John Mayall plays harmonica live in Amsterdam in 1967, the year in which he released three classic albums—Crusade, A Hard Road, and The Blues Alone–and a year after Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. Those recordings alone were enough to make him a legend, but much more followed.
In 2021, the Madfish label released a 35-CD boxed set with a 168-page hardcover book on John Mayall, then 87. Let that sink in. How many blues artists, living or dead, ever received that kind of treatment? What made John Mayall: The First Generation even more remarkable is that it only documented the British blues legend’s career up to 1974—at that point, 10 of his 55 years as a recording artist.
Robben Ford surely speaks for many, noting, “The guy has a major place in musical history for embracing, practicing, playing, and promoting the blues in England, and spreading what might have remained a small, cult music form in rural North America to the rest of the world.”
“He holds a position similar to Miles Davis in jazz for opening the door for a lot of deserving talent to be heard, allowing them to go on to brilliant careers.”—Robben Ford
Mayall, who died on July 22, at age 90, grew up in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, England. From beginnings with the George Formby banjo and ukulele how-to guide, he sustained a long, prolific career with few equals in blues. In the 2004 documentary John Mayall—Godfather of British Blues, he reflected, “The focus had always been on the road work, rather than hoping for some hit record.”
For better or worse, he was best known for the famous sidemen who passed through his band. As Ford says, “He was the mothering womb for a long line of incredibly influential blues guitarists. He holds a position similar to Miles Davis in jazz for opening the door for a lot of deserving talent to be heard, allowing them to go on to brilliant careers.”
After the live John Mayall Plays John Mayall, with guitarist Roger Dean, 1966’s so-called “Beano” album ushered in essential appearances of Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor, on the Blues Breakers, A Hard Road, and Crusade albums, respectively
With the release of what’s often called the Beano album, after the comic book Eric Clapton is reading on its cover, both Clapton’s and Mayall’s legendary status were cemented. For at least two generations of players, Clapton’s version of the Freddie King instrumental “Hide Away” was a litmus test for emerging blues guitarists.
The drummer on Beano and its predecessor was Hughie Flint, who emailed, “Meeting John Mayall in 1957 was a special moment in my musical life, resulting in him becoming my mentor, sharing so much music. John was very much the bandleader, and knew what he wanted from his members. But with me, he let me play how I felt. I owe him so much, without which I would never have had a career in music.”
Clapton, Green, and Taylor all played ’Bursts, but their personalities were radically different. Clapton’s aggressive attack and unprecedented sustain from his Marshall JTM45 (later reissued as the Bluesbreaker amp) contrasted with Green’s pin-drop dynamics and Taylor’s long, unhurried lines. When “Clapton Is God” graffiti appeared, the “guitar hero” die was cast forevermore. Each was spotlighted on a Freddie King instrumental, giving their own spins on “Hideaway” (Clapton), “The Stumble” (Green), and “Driving Sideways” (Taylor). While all three “Kings” were influential, Mayall later pointed out that Eric owed the biggest debt to Freddie, Peter was into B.B., and Mick leaned on Albert.
But the succession of guitar greats didn’t stop there. After 1968’s Blues From Laurel Canyon, Taylor joined the Rolling Stones, and Mayall took a radical turn to an acoustic, drummer-less quartet. With saxophonist Johnny Almond and Jon Mark on gut-string, the live Turning Point (featuring the FM-radio hit “Room to Move”) was his best-selling album.
Still eschewing drummers, his next lineup featured Harvey Mandel and electric-violin wizard Sugarcane Harris on USA Union, with drummer Keef Hartley added for Back to the Roots, in ’71. For Memories, that same year, Mayall tapped guitarist Gerry McGee, a veteran of the Ventures, Monkees, and Delaney & Bonnie.
The years 1972 and ’73 produced Jazz Blues Fusion, Moving On, and Ten Years Are Gone, featuring guitarist Freddy Robinson, whose resume embraced Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Quincy Jones, and others. With trumpeter Blue Mitchell, and saxophonists Clifford Solomon and Red Holloway, the albums went a long way in exposing some jazz greats to blues and rock audiences.
John would challenge you to go further as a musician and performer.”—Rick Vito
As Clapton said in the documentary, “He chose me for the way I play; he didn’t tell me what to play.” That was true for 6-stringers in subsequent lineups, including Hi Tide Harris, Randy Resnick, James Quill Smith, Cid Sanchez, Walter Trout, Debbie Davies, and Rocky Athas.
Rick Vito, whose five-album tenure began in ’75, recalls, “John would challenge you to go further as a musician and performer. When we were playing my hometown of Philadelphia, he said, ‘Okay, you’re starting the show,’ and shoved me onstage by myself! I improvised something of a blues suite and got a great response, followed by John and band joining me and starting the normal set, which was also always subject to change.”
In 1968, Mayall retired the Bluesbreakers name for his band, but by the time this photo was taken, in 1995, he’d revived the moniker for a decade, and it would remain in use for the rest of his career.
Coco Montoya was actually a drummer, and had decided his music career was over prior to an impromptu jam. “I started playing guitar at 13, but it was secondary. In ’84, I played at a jam session where John heard me. The Bluesbreakers reunion with Mick was ending, and I got the call. Clapton was a hero to me, and I tried to emulate him and the others as much as I could; I thought that was the job. John took me aside and said, ‘Look, where’s that guy I saw at the jam session? You’re trying to sound like Eric. You’re not Eric. Don’t forget the first law of the blues: interpretation.’ In doing that, he freed me up from trying to be people that I could never be. John never let anything deter him, which helped me a lot in my solo career.”
After Buddy Whittington opened for John in Dallas in ’92, his phone rang the following year, and he was a Bluesbreaker for 15 years. “Most of the time, John would give you ‘about enough rope to hang yourself,’ meaning just play what you feel. If he didn't like where it was going, especially in the studio, he would stick his head in the doorway and say, 'Take this another way’—but that wasn't very often.”
Carolyn Wonderland came onboard in 2018 and played John’s last show in 2022. “It was such a musical education, as well as how to be a bandleader. He gave me board tapes of about 80 songs from different eras, and every night would be a different set; he never wanted it to be the same. And that was the same with the songs. When it came time for your solo, he’d push you until there was some spark. It’s frightening, jumping off the high dive, but it was so freeing, and he was right there behind you, ready. He made everybody reach inside to find out what your inner voice is. It’s like the graduate school of the blues that you never want to graduate from.”
John Mayall - Room To Move (Live)
John Mayall delivers a fast-paced rendition of his sole radio hit, 1969’s “Room to Move,” which originally appeared on the album The Turning Point.
Although his talent scout abilities often overshadowed his own contributions, constant components were the bandleader’s distinctive high vocals, authoritative piano and organ, harmonica in the Sonny Boy Williamson tradition, and quirky guitar, typically slide—often on homemade axes using Burns and Fender parts.
“When it came time for your solo, he’d push you until there was some spark. It’s frightening, jumping off the high dive, but it was so freeing, and he was right there behind you, ready.”—Carolyn Wonderland
Also, his songwriting expanded the repertoire, with songs such as “Have You Heard” and “The Laws Must Change.” “His voice and harmonica playing were unique and, for me, his greatest gifts,” says Ford. “But, just as important, as a composer he wrote some serious, classic blues that will live on with his recordings.”
For championing the blues, Mayall was awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2005. In 2016, he also received an overdue induction into the Blues Music Hall of Fame, and equally about-time recognition came this year with his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, alongside his British blues forebear, Alexis Korner.
In his liner notes to A Hard Road, Mayall wrote, rather dramatically, “I accept that I’ve unwittingly hurt a lot of people who’ve known me. I’ve few friends left, and now the only thing to live for is the blues.”
That was on his third album, when he was 33. Thirty-five studio and 33 live albums would follow, and he’d live to be 90. Maybe it was hard, but his bandmates would tell you it was also a joyous road.- blues rock News & Articles - Premier Guitar ›
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Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
