British blues legend John Mayall has died. He was 90 years old.
Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, and many other famous musicians learned how to play with him in his important band, the Bluesbreakers.Yesterday, Mayall’s Instagram page posted a message saying that he had died on Monday at his home in California.The post said, “Health problems that ended John’s epic touring career have finally brought peace to one of the world’s greatest road warriors.”
The musician was known as the “Godfather of British Blues” because he helped create a style of urban rhythm and blues in the UK that was influenced by Chicago. This style was a big part of the revival of the genre in the late 1960s.Fleetwood Mac members John McVie, Peter Green, and Fleetwood Mac member Fleetwood were all in his band at different times. Clapton, Jack Bruce (later of Cream), and Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones) were also in the band.Mayall said in interviews that he wasn’t looking for talent and that he played music because he loved it, just like the music he heard on his dad’s 78-rpm records.
Mayall told the Southern Vermont Review, “I’m a band leader, and I know what I want my band to play. Also, I want them to be good friends of mine.”“It truly is a family.” It’s really not that big of a deal.It was never Mayall’s fame, but many of the musicians who performed with him did. He kept performing well into his late 80s.In an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013, he said, “I’ve never had a hit record, I’ve never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never written a story about me.”“I’m still a performer in the shadows.”Blues harmonica and keyboard player John Mayall was nominated for a Grammy for the song “Wake Up Call,” which also had Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor, and Albert Collins on it.
For his album “The Sun Is Shining Down,” he was nominated for a second award in 2022.In 2005, he was given the honorary title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the government of Britain.His album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton” from 1966 is thought to be one of the best British blues albums. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.He was born on November 29, 1933, in Macclesfield, which is close to Manchester.With a bluesy tone, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker and that’s where his favorite pub was.”His father played the guitar and the banjo, and his teenage son was really into his records of boogie-woogie piano.For a year on the left hand and a year on the right, Mayall said he learned to play the piano “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”
Even though the piano was his main instrument, he also played the guitar, the harmonica, and sang in a unique, strained voice.Mayall played all the instruments on his 1967 album “Blues Alone,” with the help of only drummer Keef Hartley.He moved to London in 1962 to take in the new blues scene, which was being led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies.Some of the people who liked the sound were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Eric Burdon.A group of musicians who came and went from different bands played with the Bluesbreakers.Clapton was Mayall’s biggest catch. In 1965, Clapton left the Yardbirds to join the Bluesbreakers because he didn’t like how the Yardbirds were going in terms of making money.Clapton loved Chicago blues as much as Mayall did, and the guitarist later said that Mayall had “the most amazing collection of records I had ever seen.”Mayall put up with Clapton’s wanderings: he disappeared a few months after joining the band, then reappeared later that same year, pushing new member Peter Green to the back of the line-up, and then he left for good in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which became a huge hit, leaving Mayall far behind.In 2003, Clapton was interviewed for a BBC documentary about Mayall. He said, “to a certain extent I have used his hospitality, his band, and his reputation to launch my own career.”“I think he’s a great musician.” Clapton added, “I just admire and respect how strong he is.”Clapton was encouraged by Mayall to sing, and Green was told to improve his songwriting skills.Mick Taylor, who took over for Green as a Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, liked how Mayall gave his soloists a lot of freedom.At a 1979 meeting with writer Jas Obrecht, Taylor said, “You’d be free to do whatever you wanted.”“You could also make as many mistakes as you liked.”Mayall’s 1968 album “Blues from Laurel Canyon” marked a move to the US for good and a change of direction.The Bluesbreakers were broken up, and he worked with two guitars and drums.The next year, he put out “The Turning Point,” which was probably his most popular album. It was recorded with an unusual four-man acoustic group that included Mark and Almond.A song from that album called “Room to Move” became a fan favorite over the course of Mayall’s career.Mayall was having a rough time in his personal life in the 1970s, but he was still touring and playing more than 100 shows a year.In a 1990 interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine, Mayall said, “In the 1970s, I played most of my shows drunk.”As a result, Mayall tried to jump off a balcony into a swimming pool but missed. He broke one of his heels and now walks with a limp.Mayall said, “That was the one thing that made me stop drinking.”He brought Taylor and McVie back to the Bluesbreakers in 1982, but after two years, the band’s members changed again.Mayall said in 2008 that he was giving up the Bluesbreaker name for good, and by 2013, he was leading the John Mayall Band.There was a divorce between Mayall and his second wife Maggie in 2011. They had been married for 30 years. They had two sons.
