Week 16
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
(Deram 800086)

The English exploration of the blues that had begun in the 1950s among the jazz community was by the mid 1960s a full fledged explosion, with blues-inspired bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Animals taking their uniquely frenzied interpretation of blues forms worldwide. A few ensembles, however, retained a more purist approach, among them John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, who throughout the decade served as a veritable blues academy for countless English musicians, among them Fleetwood Mac founders John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, and Peter Green, future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, and Eric Clapton.

Clapton first joined Mayall's ensemble in 1965, attracted by the opportunity it offered to concentrate on pure blues, as opposed to the increasingly pop-oriented style his former band the Yardbirds was pursuing. By the time they recorded John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton in early 1966, the Bluesbreakers line-up was well versed in the material they tackled, from covers of Otis Rush and Freddy King to Mayall and Clapton originals. While Mayall's arrangements were relatively traditional electric blues, and the Bluesbreakers quite adept at ensemble playing, Clapton nonetheless dominates the record, his playing constantly and assertively at the fore, and his guitar tone infinitely fuller—and simply louder—than that of most of his contemporaries. Indeed, Clapton’s guitar tone throughout the album was at the time so innovative that the amplifier he used – a Marshall 50 watt combo, model 1962 – has since become renowned as “the Bluesbreaker.”

While Mayall's traditionalist approach shortly proved to be too restrictive for Clapton, resulting in his departure to form the more experimental Cream, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton remains arguably the high point of traditionalist British blues, and remains a stunning document of the innovations that would soon emerge as blues rock and begin to dominate rock and roll.

Listen: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers —"All Your Love"
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