Tag Archives: John Mayall

FLY TOMORROW

Chapter One: A potted history 1963–1967 An ambitious but ultimately doomed attempt to summarise the early days of blues legend John Mayall John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers started playing London’s famous Marquee Club in late 1963. In the following year they released a first single and backed John Lee Hooker on his British tour. In […]

VALE MAYALL

John Mayall was known as the ‘Father of the British Blues’. In this case the epithet was no exaggeration. Alongside Alexis Corner, Graham Bond and a few others, Mayall pioneered R&B in Blighty. An extraordinary number of important musicians passed through his bands, most captured on vinyl in a massive discography. Here is a selection […]

1971 COUNTDOWN: #49 — #45

49 JOHN MAYALL — Back To The Roots Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Keef Hartley, Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris, Harvey Mandel, Johnny Almond… a selection of the musicians John Mayall called when he decided to make an album celebrating past alumni of his bands. The name and roster tells you all you need to know, really. Eighteen […]

DUST-MY-BLUES

Ever had those mid-week, demanding-boss, traffic-jam, forgot-to-get-milk-on-the-way-home-so-partner-was-pissed-off blues? If it was 1967 you had a number of musical options to sooth your troubled western mostly-white electric-urban-blues soul. Loose the bad vibes, lose the hyphenated sentences, enter the transatlantic none-more-blue worlds of John Mayall and Paul Butterfield. You might imagine John Mayall was dismayed by the […]

WALKING TOWARDS SUNSET

Chapter One: A potted history from 1963 – 1967 Being an ambitious but ultimately ludicrous attempt to summarise the early days of  blues legend John Mayall. Skip to Chapter Three if uninterested in early British blues. John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers started playing London’s famous Marquee Club in late 1963. In the following year they […]