John Mayall the blues crusader Logoz Dinu [2014]

It must have been in the summer of 1967 when a school friend first showed me “A Hard Road”, the first John Mayall LP I had ever seen. Although familiar with “Moanin’” by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles, it was “Stevie’s Blues” by the Spencer Davis Group and “Little Red Rooster” by the Rolling Stones that really caught my attention. I soon found out that these two songs had something in common which was called the blues. I started to become fascinated by everything about Mayall, and found out that he could play guitar, harmonica, piano and organ, called his band the Bluesbreakers and even designed the LP covers! A few weeks later I discovered that Eric Clapton had played with him, and that “Crusade”, his third LP, featured another brilliant young guitar player called Mick Taylor. Mayall soon became my musical guiding light and role model, but some facts were confusing me. How could the Bluesbreakers have been the band where Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton first met when the only bass player ever mentioned on the LPs was John McVie? And how come the Bluesbreakers had had a single on the Immediate label when all their other releases were on Decca? It just didn’t add up.

Problems such as these prompted me to start a life-long investigation of all things Mayall-related, all of which I have religiously collected and noted down. This has over the years expanded into a vast and highly intriguing story about Mayall’s various band line-ups, a school for outstanding musicians, with many remarkable off-shoots. And also of course about Mayall himself, a charismatic personality and exceptional band leader with extraordinary staying power.

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