John Mayall was the linchpin figure behind much of the boom in British blues rock players in the 1960s. The likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jack Bruce and John McVie all passed through the Bluesbreaker ranks and benefited from Mayall’s passionate guidance and shrewd stewardship. Clapton put it best, in his response to the blues icon’s passing: “I want to say thank you, chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion and God knows what when I was a young man around the age of 18/19 when I decided that I was going to quit music,” said the guitar hero .
“He taught me all I really know and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or without limit.” A master band-leader, songwriter, vocalist, and no slouch on the guitar himself, Mayall’s early interest in the six-string came as a result of his father’s endeavors as a jazz guitarist – not to mention a record collection containing giants like Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. Mayall’s own music would later represent an equally seismic reshaping of the guitar landscape, as with the help of the young Clapton – and ‘the Woman Tone’ created by a pairing of the so-called ‘Beano ’Burst’ Les Paul and a Marshall JTM45 – Mayall was able to summon a hot-rodded take on his beloved Chicago blues.
It laid the foundation for everything from Clapton and Cream to establishing the Fleetwood Mac juggernaut, the Rolling Stones recordings with Mick Taylor (everything from , to ), a.