British blues singer John Mayall and his band The Bluesbreakers perform at the Miles Davis Music Festival at the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, on July 7, 2008. Performed on stage at Miles Davis Hall.
Sandro Campado/AP/Keystone
hide title
Switch title
Sandro Campado/AP/Keystone
LONDON — John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers inspired Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and The training ground for many other superstars. He is 90 years old.
Mayall’s death was announced in a statement on his Instagram page on Tuesday, saying the musician died at his home in California on Monday. “Health issues forced John to end his epic touring career, finally bringing peace to one of the world’s greatest road warriors,” the post read.
He is credited with helping to develop British urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues, which played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, who later became a member of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who was Five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; Jon Mark and John Almond later formed the Mark-Almond Band.
Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout but played out of a love for the music he first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.
“I’m a bandleader, and I know what I want to play in the band — who can be my good friends,” Mayall told the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s really a little thing.”
Small but lasting things. Although Mayall’s fame never reached the level of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing into his 80s, banging his version of the Chicago blues. The lack of recognition annoyed him a little, but he wasn’t shy about saying it.
British blues singer John Mayall and his band The Bluesbreakers perform at the Miles Davis Music Festival at the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, on July 7, 2008 Performing on the stage of the hall.
Sandro Campado/AP/Keystone
hide title
Switch title
Sandro Campado/AP/Keystone
“I’ve never had a hit record, I’ve never won a Grammy, and Rolling Stone has never published an article about me,” he told the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.
Known for his bluesy harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall won the award for “Wake Up Call,” which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins Grammy nominated. In 2022, he received a second nomination for his album The Sun Is Shining Down. He was also officially recognized by the United Kingdom in 2005 as an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire).
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024, and his 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton is considered one of the best blues albums in the UK.
Mayall was once asked if he continues to play to fill a need or just to show that he can still do it.
“Well, fortunately, the demand is there. But it’s not really for those two things, it’s just for the love of music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we train together.”
Mayall was born on November 29, 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester, central England.
Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield is because my father was an alcoholic and that was his favorite pub.”
His father also played guitar and banjo, and his boogie-woogie piano records captivated his teenage son.
Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — one year for the left hand and one year for the right “so I wouldn’t get stuck.”
The piano is his primary instrument, but he also plays guitar and harmonica, and sings with a unique, intense voice. Mayall played all other instruments on his 1967 album Blues Alone, assisted by drummer Keef Hartley.
Mayall is often called the “Father of British Blues”, but when he moved to London in 1962, he aimed to absorb the emerging blues music led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. The likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burden were all drawn to the sound.
The Bluesbreakers attracted a mobile community of musicians who moved in and out of different bands. Mayall’s biggest gain was Clapton, who quit the Yardbirds in 1965 and joined the Bluesbreakers because he was dissatisfied with the business direction of the Yardbirds.
Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist later recalled that Mayall had “the most incredible record collection I had ever seen.”
Mayall tolerated Clapton’s willfulness: he disappeared within months of joining the band, reappeared later that year, shunting aside newcomer Peter Green, and then left for good with Bruce in 1966 to form Cream. , the band achieved great commercial success, allowing Mayall to leave the band far away.
On January 21, 1970, British blues pioneer John Mayall performed with the Bluesbreakers at the Deutsche Museum in Munich, West Germany.
Klaus Hampel/AP
hide title
Switch title
Klaus Hampel/AP
In a 2003 interview for a BBC documentary about Mayall, Clapton admitted, “In a way, I took advantage of his hospitality, his band and his reputation to launch my own career.” .
“I think he’s a great musician. I just admire and respect his steadfastness,” Clapton added.
Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his songwriting abilities.
Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as the blues buster in the late 1960s, valued the wide freedom Mayall gave the soloist.
“You have complete freedom to do what you want,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You can make as many mistakes as you want.”
Mayall’s 1968 album Blues from Laurel Canyon marked his permanent move to the United States and a change of direction. He broke up the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.
The following year, he released “The Turning Point,” arguably his most successful album, featuring an atypical four-piece acoustic lineup that included Mark and Almond. One of the songs from the album, “Room to Move,” would become a frequent crowd favorite during Mayall’s later career.
In the 1970s, Mayall was at a personal low, but still toured and played more than 100 shows a year.
“Throughout the ’70s, I did most of my shows drunk,” Mayall told Down Beat magazine’s Dan Ouellette in a 1990 interview. – Broken one of the swimming pools.
“That incident made me stop drinking,” Mayall said.
In 1982, he reorganized the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVay, but the personnel changed again two years later. In 2008, Mayall announced that he would permanently retire the Bluesbreaker name and in 2013 lead the John Mayall Band.
Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They have two sons.
