- John Mayall
Infobox musical artist
Name = John Mayall
Img_capt =
Img_size =
Background = solo_singer
Alias =
Born = birth date and age|1933|11|29|df=yMacclesfield ,England
Died =
Instrument =Vocals ,Guitar ,Harmonica ,Piano /Keyboards ,Hammond organ
Genre =Blues-rock ,Harmonica blues ,British blues ,Electric blues
Occupation =Musician ,Songwriter
Years_active = 1956 - present
Label =Decca Records DJM Records ABC Records Eagle Records Snapper Music
One-Way RecordsPolydor Records Silvertone Records GNP Crescendo Records
Associated_acts =John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers Canned Heat
CreamFleetwood Mac Keef Hartley Band Mark-Almond
URL = [http://www.johnmayall.com johnmayall.com]
Notable_instruments =John Mayall, OBE (born
29 November 1933 ) is a pioneering Englishblues singer ,songwriter , and multi-instrumentalist . His musical career spans over fifty years but the most notable episode in it occurred during the late '60s. He was the founder ofJohn Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and has been influential in the careers of many instrumentalists, includingEric Clapton ,Jack Bruce , Peter Green,John McVie ,Mick Fleetwood ,Mick Taylor ,Don "Sugarcane" Harris ,Harvey Mandel ,Larry Taylor ,Aynsley Dunbar , Jon Hiseman,Dick Heckstall-Smith ,Andy Fraser , Johnny Almond, Jon Mark,Walter Trout ,Coco Montoya , andBuddy Whittington .Biography
Mayall's father was Murray Mayall, a guitarist and
jazz music enthusiast. From an early age, he was drawn to the sounds of American blues players such asLeadbelly ,Albert Ammons ,Pinetop Smith , andEddie Lang , and taught himself to play the piano, guitars, and harmonica.Mayall served three years ofnational service in Korea and, during a period of leave, he bought his first electric guitar. Back in Manchester he enrolled at Manchester College of Art, now part ofManchester Metropolitan University , and started playing with semi-professional bands. After graduation he obtained a job as an art designer but continued to play with local musicians. In 1963 he opted for a full time musical career and moved to London. His previous craft was put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his own albums.John Mayall married twice and has six grand-children. Mrs Maggie Mayall is an American blues performer and since the early 1980s takes an active part in the management of her husband's career.In 2005 Mayall was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Honours List.The Early Years
In 1956, with college fellow Peter Ward, Mayall had formed the Powerhouse Four which consisted of both men plus other local musicians with whom they played at local dances. In 1962, Mayall became a member of the Blues Syndicate. The band was led by trumpeter John Rowlands and included drummer
Hughie Flint whom Mayall already knew. It wasAlexis Korner , another blues enthusiast, who persuaded Mayall to opt for a full time musical career and move to London. There, Korner introduced him to many other musicians and helped them to find gigs. In late 1963, with his band, which was now called the Bluesbreakers, Mayall started playing at theMarquee Club . The lineup was Mayall, Ward,John McVie on bass and guitarist Bernie Watson, formerly ofCyril Davies and the R&B All-Stars. The next spring Mayall obtained his first recording date with producerIan Samwell . The band, with Martin Hart at the drums, recorded two tracks: "Crawling Up a Hill" and "Mr. James." Shortly after, Hughie Flint replaced Hart, and Roger Dean took the guitar from Bernie Watson. This lineup backedJohn Lee Hooker on his British tour in 1964.Mayall was offered a recording contract and on
7 December 1964 a live performance of the band was recorded at the Klook's Kleek. A single, "Crocodile Walk", was recorded later in studio and released along with the album but both failed to achieve any success and the contract was terminated.In April 1965 former
Yardbirds guitaristEric Clapton replaced Roger Dean and John Mayall's career entered its decisive phase.The Late Sixties
The Bluesbreakers with their new guitar player started to attract considerable attention [During Clapton's stay with the Bluesbreakers, on a wall in the London Underground appeared the famous graffito 'Clapton is God'.] . However Clapton departed without notice and had to be replaced urgently. John Weider, John Slaughter and Geoff Krivit attempted to fill in but finally Peter Green took the charge. John MacVie was dismissed and during the next six months
Jack Bruce , from Graham Bond Organization, held the bass. In November Clapton came back and Green departed. Sometime later in the month, the band entered the studio to record a single, "Sitting on Top of the World". Also, a live date recorded at the Flamingo provided tracks that appeared later on the 1969 compilation Looking Back and the 1977 album "Primal Solos".In April 1966, the Bluesbreakers returned to (Decca) Studios to record a second LP with producer Mike Vernon. The sessions with horn arrangements for some tracks (John Almond on baritone sax, Alan Skidmore on tenor sax and Dennis Healey on trumpet) lasted just three days. "
Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton " was released in the UK on22 July 1966 . Today the album has gained the status of a classic, but it was also Mayall's commercial breakthrough, rising to #6 on the chart.In the mean time Clapton announced the formation of Cream withJack Bruce andGinger Baker .Mayall had to replace him and persuaded Peter Green to come back. During the following year with Peter Green on guitar and various other sidemen some 40 tracks were recorded. The album "
A Hard Road " was released in February 1967. Today its expanded versions include most of this material and the album itself also stands as a classic. Peter Green gave notice and soon started his own project Peter Green'sFleetwood Mac which was to include the three former Bluesbreakers.Mayall's first choice to replace Green was 16-year-old
David O'List , guitarist from The Attack. However O'List declined and went to formThe Nice with organistKeith Emerson . Mayall found two other guitarists for the Bluesbreakers, Terry Edmonds and 19-year-oldMick Taylor .In a single day of May 1967 Mayall alone had put together in a studio an album which was released in November with the apt title "The Blues Alone". Only former Artwoods drummer
Keef Hartley appears on half of the tracks which showcase Mayall's ability as multi-instrumentalist.A six-piece lineup (consisting of Mick Taylor on lead guitar, John McVie on bass, Hughie Flint or Keef Hartley on drums, Rip Kant and Chris Mercer on saxes), recorded the album "Crusade" on 11 and
12 July 1967 . These Bluesbreakers spent most of the year touring and Mayall taped the shows on a portable recorder. At the end of the tour he had over sixty hours of tapes which he edited into an album in two volumes: "Diary of a Band, Vols. 1 & 2", released in February 1968. Meanwhile a few lineup changes had occurred: McVie had departed and was replaced by Paul Williams who quit to joinAlan Price and was replaced by Keith Tillman;Dick Heckstall-Smith had taken the sax. Following a U.S. tour, more lineup changes occurred as Mayall replaced Tillman by 15-year-oldAndy Fraser , who left within six weeks to join Free and Tony Reeves, previously a member of the New Jazz Orchestra, replaced him. Hartley also left to form his own band, the Keef Hartley Band, and was replaced by New Jazz Orchestra drummerJon Hiseman , who had also played with the Graham Bond Organization. Henry Lowther who played violin and cornet joined in February 1968. Two months after the Bluesbreakers recorded "Bare Wires", co-produced by Mayall and Mike Vernon.Hiseman, Reeves and Heckstall-Smith moved on to formColosseum ; the new lineup retained Mick Taylor and added drummer Colin Allen, formerly ofZoot Money 's Big Roll Band, Dantalian's Chariot andGeorgie Fame , and a young bassist Stephen Thompson. In August 1968, the new quartet recorded "Blues from Laurel Canyon ".After nearly two years with Mayall, Taylor left and joined officially the
Rolling Stones on13 June 1969 . Chas Crane filled in briefly. Allen then left forStone the Crows , leaving as the only holdover bassist Thompson (who would also eventually join Stone the Crows).Mayall recruited acoustic finger-style guitarist Jon Mark and flautist/saxophonist John Almond. Mark was best known asMarianne Faithfull 's accompanist for three years and for having been a member of the band Sweet Thursday (which includedNicky Hopkins ); Almond had played with Zoot Money andAlan Price . The new band was markedly different from previous Mayall projects. A performance at theFillmore East provided the tracks for the live album "The Turning Point". A studio album, "Empty Rooms", was recorded with the same personnel and Mayall continued the experiment of formations without drummers on two more albums. On "USA Union " a violin replaced the wind instruments and on "Memories" the band was stripped down to a trio.In November 1970 Mayall launched a recording project involving most of the notable musicians with whom he had played during the last few years. The double album, "Back to the Roots", features Clapton, M. Taylor,
Harvey Mandel and Jerry McGee on guitar, Thompson and L. Taylor on bass, Keef Hartley and Paul Lagos on drums. "Back to the Roots" did not promote new names and "USA Union " and "Memories" were recorded with American musicians: Mayall had exhausted his catalytic role on the British blues-rock scene. The list of musicians who had benefited from association with him [Pete Frame , The Complete Rock Family Trees, Omnibus Press 1993.ISBN 9780711904651] remains impressive.The Seventies and beyond
At the start of the seventies Mayall had relocated in the USA where he spent most of the next 15 years, recording with local musicians for various labels.In August 1971, Mayall produced a jazz oriented session [The result was shelved but ultimately it was released in 1986 as "The Lost Session" ] for bluesman
Albert King and a few months later took on tour the musicians present in the studio. A live album "Jazz Blues Fusion" was released next year, with Mayall on harmonica, guitar and piano,Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Clifford Solomon andErnie Watts on saxophones, Larry Taylor on bass, Ron Selico on drums and Freddy Robinson on guitar. A few personnel changes are noted at the release of a similar album in 1973, the live "Moving On".During the next decade Mayall continued shifting musicians and switching labels and released a score of albums. Tom Wilson,Don Nix andAllen Toussaint occasionally served as producers. At this stage of his career most of Mayall's music was rather different from electric blues played by rock musicians, incorporating jazz, funk or pop elements and adding even female vocals. A notable exception is "The Last Of the British Blues" (1978), a live album excused apparently by its title for the momentanous return to this type of music.The Return of The Bluesbreakers
In 1982 Mayall was reunited with M. Taylor, John McVie and Colin Allen, three musicians of his sixties lineups, for a brief tour from which a live album would emerge a decade later. In 1984 Mayall restored the name Bluesbreakers for a lineup comprising the two lead guitars of
Walter Trout andCoco Montoya , bassist Bobby Haynes and drummer Joe Yuele. The mythic name did perhaps something to enhance the interest in a band which by all standards was already remarkable. A successful world tour and live recordings achieved the rest.In the early 1990s most of the excitement was already spent and Buddy Whittington became the sole lead guitarist in a formation which included then organist Tom Canning.Mayall's 70th birthday was the occasion for a get together concert with some previous sidemen, including Clapton, Taylor and a few other well known names.Trivia
*As a teenager, Mayall lived in a tree house in his mother's large garden. His father, by this time with a new wife, lived next door, and had built a similar tree house for his new family. The Manchester Evening News ran a feature on Mayall's tree-dwelling habit. In his early twenties Mayall destroyed the house, pulling it out of the tree, and, in the process damaging a significant proportion of his huge record collection. The song 'Home in a Tree' appeared on 'Memories' (1971)
*On
12 May 1965 , the Bluesbreakers were in a studio backingBob Dylan with Tom Wilson producing. According to Mayall the session was a "fiasco" and recordings have not been released. Mayall makes a brief appearance in the film "Dont Look Back "sic.*In January 1968 Mayall played at the
Fillmore andWinterland in San Francisco on triple bills featuring the Bluesbreakers,Jimi Hendrix andAlbert King .*In 1979 a brush fire destroyed Mayall's house in
Laurel Canyon , damaging seriously his musical collections and archives.*On the occasion of the 40th year of his career Mayall received carte blanche to invite fellow musicians for the recording of a celebratory album. "Along for the Ride" appeared in 2001, credited to John Mayall and Friends with twenty names listed on the cover, including some Bluesbreakers, old and new, and also
Gary Moore ,Jonny Lang ,Steve Cropper ,Steve Miller ,Otis Rush ,Billy Gibbons ,Chris Rea ,Jeff Healey ,Shannon Curfman and a few others.*In 2005, Mayall was awarded an OBE in the Honours List. "It's the only major award I've ever received. I've never had a hit record or a Grammy or been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." commented Mayall. [ [http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/mayall-john-051102.shtml Pop Matters, Nov.2, 2005] ]
Discography
Original John Mayall Albums
*1965John Mayall Plays John Mayall (Decca) [live, Dec. '64]
*1966Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Decca) UK # 6
*1967A Hard Road (Decca) UK # 10
*1967 Crusade (Decca) UK # 8
*1967The Blues Alone (Ace of Clubs) UK # 24
*1968The Diary of a Band Volume 1 (Decca) UK # 27
*1968The Diary of a Band Volume 2 (Decca) UK # 28
*1968Bare Wires (Decca) UK # 3
*1968Blues from Laurel Canyon (Decca) UK # 33
*1969 The Turning Point (Polydor) UK # 11
*1970Empty Rooms (Polydor) UK # 9
*1970USA Union (Polydor) UK # 50
*1971 Back to the Roots (Polydor, 2LP) UK # 31
*1971 Memories (Polydor)
*1971 (<-1968) John Mayall - Live In Europe (London PS 589) [a USA release of "The Diary Of A Band Vol. 2"]
*1972 Jazz Blues Fusion (Polydor) [live, USA, Nov.-Dec. '71]
*1973 Moving On (Polydor) [live, USA, July '72]
*1973Ten Years Are Gone (Polydor, 2LP/ no CD reissue) [studio + live NY'72]
*1974The Latest Edition (Polydor)
*1975New Year, New Band, New Company (ABC - One Way)
*1975 Notice to Appear (ABC - One Way)
*1976Banquet in Blues (ABC - One Way)
*1977Lots of People (ABC - One Way) [live LA, Nov. '76]
*1977A Hard Core Package (ABC - One Way)
*1977Primal Solos (Decca) [live '66 and '68, UK]
*1978The Last of the British Blues (ABC - One Way) [live USA]
*1979 Bottom Line (DJM)
*1980No More Interviews (DJM)
*1982Road Show Blues (DJM) (Reissue 1995 : "Why Worry". 2000 : "Lost and Gone". 2001 : "Reaching for the blues". 2006 : "Godfather of the Blues". 2007 : "Big Man")
*1985Return Of The Bluesbreakers (AIM Australia) ['81 and '82]
*1985 Behind the Iron Curtain (GNP Crescendo) [live Hungary] (Reissue 2004:"Steppin' out")
*1987 Chicago Line (Entente - Island)
*1988The Power of the Blues (Entente) [live Germany '87] (Reissue 2003 : "Blues Forever")
*1988 (<-1971)Archives to Eighties (Polydor)
*1990A Sense of Place (Island)
*1992Cross Country Blues (One Way) ['81 and '84]
*1993 Wake Up Call (Silvertone) UK # 61
*1994The 1982 Reunion Concert (One Way) [live, USA]
*1995Spinning Coin (Silvertone)
*1997Blues for the Lost Days (Silvertone)
*1999Padlock on the Blues (Eagle)
*1999Rock the Blues Tonight (Indigo) [live 2CD '70-'71, Canada]
*1999Live at the Marquee 1969 (Eagle) [live '69, London]
*1999 The Masters (Eagle) [live 2CD, UK '69 +interv.]
*2001Along For The Ride (Eagle/Red Ink)
*2002 Stories (Eagle/Red Ink)
*2003 (<-1987-8)Blues Forever (Fuel) ['87 & '88]
*200370th Birthday Concert (Eagle) [live inLiverpool ]
*2005Road Dogs (Eagle)
*2005Rolling with the Blues (Recall) [live '72-73 and '80+'82, various countries, 2CD +DVD interview] (Reissue 2006 "The private Collection" (Snapper 2CD)
*2007 Live at the BBC (Decca) ['65-67 & '75]
*2007In the Palace of the King (Eagle)
*2007 Live from Austin, Tx (NWRecords) [live'93]Unofficial, Limited editions & Bootlegs
* 1990 Crocodile Walk
* 1984 Blues Alive (RCA/Columbia)
* 199? Bulldogs For Sale (bootleg) [same as Crocodile Walk]
* 199? Beano's Boys (bootleg)
* 199? The first 5 years (Pontiac) [Crocodile Walk+BBC Sessions +unreleased]
* 1999 Horny Blues (Massive Attack) [live '72]
* 1999 Mayallapolis Blues (Blues Tune BT09) [live in Minneapolis 03/03/93]
* 2000 Time Capsule (Private Stash) Limited release (J.Mayall's private archive 57-62)
* 2001 UK Tour 2K (Private Stash) Limited release
* 2001 Boogie Woogie Man (Private Stash) Limited release
* 2001 Archive:live (Rialto)* 2003 No Days Off (Private Stash) Limited release
DVD
* 2003 70th Birthday Concert (Eagle) live '03 CD & DVD
* 2004 Live at Iowa State University DVD live'87
* 2004 Cookin' Down Under DVD (Private Stash) Limited release
* 2004 The Godfather of British Blues/Turning Point DVD (Eagle)
* 2005 Rolling with the Blues (Recall) live'72-82 2CD+DVD
* 2007 Live at the Bottom Line, New York 1992
* 2008 Live At Iowa State UniversityJohn Mayall's Sidemen
A comprehensive list of [http://www.classicwebs.com/mayall.htm musicians who have recorded and/or toured with John Mayall] .A few notable names
*Guitar:Eric Clapton , Roger Dean, Peter Green,Mick Taylor ,Harvey Mandel , Jerry McGee,Jimmy McCulloch ,James Quill Smith , Don McMinn,Kal David ,Walter Trout ,Coco Montoya ,Randy Resnick ,Sonny Landreth , Buddy Whittington,Eric Steckel ,Robben Ford
*Bass:Jack Bruce ,John McVie ,Steven Thompson ,Larry Taylor , Tony Reeves, Rick "RC" Cortes,Hank Van Sickle
*Drums:Hughie Flint ,Keef Hartley ,Aynsley Dunbar ,Soko Richardson ,Jon Hiseman , Colin Allen,Mick Fleetwood ,Keith John *Keyboards:
Dr. John
*Vocals/Harmonica:Paul Butterfield References and Notes
External links
* [http://www.johnmayall.com/ John Mayall's website]
* [http://www.chromeoxide.com/mayall.htm Mayall: sessions,concerts]
* [http://www.johnmayall.net/press-2.html ABC Records Press Release]
* [http://www.vintageguitar.com/artists/details.asp?ID=104 John Mayall - Godfather “Original Re-importer”] Interview with Vintage Guitar Magazine
* [http://www.alloutguitar.com/interview/artists_and_bands/john_mayall_interview_godfather_british_blues John Mayall Interview 2007 - by Brian D. Holland]
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