Coordinates | 43°36′49″N116°12′12″N |
---|---|
name | John Mayall |
landscape | Yes |
background | solo_singer |
born | November 29, 1933Macclesfield, England |
instrument | Vocals, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, piano, organ |
genre | Blues-rock, harmonica blues, British blues, electric blues |
occupation | Musician, songwriter, producer |
years active | 1956–present |
label | Decca, DJM, ABC, Eagle, Snapper, One-Way Records, Polydor, Silvertone, GNP Crescendo |
associated acts | John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Canned Heat, Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Keef Hartley Band, Mark-Almond, Pure Food and Drug Act |
website | johnmayall.com |
notable instruments | }} |
Mayall spent three years in Korea for national service and, during a period of leave, he bought his first electric guitar. Back in Manchester, he enrolled at Manchester College of Art (now part of Manchester 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 would be put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his coming albums.
Since the end of the 1960s Mayall has been living in the U.S. A brush fire destroyed his house in Laurel Canyon in 1979, seriously damaging his musical collections and archives. Also lost one was one of the world's largest collections of historic pornography, some of which dated as far back as the 13th century.
Mayall married twice and has six grand-children. Maggie Mayall is an American blues performer and has, since the early 1980s, taken an active part in the management of her husband's career.
In 2005 Mayall was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Honours List.
Mayall was offered a recording contract by Decca and, on 7 December 1964, a live performance of the band was recorded at the Klooks 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 guitarist Eric Clapton replaced Roger Dean and John Mayall's career entered a decisive phase.
In November 1965 Clapton returned, and Green had to depart, Mayall having guaranteed Clapton his spot back in the Bluesbreakers whenever he tired of the Glands fiasco. McVie was allowed back, and Bruce left. Later in the month the band entered the studio to record a single, "On Top of the World." Mayall and Clapton cut a couple tracks without the others (although some sources give this as occurring back in the summer): "Lonely Years" b/w "Bernard Jenkins" was released as a single the next August on producer Mike Vernon's Purdah Records label (both tracks appeared again two decades later in Clapton's Crossroads box set). In a February 1966 session, blues pianist-singer Champion Jack Dupree (originally from New Orleans but in the 1960s living in Europe) got Mayall and Clapton to play on a few tracks. A live date by the whole Bluesbreakers outfit—again with Jack Bruce temporarily on bass—was recorded on Mayall's two-track tape recorder at the Flamingo on March 17. The rough recording provided tracks that later appeared on the 1969 compilation Looking Back and the 1977 Primal Solos.
In April 1966 the Bluesbreakers returned to Decca Studios to record a second LP with producer 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 on 22 July 1966. Several of the 12 tracks were covers of pure Chicago blues (side 1 kicking off strong with Otis Rush's "All Your Love" and Freddy King's hit instrumental "Hide Away" [here spelled without a space as “Hideaway”]); Mayall wrote or arranged 5 (such as "Double Crossing Time," a slow blues with a scorching solo by cowriter Clapton); and Eric debuted as lead vocalist, and began his practice of paying tribute to Robert Johnson, with "Ramblin' on My Mind." The album was Mayall's commercial breakthrough, rising to #6 on the British chart, and has since gained classic status, largely for the audacious aggressiveness and molten fluidity of Clapton's guitar playing. “It’s Eric Clapton who steals the limelight,” reports music mag Beat Instrumental, adding with unintended understatement, “and no doubt several copies of the album will be sold on the strength of his name.”
In the meantime, on June 11 the formation of the Cream--Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Ginger Baker--had been revealed in the music press, much to the embarrassment of Clapton, who had not said anything about this to Mayall. (After a May Bluesbreakers gig at which Baker had sat in, he and Clapton had first discussed forming their own band, and surreptitious rehearsal jams with Bruce soon commenced.) Eric's last gig with the Bluesbreakers was June 25 at the Flamingo; the Cream made a warmup club debut July 29 in Manchester and its "official" live debut two days later at the Sixth National Jazz and Blues Festival, Windsor.
But Peter Green gave notice and soon started his own project, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, which eventually was to include all three of Mayall's Bluesbreakers at this time: Green, McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
In the meantime, on a single day in May 1967, Mayall had put together a studio album to showcase his own abilities as a multi-instrumentalist. Former Artwoods drummer Keef Hartley appeared on only half of the tracks, and everything else was played by Mayall. The album was released in November with the apt title The Blues Alone.
A six-piece lineup—consisting of Mayall, Mick Taylor on lead guitar, John McVie still on bass, Hughie Flint or Hartley on drums, and Rip Kant and Chris Mercer on saxophones—recorded the album Crusade on 11 and 12 July 1967. These Bluesbreakers spent most of the year touring abroad, 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 himself soon quit to join Alan Price and was replaced by Keith Tillman; Dick Heckstall-Smith had taken the sax spot.
Following a U.S. tour, there were more lineup changes, starting with the troublesome bass position. First Mayall replaced bassist Tillman with 15-year-old Andy Fraser. Within six weeks, though, Fraser left to join Free and was replaced by Tony Reeves, previously a member of the New Jazz Orchestra. Hartley was required to leave, and he was replaced by New Jazz Orchestra drummer Jon Hiseman (who had also played with the Graham Bond Organisation). Henry Lowther, who played violin and cornet, joined in February 1968. Two months later the Bluesbreakers recorded Bare Wires, co-produced by Mayall and Mike Vernon, which came up to #6.
Hiseman, Reeves, and Heckstall-Smith then moved on to form Colosseum. The Mayall lineup retained Mick Taylor and added drummer Colin Allen (formerly of Zoot Money's Big Roll Band / Dantalian's Chariot, and Georgie Fame) and a young bassist named Stephen Thompson. In August 1968 the new quartet recorded Blues from Laurel Canyon.
On 1969.06.13, after nearly two years with Mayall, Taylor left and officially joined the Rolling Stones.
Mayall tried a new format with lower volume, acoustic instruments, and no drummer. He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Jon Mark and flautist-saxophonist John Almond. Mark was best known as Marianne Faithfull's accompanist for three years and for having been a member of the band Sweet Thursday (which included pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Cat Stevens collaborator Alun Davies, also a guitarist). Almond had played with Zoot Money and Alan Price and was no stranger to Mayall's music—he had played baritone sax on 4 cuts of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton and some of A Hard Road. This new band was markedly different from previous Mayall projects, and its making is well documented both on the 1999 double CD The Masters and on the 2004 DVD The Godfather of British Blues: The Turning Point.
Along with the big change in sound, Mayall decided on a big change in scenery: a move to Los Angeles. The new band made its U.S. debut at the Newport Jazz Festival on 5 July, whilst the 12 July performance at the Fillmore East provided the tracks for the live album The Turning Point. A studio album, Empty Rooms, was recorded with the same personnel, with Mayall's next bassist, former Canned Heat member Larry Taylor, playing bass in a duet with Thompson on "To a Princess."
In November 1970 Mayall launched a recording project involving many of the most notable musicians with whom he had played during the previous several years. The double album Back to the Roots features Clapton, Mick Taylor, and Mandel on guitar; Sugarcane Harris on violin; Almond on woodwinds; Thompson and Larry Taylor on bass; and Hartley on drums. Ventures guitarist Jerry McGee came along with Larry Taylor to the L.A. sessions and appears on a couple tracks; Paul Lagos was with Sugarcane and ended up drumming on five. Mayall wrote all the songs and sang all the vocals, as usual by now, plus played harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums, and percussion. The London sessions took place in January 1971 and as such represent some of Clapton's last work before Derek and the Dominos' attempted Layla follow-up sessions and band disintegration that spring, and the start of his long seclusion as disenchanted and heartsick junkie.
Back to the Roots did not promote new names, and USA Union and Memories had been recorded with American musicians. Mayall had exhausted his catalytic role on the British blues-rock scene and was living in L.A. Yet, the list of musicians who benefited from association with him, starting with ruling the London blues scene, remains impressive.
A live album Jazz Blues Fusion was released next year, with Mayall on harmonica, guitar and piano, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Clifford Solomon and Ernie 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 and Allen 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 brief return to this type of music.
In 1984 Mayall restored the name Bluesbreakers for a lineup comprising the two lead guitars of Walter Trout and Coco 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.
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.
To celebrate his 70th birthday Mayall reunited with special guests Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber during a fundraiser show. This "Unite for Unicef" concert took place on 19 July 2003 at the Kings Dock Arena in Liverpool and was captured on film for a DVD release. 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.
In November 2008 Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. Three months later a solo world tour was announced, with: Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass, and Jay Davenport on drums. Tom Canning, on organ, joined the band for the tour which started in March 2009. An album was released in September 2009.
A few notable names
Category:John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers members Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University Category:Blues revival musicians Category:Blues rock musicians Category:British blues (genre) musicians Category:Electric blues musicians Category:Harmonica blues musicians Category:English blues musicians Category:English blues singers Category:English male singers Category:English songwriters Category:British harmonica players Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:British Army personnel of the Korean War Category:People from Macclesfield Category:British rhythm and blues boom musicians
ca:John Mayall cs:John Mayall da:John Mayall de:John Mayall es:John Mayall fa:جان مایال fr:John Mayall gl:John Mayall hr:John Mayall it:John Mayall hu:John Mayall nl:John Mayall ja:ジョン・メイオール no:John Mayall pl:John Mayall pt:John Mayall ru:Мейолл, Джон fi:John Mayall sv:John MayallThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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