REISSUES
On 35 discs, the prime years of “the godfather of British blues” with sidekicks including Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, all en route to rock stardom. By John Bungey.
Brit blues talent-spotter John Mayall, Cat Stevens, Buzzcocks and more.
John Mayall
★★★★
The First Generation 1965-1974
MADFISH. CD
ON THE face of it, John Mayall is an unlikely musical icon. He’s a pretty average guitarist and keyboard player, his singing can be flat and nasal, and his lyrics are often backof-an-envelope standard. But to expect the man from Macclesfield who became the key figure in the British blues boom to be some sort of flying-fingered virtuoso is to miss the point. Mayall’s prime skill has always been as a bandleader who in the 1960s created musical arenas where the young talents he recruited could flourish. He saw his ever-changing personnel – there were 15 line-ups between 1963 and 1970 – as a family. As such, Mayall, in his thirties, was a father figure to Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor or, the most junior of all, bassist Andy Fraser, later of Free, who joined aged 15. A road dog allergic to showbiz flam, Mayall steadfastly refused to steer his Blues Breakers from the chosen path in search of shiny pop success, as The Animals, The Yardbirds or The Rolling Stones were doing. Instead, he kept faith with the deep, dark, cultish sounds that had travelled under the radar from the Mississippi Delta via Chicago to London. Mayall would be teacher and guide to young souls bored by trad jazz and who wanted to voice a musical message more profound than “I wanna hold your hand”.
His debut album, the live John Mayall Plays John Mayall from 1965, is energetic, largely generic R&B of its time – you can imagine Austin Powers frugging away on a sticky dancefloor. It was the arrival of a troubled young ex-Yardbird that made the music world take notice. You can’t overestimate the impact of Bluesbreakers: John Mayall With Eric Clapton (1966), the first of a trilogy of albums that defined British electric blues. The lead guitarist played his Les Paul through an overdriven Marshall amp at unprecedented volume to create a raw, dense tone with long sustain. More than 50 years on it remains the default setting for white blues-rock players, from pub band axe-wranglers to Joe Bonamassa. The album still sounds tough and adult – Robert Johnson and Otis Rush reborn in Ealing Blues Club.
Clapton soon quit, heading for thunderous supergroup glory with Cream, which gave Peter Green the unenviable task of replacing “god” on A Hard Road (1967).
There are more Mayall tunes here, written in reverential 12-bar style – fast, slow, medium. It is less of a guitar-fest but when Green does burst through his playing is fierce, spare and spine-tingling. Soon he’d be off to form Fleetwood Mac with two other Mayall men, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. In Green’s self-penned showcase The Supernatural you can hear pre-echoes of the Mac of Black Magic Woman and The Green Manalishi.
Mayall then signed up the teenaged Mick Taylor, whose precocious skills included killer slide licks. Crusade (1967) was recorded in seven hours (the words “take 14” were never heard at a Mayall session) and varies the blues’n’boogie by experimenting with a horn section. The two volumes of The Diary Of A Band (1967) better show off Taylor’s burgeoning talent, but the “diary” soundbites and fade-outs make this a frustrating document of a clearly red-hot live unit. No wonder The Rolling Stones wanted its best member. That year also brought a Mayall solo long-player,
The Blues Alone. With a heroically energetic sexual appetite, he was never short of a muse for his odes of love, lust and loss, but these dusty renderings sound trapped in the past.
Much more interesting is Bare Wires (1968), primarily the suite of songs brooding on the break-up of his first marriage. There are folk and jazz influences, Astral Weeks-style introspection, and a fiddle. Bare Wires broke him in the States and stands up well. On Blues From Laurel Canyon (also 1968), the hippy spirit meets the blues as Mayall offers – softly and jazzily – his impressions of Los Angeles.
But the big stylistic change came with The Turning Point (1969). Fed up with loud bands, Mayall unplugged. This loose and lovely live set, with Jon Mark playing finger-style acoustic guitar and Johnny Almond on sax and flutes, is not just a turning point, it’s a high point and sets a rootsy new direction. Mayall’s simple songs create a mood and a framework for vivid instrumental workouts.
Empty Rooms (1969) is an enjoyable studio set by the same team that doesn’t reach the same heights. For USA Union (1970) Mayall, now resident in Laurel Canyon, tried the same trick with Americans, including Harvey Mandel (guitar) and the soaring violin of Sugarcane Harris. Jazz Blues Fusion (1972) could be more accurately called Funk Blues Fusion; it’s full of fluent soloing over easy grooves by relaxed players clearly enjoying themselves (and not overly troubled by rehearsal).
And that is the key to understanding Mayall’s achievements. When he strays from the blues and tries to write statement songs about, say, political unrest or drug misuse – as he does on The
Latest Edition (1974) – the results are often lacklustre. Listen instead to the playing he can coax from those around him – say Clapton, Taylor and Mandel on Force Of Nature from the reunion album Back To The Roots (1971). The unreleased vintage audience recordings included in this huge box set are in grim lo-fi – but it’s a thrill to hear through the murk Peter Green tearing into Looking Back (a decade before Dr. Feelgood) or Mick Taylor’s burning slide on Ridin’ On The L & N. All these men progressed to much bigger stages but, to these ears, they never played better.
“Listen to the playing John Mayall can coax from those around him – say Eric Clapton or Mick Taylor.”