It is indeed a pity that John Mayall passed away prior to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet the fact of the matter is that the British musician and songwriter received more than a few accolades during the course of his lengthy career: he was long ago (and deservedly) dubbed ‘The Godfather of British Blues,” on top of which recognition he was bestowed the ‘Order of the British Empire’ (OBE) award by his native country.
As recounted in his autobiography, Blues From Laurel Canyon: My Life As A Bluesman, Mayall earned his public recognition through means of his passion for the music to which he devoted his life. His enthusiasm, in fact, is the means by which he evolved into such a remarkable bandleader, capable of integrating a number of famous musicians into his ever-changing groups. The skills of those varied personages invariably surpassed and superseded his own talents, as he was often a prosaic composer, while his technical skill as an instrumentalist was serviceable at best. No matter those practical shortcomings, John Mayall was a man who lived a life based on a devotion to blues music, arguably unsurpassed in its purity by any of his contemporaries. It’s a testament to his longevity and depth of feeling for his vocation that work from late in his career, while not as innovative as early ones, radiate a similarly creative work ethic. Here are ten of the most significant releases from the blues guru’s career.
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Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (1966): Often known as ‘The Beano Album’ based on its cover photo, this release wasn’t intended to be a magnum opus, but that’s exactly what it turned out to be. Featuring not only the man who would become the template for guitar heroism of the Sixties and Seventies, Eric Clapton, but also the man who set the utmost of high standards for unremitting loyalty to the blues genre, Mayall himself, this album debuted the moniker to which John would apply to future groups, many of which were populated by musicians of comparable influence as EC.
A Hard Road (1967): The sophomore Bluesbreakers album was just such a record. Positing Peter Green as ‘Slowhand”s replacement, the record is virtually the equal of its predecessor, with musicianship as tough and authentic as anything Mayall recorded in this early phase of his career. After a relatively short period of time–actually later in the same year as this album’s release in February–Green left to form Fleetwood Mac with former Bluesbreaker Mick Fleetwood on drums (the other linchpin of that group for decades to come, John McVie, would join as bassist shortly thereafter).
The Turning Point (1969): Mick Taylor joined forces with John in 1967 too, leaving only with the latter’s blessing two years later to join the Rolling Stones (it is said Mick Jagger had the professional grace to call Mayall with that request). In the meantime, the bandleader decided to do away with the high-volume, heavy blues format upon which he had been concentrating to form an ensemble lacking a drummer but featuring, on this live recording from Bill Graham’s Fillmore East, the understated talents of Jon Mark on acoustic guitar and Johnny Almond on saxophones and flutes. In a testament to Mayall’s ear for chemistry, the two continued to work together upon their departure from John’s employ following the release of the sole studio effort by this group, 1970’s Empty Rooms.
Back to the Roots (1971): It’s confirmation of John Mayall’s confidence in himself as a bandleader that he could continuously recruit such high-caliber musicians with whom to collaborate in regular performances and recordings (the latter often due to record label commitments he relates in his book). This double album was an assemblage of work with many figures from Mayall’s past–including Clapton and Taylor, among many others– but the lengthy credits are notable for the notation of unsung guitarist Harvey Mandel’s name (he was fresh off his membership in Canned Heat). The musicianship invariably outshone the material, but that perspective was not much more of a liability to hear it then or now over a half-century later.
Road Dogs (2005): Its title inspired by incessant world touring the pace of which would not lessen for another decade or more, the recording of this album (sessions and mixing, all within a month) saw keyboardist Tom Canning exiting the group. Prompted to think outside the box in the wake of personnel shifts (many of his own making), John Mayall nevertheless found fresh inspiration in various forms of composition and arrangement, not the least of which are songs composed by bandmembers Buddy Whittington and Joe Yuele. The frontman was sufficiently humble to welcome such participation from his hires in his later years.
Essentially [5 CD] (2007): Coincidental with moving to America, Mayall had chosen to discard the Bluesbreakers appellation, and it was close to a decade and a half before he retrieved it, during which intervals he continued his experiments from the late Sixties with a hybrid he termed a Jazz Blues Fusion. In so doing with varied personnel, he maintained the legitimacy of the band name’s legacy for the duration of his career, no better example of which is his collation of latter-day efforts: Padlock on the Blues, Along for the Ride, and Stories reside together with a single disc version of his 70th Birthday Concert plus a disc of previously unheard live and session tracks from his personal archive. Little surprise that the newer content compares favorably to its vintage counterparts.
Talk About That (2017): Such a canny grasp of his own history is particularly relevant to an album on which front cover John Mayall is pictured playing guitar. But that image only serves to flag the presence of Joe Walsh: the former James Gang member and longtime Eagle fires up his slide to expand the instrumental palette on two cuts.
Three From The Road (2018): Radiating all the easygoing informality of a family get-together, this album’s cover photo of the three-piece band–besides Mayall himself on organ, piano and harmonica, there is bassist Greg Rzab and drummer Jay Davenport–mirrors the musicianship. Replete with easygoing exchanges of ideas, the expressive yet disciplined improvisation of the threesome takes a variety of forms throughout the ten tracks, recorded in Germany in March of 2017, as overseen by producer and founder of the Forty Below Records label Eric Corne.
Nobody Told Me (2019): Over the course of some fifty-plus years, the bands of John Mayall have served as a proving ground for some estimable guitarists. Yet, in all that time, he had never before had a female lead guitarist until he enlisted the imaginative Texas wunderkind Carolyn Wonderland on this thirty-sixth(!) studio effort. Yet this LP also boasts the staunch presence of another recent linchpin of the lineup, fretboarder Rocky Athas, while a stylish, brassy horn section graces a handful of cuts, too. Such variety illuminates the thread of restless creativity running through John Mayall’s discography.
The Sun Is Shining Down (2022) As the 2000s rolled on, John Mayall chose to cut back on his live work schedule to some extent after rigorous road itineraries for decades (which notably included visits to the Green Mountains of Vermont at the Discover Jazz Festival as well as the original Higher Ground location). In so doing, however, the man only maximized the potency of his remaining efforts: some took the form of archive titles such as Live In 1967 but also included 2022’s new album of original material. A hearty and expressive work, this final studio outing radiates a sense of deep personal meaning for John, not to mention the distinctive presence of guitarists whose varied talents recall the lineage of past outfits led by this redoubtable bluesman: genre icon Buddy Guy, contemporary wunderkind Marcus King and Tom Petty’s long-time Heartbreaker collaborator Mike Campbell uphold a grand tradition and then some.
