musician John MayallJohn F. Kelly, known as the “Godfather of British Blues” for his bands in the late ’60s and early ’70s that featured some of the era’s most notable rock players, died Monday at his home in California, his family said in a statement posted to his social media accounts. He was 90 years old.
Among the fans and groups who expressed their condolences were: Rock and Roll Hall of Famewas scheduled to induct him in October. Though he wasn’t included in the regular voting rounds, the Hall of Fame committee selected him to receive the Musical Influence award this year, along with Alexis Korner and Big Mama Thornton.
The family’s initial statement did not reveal a cause of death but did address Mayall’s recent health issues. “It is with heavy hearts that we receive the news that John Mayall passed away peacefully yesterday, July 22nd, 2024, at his home in California surrounded by his loving family,” the statement read. “The health problems that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally brought peace to one of the world’s greatest road warriors.”
Mayall’s sharp, jazz-inflected tenor vocals were heavily influenced by American singer Mose Allison, and as frontman for his band, initially called the Bluebreakers or Bluebreakers, he played keyboards, harmonica and occasional guitar, and wrote dozens of original songs. Among the musicians he recruited were such legends as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jack Bruce, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Aynsley Dunbar.
He was perhaps best known in America for his song “Room to Move,” which became an FM radio staple in the early ’70s.
This was the song Mayall chose to end his touring career at the end of his final concert, held on March 26, 2022 at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California.
Many of the blues greats who paved the way for Mayall praised him for keeping the genre in the spotlight: “John Mayall was a master of the blues,” said B.B. King, adding that without him and other British musicians of his heyday who put their own unique spin on the blues, “a lot of black musicians in America would still be going through the same hell they were going through a long time ago.”
Musicians testified to what it meant to play with Mayall. “As a blues guitar sideman, playing with the Bluesbreakers is the pinnacle. It’s like Mount Everest,” said Walter Trout. “You can play with B.B. King or Buddy Guy, and all you do is strum chords all night. This guy features you. He lets you take a solo. He screams your name after every song and brings you to the front of the stage to sing. He makes a place in the world for you.”
“The reason I choose musicians is because of what they bring to the table. I enjoy what they do and I want to give them the opportunity to express themselves. That’s what I hire them for,” Mayall said in a 2016 interview. Blues Blast“So I enjoy playing with them, and luckily I’m a bandleader so I get to choose who I play with, so I enjoy my own music. … Improvisation is the main thing. I have a structure for the song and then I embellish it to suit the direction of the performance that night. So that’s always been the basis of everything I’ve done. The whole idea is to make music as you play. Improvisation is the main part. It’s musical exploration.”
Having begun his professional career in London in the early 1960s with purist British blues bandleaders such as Alexis Korner (an early sponsor of British blues clubs), Cyril Davies and Graham Bond, Mayall’s bands featured some of the top performers in the competitive blues world.
His own talents were often overshadowed by the legendary musicians playing behind him: Between 1965 and 1969, he employed a trio of astonishingly talented lead guitarists: Clapton, Green and Taylor.
Clapton left Mayall’s unit to form the rock supergroup Cream with bassist Jack Bruce (another sideman) and drummer Ginger Baker, Green himself left the Bluesbreakers to form Fleetwood Mac with Mayall’s old rhythm section, Fleetwood and McVie, and, at Mayall’s recommendation, teenage prodigy Taylor replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones.
Mayall’s blues-rock band has long been a finishing school as prestigious as Miles Davis’ jazz band, and other veterans have had notable careers of their own: saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, bassist Tony Reeves and drummer Jon Hiseman formed the horn-playing jazz-rock band Coliseum, while acoustic guitarist John Mark and flautist-saxophonist Jonny Almond each formed their own eponymous units.
During the Marc Almond era (a unique period when Mayall eschewed the use of trap drummers), the musician released perhaps his best-known US single, the riff-driven “Room to Move,” which appeared on the live album The Turning Point, his only LP to achieve gold status.
In the early ’70s, Mayall moved to Los Angeles and worked with such notable American blues players as guitarist Harvey Mandel, violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris and bassist Larry Taylor, whose 1970 album USA Union reached no. 22, the bandleader’s highest charting achievement.
Mayall achieved his greatest fame as a frontman and touring musician in the early ’70s, but continued to tour heavily through the decades to come, continuing to perform concerts well into his 80s: in 1982 he reunited with Mick Taylor and John McVie for an extended world tour.
Formed in 1984, a new version of the Bluebreakers featured a powerhouse line-up of Coco Montoya and Walter Trout on two guitars and sparked renewed interest in Mayall’s music, as well as a high-profile label deal with Silvertone Records, the US label that had reinvigorated Buddy Guy’s blues career.
Mayall welcomed in the new century with a landmark celebrity-filled album, Along for the Ride, and a 70th birthday concert in Liverpool that reunited him with Clapton and Taylor, and his final band included such top guitarists as Sonny Landreth, Robben Ford and Carolyn Wonderland.
He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 and was inducted into the US Blues Hall of Fame in 2016.
He was born in the Midlands city of Macclesfield on 29 November 1933. His father was an amateur guitarist and jazz enthusiast, and the young Mayall was influenced from an early age by American jazz and blues stars, teaching himself to play piano, guitar and harmonica.
After serving in the army, Mayall enrolled at Manchester Art College, where he studied design, which would later help him create the band’s portrait on the cover of their 1967 album, A Hard Road, and the look of 1969’s The Turning Point.
During his student days he formed a number of semi-professional groups that played locally and jammed at local all-night parties, and after meeting Alexis Korner, a pioneer of the early 60s British blues sound, at a show in Manchester, the older musician mentored him and in 1963 he began playing in London as part of the first class of the Bluesbreakers.
Their debut live album, released on Decca Records and featuring Mayall, McVie, drummer Hughie Flint and guitarist Roger Dean, was a commercial flop, but the Bluesbreakers’ fortunes soared with the addition of Clapton, the Yardbirds’ dissident lead guitarist and budding rock star looking for a purer performing environment.
The Bluesbreakers’ second album, featuring Clapton, reached the Top 10 in the UK in 1966 and became a cult hit in the US, but the guitarist never seemed to be able to join Mayall’s group full-time, and by 1967 he was replaced by Peter Green, the lead guitarist for Peter Bardens, who displayed a similarly powerful Chicago-style electric attack.
“A Hard Road” showcased Green’s powerful appeal, and the album’s final instrumental, “The Super-Natural,” was the prototype for the later “Black Magic Woman.” But his time with Mayall didn’t last long, and he recruited the bandleader’s rhythm section to form an even harder blues-rock band, Fleetwood Mac.
When Clapton failed to turn up at a show near London in 1965, Green was replaced by 18-year-old prodigy Mick Taylor, a fateful Bluesbreakers attendee. He appeared on four Mayall albums between 1967 and 1969. Mayall himself generously recommended Taylor as a replacement for Brian Jones in the Stones.
After a few raucous years of powerful renditions of electric blues, Mayall suddenly slowed down with two albums with Mark and Almond. Though it failed to get above No. 102 in the US, the novelty single “Room to Move” remains Mayall’s best-known song thanks to heavy FM airplay. Another track featuring the Mark and Almond duo, “Don’t Waste My Time,” reached No. 81 in 1970.
Besides “USA Union,” Mayall’s most distinctive recordings from his early American career include “Back to the Roots” (1971), featuring an all-star ensemble that included guests Clapton and Taylor, and “Jazz-Blues Fusion” (1972), an introductory live set with American jazz and R&B instrumentalists Blue Mitchell and Clifford Solomon.
In September 1979, a rapidly spreading wildfire in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, destroyed Mayall’s home and all of his possessions, including what was said to be one of the largest and most valuable collections of vintage pornography in the world.
Mayall recorded prolifically throughout the ’70s and ’80s for labels such as Polydor and ABC but failed to achieve commercial success, though his releases on Silvertone, ‘Wake Up Call’ (1993) and ‘Spinning Coin’ (1995), briefly brought him to prominence.
Along for the Ride became his most high-profile album in years, connecting him with former guitar-playing bandmates, peers and acolytes, including Green, Taylor, Otis Rush, Gary Moore, Steve Cropper, Steve Miller, Billy Gibbons, Jeff Healy and Jonny Lang.
In 2019, he released Nobody Told Me, an album he described as having been recorded just before a “health scare.” This penultimate effort features guests such as Todd Rundgren, Little Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band, Alex Lifeson of Rush, and Joe Bonamassa.
His final studio album, 2022’s The Sun Is Shining Down, features big-name guests like Mike Campbell, Marcus King, and Buddy Miller. Tom Jurek wrote in his review for AllMusic.com, “Hopefully life goes according to plan and Mayall is able to record more before it’s over. The Sun Is Shining Down is hungry and exuberant, and Mayall delivers these gritty blues like a champ.” This final effort was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2023 for Best Traditional Blues Album.
When Mayall was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, he wrote on his social media accounts that he was delighted to be inducted alongside Alexis Korner, who “suggested in 1963 that you could make a living playing the blues in London.”
In a 2016 interview with Blues Blast, Mayall reflected on the benefits of his fame and notoriety. “I mean, my music is still a matter of familiarity for listeners, and I’m not big enough to get it on the charts or in the news,” he said. “So I’m still kind of an outsider in that respect, so I just go my own way and hope for the best. But we have fun playing. It’s just an enviable situation, because the big hit groups and stuff are so tied to what they’ve made famous and they miss out on the opportunity to improvise and explore.”
Mayall is survived by his six children – Gaz, Jason, Red, Ben, Zac and Samson – seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The death announcement also noted the support of his former wives Pamela and Maggie, and his devoted secretary Jane.
