Epiphone 1963 Firebird V Electric Guitar - Ember Red
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.
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 biggest 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.Bassist Sebastian Steinberg’s credits range from deep-cut avant-jazz to the highest levels of pop stardom.
Think weird samples, colliding harmonies, and half-sung boho poetry, all over some seriously sick grooves, with Steinberg driving the bus to Beelzebub with his thick upright tone and funky feel.
“In the middle of every groove, there’s the stupid part,” he told me then, drawing my attention to, as an example, the steady high-hat part in Sly & the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” If a groove makes your head nod, he said, “there’s something absolutely idiotic weaving its way down the middle.” As a bass player, he cautioned: “Sometimes you’re it.”
This idea stuck with me over the years, so I thought I’d see what Sebastian was up to. I caught him at a good time. After three well-received albums in the ’90s, Soul Coughing went their separate ways, and Steinberg went on to play both upright and electric with a variety of artists, including several that he describes as “fearlessly original.” That’s him on Fiona Apple’s acclaimed pandemic release, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, as well as singer-songwriter Iron & Wine’s latest album, Light Verse. This summer he’s touring Europe in a trio with drummer Matt Chamberlain and pianist Diana Krall (who didn’t want to play with “jazz guys”), and in the fall, he’s hitting the road with a reunited Soul Coughing.
I asked what it was about his approach that appeals to certain artists. “I like to play songs,” he answered. “But I have a musical curiosity and I can throw in my own ideas. My hands tend to be the smartest part of my body, so I can follow where the music leads.”
Steinberg says Fiona Apple’s 2020 record, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, “surpasses anything I’ve ever been involved in.”
Interestingly, when Sebastian started working at different points with Apple, Iron & Wine, and Krall, all three artists asked him not to listen to their previous albums. They wanted to create something new, current, and genuine, rather than, as Sebastian puts it, “trying to do stuff that’s already happened.”
“I’m not the bass player for everyone, which I’m really delighted to discover,” Steinberg continued. “But I’ve been sort of working out that there is a place for me. I’ve always been drawn to music that tends to ruffle feathers rather than smooth them. I gravitate towards people who are really strong individual thinkers, sometimes very much at the cost of their convenience, comfort, and public opinion. But the music is real. When musicians are real with each other, they’re as real as it gets.”
Sebastian describes the making of Fetch the Bolt Cutters as this kind of very real, exceptional experience. “It surpasses anything I’ve ever been involved in, including Soul Coughing,” he says. “I haven’t made an album so true, where nothing like this music has existed before, since Soul Coughing’s first album,” he said, referring to 1994’s Ruby Vroom. “Both albums were alive, unfettered, and truly unexplored territory.”
Fiona put the band together in 2016, inviting Steinberg, drummer Amy Aileen Wood, and multi-instrumentalist David Garza. “The four of us would go to the house, stomp around, sing in a chant she’d made up, and literally play like children or birds. After a while, songs began appearing. By the time we started going into the studio, we’d developed a level of trust and intimacy with each other, because we’d been playing in this non-specific but very personal way together. It's the most powerful band I’ve ever been in.”
“There are so many ways to approach music that transcend what the instrument was built to do. But you should know what it was built to do, because that’s a great job. It’s the best seat in the house.”
Sebastian notes that you do have to balance this kind of boldness with musical functionality. “Bass is a function, not an instrument,” he says. “There are so many ways to approach music that transcend what the instrument was built to do. But you should know what it was built to do, because that’s a great job. It’s the best seat in the house.”
So how does one go about getting real? “It’s about getting out of the way of whatever niceties musicians tend to inflict on each other,” he says. “You have to overcome fear and let the truth speak. Find the music and play it. Don’t bring your ego into it, but don’t let somebody scare you off from the music. And if you believe in what you’re doing, stick to it.”
A note of clarification
Last month’s column was about playing style, with Funkadelic bassist Billy Bass Nelson as an example. However, the magazine was already off to the printer when I finally connected with Nelson after several attempts. He told me that he did not play with a pick on Fred Wesley’s “Half A Man,” but often used his fingernails to get a similar attack. He also suggested two other songs that exemplify his style: Parlet’s 1978 track “Love Amnesia,” and the Temptations’ 1975 single “Shakey Ground.”