of line-up changes that included at various times Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton, this 1967 recording documents a very short lived line-up that saw guitarist Peter Green, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwod alongside Mayall, before the formation of Fleetwood Mac, making this an archive released of note and importance. The set list back then was a rotation of covers (usually blues standards) and new / original songs, and while this set features three numbers present on the previous volume, you can see how organic the arrangements were. The seven minute ‘Tears In My Eyes’, a Mayall penned number, opens the set and is a real showcase for some blistering blues from Peter Green. The guitar solo work is as sublime as you’d expect. The rhythm section is solid, with every crash bang wallop, you can see why they went on together.

‘Your Funeral My Trial’ is an uptempo number with Mayall blasting out some rockin’ harmonica. ‘So Many Roads’ is a slower track with a steady blues rhythm and some solid guitar on top; sadly the vocals come over a little muddy to make out. Bye Bye Bird picks up the pace again and features some good harmonica, keyboard and guitar interplay. An essential listen is the 8 minute take of ‘Stormy Monday’, featuring former Serviceman Ronnie Jones on guest vocals; a name fans of the early Blues Incorporated will recognise. And there’s no better place to showcase Green’s guitar than the Green penned Greeny; the keyboards and guitars mix wonderfully. Some great blues here. The slower to mid paced ones are where Green lets rip over the rhythm section, the faster tracks he riffs and solos in accordance. Well presented, and an important part of rock and blues history. Outside of the less than perfect recording quality, it’s a touch of class.

8/10 Joe Gessin John Mayall's Bluesbreakers | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: 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. 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, were 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, which was chronicled by Great American Music's Blues Express, released in 2010.

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. Continuing to record and tour into his eighties, Mayall released A Special Life, recorded at Entourage Studios in North Hollywood and featuring a guest spot by singer and accordion player C.J. Chenier, in 2014.

John Mayall无损_首发John Mayall无损音乐,ape,flac的无损下载就在酷我音乐 体重： 个人简介 以蓝调为基础加入摇滚乐，便孕育出蓝调摇滚，John Mayall就是蓝调摇滚尖兵，以蓝调摇滚再加入重节拍、电子配备适当运用就成为日后的重摇滚。所以John Mayall也被誉为“蓝调摇滚老前辈”、“重摇滚的孕育者”，因为许多知名摇滚艺人都曾加入他所组的Bluesbreaker乐团或与他合作过。其中最著名的有Eric Clapton、Mick Fleetwood、John McVie、Mick Taylor等等。除John Mayall之外，溯及更早Yardbirds这个团体更是重摇滚先驱，先后加入的三位吉他手Eric Clapton、Jeff Beck、Jimmy Page日后皆为吉他手中的佼佼者，并且各领风骚。 by Richie UnterbergerThe elder statesman of British blues, it is Mayalls 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. 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. Mayalls 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 30s 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. Mayalls 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; Mayalls 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. Quite respectable it was too, 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 Britains top virtuosos, as reflected in the famous Clapton is God graffiti that appeared in London in the mid-60s. In professional terms, though, 1965 wasnt 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, Im Your Witchdoctor (with searing sustain-laden guitar riffs), was issued on Immediate. By early 1966, the band was back on Decca, and recorded their 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 Claptons 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. Greens 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. 1969s 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 hes released numerous albums since and remained a prodigiously busy and reasonably popular live act, his post-1970 output generally hasnt 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.

Its the 60s albums that you want, though theres 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. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers - Live in 1967 offers previously unheard early performances featuring Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood & John McVie - The BluesPowR Blog Posted on May 12, 2015 by Mike By rights, it shouldn’t even exist, the product of a fan from Holland sneaking a one-channel reel recorder into a series of London shows to capture a band that performed together for only three months before three-quarters of its members decided to, well, go their own way and form another outfit whose name derived from the surnames of drummer Fleetwood and bassist McVie.

That first band may not have been together long enough to record in the studio, but nearly 50 years later, we’re fortunate to now be able to hear these blues/rock n’ roll masters playing together on this treasure from Forty Below Records, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – Live in 1967 (Never Before Heard Live Performances), featuring John Mayall on vocals, harmonica, and keyboards, backed by one of the most talented Bluesbreakers line-ups in the band’s history with Peter Green on guitar; John McVie on bass; and Mick Fleetwood on drums. Taken from recordings of the band at five different London clubs, the sound here admittedly is not always the greatest, even with some pretty good restoration from Forty Below’s Eric Corne, with instruments at times fading in and out during solos and Mayall’s vocals in particular tending to be quite muddy. But we couldn’t agree with Corne more when he states “While the source recording was very rough and the final result is certainly not hi-fidelity, it does succeed in allowing us to hear how spectacular these performances are”, including some delightful solos from both Mayall and Green to complement Mayall’s impressive vocals.

That applies from the very first song, with the band slinking in on Otis Rush’s “All Your Love” before taking things full throttle about halfway through and then bringing it back down again just in time for the track’s conclusion. If that song alone isn’t enough to hook you, there’s plenty more where that came from, including a creeping “Double Trouble” (another of Rush’s songs) and the 1-2-3 punch of the slow blues of Freddie King’s “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” featuring some Kansas-sounding tinkling of the ivories from Mayall (several years before Kansas would have been heard), the always fun tongue-twister of a tune “ Looking Back ” (Johnny “Guitar” Watson), and a passionate take on Rush’s “So Many Roads” that together make this set every bit worth its purchase price.

In addition to the Rush and King songs already noted, the album also includes takes on Rush’s “I Can’t Quit You Baby”, King instrumentals “San-Ho-Zay” and “The Stumble” – the latter featuring some particularly stinging guitar from Green – and a simmering “Someday After Awhile” (King), as well as a few other blues classics in Tommy Tucker’s “Hi Heel Sneakers” and the intense, closing “Stormy Monday” (T-Bone Walker), offering further evidence of the tremendous influence of such U.S. artists on British blues bands of the time. “Ever since Eric Clapton joined the band, we both had a great interest in the recorded work of Otis Rush and Freddie King and many of their classic songs became part of our live performing catalogue. Their guitar work was always an inspiration for Eric, Peter Green and Mick Taylor in those early years.” – John Mayall Also included here are a few Mayall originals in “Streamline” and a “Brand New Start” that features Mayall on harmonica along with some fiery guitar from Green, proving that these guys could excel at whatever they were playing, including what may very well be some of Green’s finest work ever.

With the fan having taped five shows, we can only wonder what other treasures from these performances might still be out there – and whether there’s enough of them to make a volume 2… In the meantime, though, we’ll be listening to this one a whole lot more. John Mayall | uDiscover uDiscoverMusic John Mayall A cliche it may be, but John Mayall's band really has been an academy for the Blues. The alumni of the various manifestations of his bands, from the Bluesbreakers through the less well known, but no less accomplished, 1970s groups, show that his musical collectives were better than most any other group, on either side of the Atlantic. It's a sad fact, that too many people that are ironically drawn to his illustrious alumni, overlook John Mayall. He, more than any other white musician, is due enormous credit for advancing the cause. He's been called 'The Godfather of The Blues'... you better believe it. "If you're a bandleader, your main focus is to play your own music" John Mayall. John Mayall was a late starter, when it came to first finding success as a musician.

He was 30 years old in 1963, when he formed the first incarnation of his ubiquitous Bluesbreakers. He was introduced to Decca staff producer, Mike Vernon, who persuaded the label to sign the band. The Bluesbreakers' first single, 'Crawling up the Hill', coupled with 'Mr. James', was released in May 1964 it was not a hit. He later recorded an album John Mayall Plays John Mayall live at Klooks Kleek in London but it too failed to sell in large numbers. It did however show the way that things were heading. Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds to join Mayall in October 1965 and early the following year, they cut the brilliant album Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton . Whilst it proved to be a breakthrough for both men, it was not long before Clapton left to be replaced by Peter Green, who along with John McVie playing bass, as he had done since the first album, recorded the brilliant A Hard Road .

With Green then departing to form Fleetwood Mac, it was the opportunity that a young Mick Taylor needed and he appears on Crusade in 1967, Bare Wires and Blues from Laurel Canyon in 1968 before he too left to join the Rolling Stones . John Mayall is a bandleader in the old fashioned sense of the word. To him, the individual players are less important than the sum of their parts and besides those we have already mentioned, his band included Mick Fleetwood, Keef Hartley, Jon Hiseman (drums) and Dick Heckstall-Smith. By 1969 John Mark and Johnny Almond joined and recorded the album The Turning Point , which was innovative in that it included no drummer. It was a similar experiment for 1970's USA Union which included the brilliant violinist, Don 'Sugarcane' Harris and guitarist Harvey Mandell who later tried out for the Rolling Stones after Mick Taylor quit.Â Throughout the remainder of the 1970s, John Mayall was a great live draw and while his albums lacked the cutting edge of the first decade of the Bluesbreakers, they were never less than interesting.

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. 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, which was chronicled by Great American Music's Blues Express, released in 2010.

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. John Mayall - Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton BUY:

Question: What was the name of John Mayall's band which included, at various times, Eric Clapton, John McVie, Peter Green and Mick Taylor?
Answer: (John Mayall's) Bluesbreakers