Blues legend John Mayall dies at 90.

 John Mayall

It has just been announced that the English blues legend, John Mayall, died at his home in California on 22 July 2024, at the age of 90.  Mayall has often been described as the 'Godfather' or 'Father' of British blues.

I probably first heard of John Mayall in the late 1960s, when a friend let me listen to a Mayall album called 'Bare Wires'. I also saw him at the MEN Arena in Manchester, when his band were the supporting act for the BB King band. A cousin once told me, that he remembered John Mayall playing a gig at Audenshaw Grammar School.

In a moving and very emotional tribute posted on YouTube, Eric Clapton, referred to Mayall as a friend, 'mentor' and 'surrogate father' who had "rescued him from oblivion" when he'd invited him to join his band the Bluesbreakers in 1965. He had just quit the Yardbirds because he was unhappy with their commercial direction and he says he was on the verge of giving up on a musical career.  Clapton was one of many guitarists who became more famous after joining Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

As a band leader, Mayall was a good talent spotter and his band was a school of excellence. He sang, composed songs and played guitar, harmonica and keyboards. Among those guitarists who played with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, were Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Buddy Whittington, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Henry 'Coco' Montoya and the British bassist, John McVie. Walter Trout once said in an interview that John Mayall and Carlos Santana had rescued him from descending into drug and alcohol abuse. Mayall, sacked John McVie and replaced him with Jack Bruce, because of his drink problem.

Mayall was born in Macclesfield on 29 November 1933 but grew up in Cheadle Hulme, a prosperous suburb of Stockport. His father, Murray Mayall, had played the guitar in local pubs. When his parents divorced, Mayall went to live with his mother at his grandfather's house on Acre Lane, Cheadle Hulme. He claimed that he lived in a tree house which was in his grandfather's garden, until he got married. After serving three years of national service, much of it in Korea, Mayall enrolled at Manchester College of Art. After graduation, he worked as an art designer.

It was another blues legend called Alexis Korner, who persuaded Mayall to become a full-time musician and to move to London. He also introduced him to other musicians and helped him to get gigs. In the 1960s, Mayall started to live part-time in the U.S. and in the early 1970s, he bought a house in the Hollywood Hills of Laurel Canyon. The house was destroyed in a bush fire in 1979 and he lost a lot of personal property. He married twice and had six children from both marriages.