John Mayall

I was sad to see the news this morning that John Mayall had died peacefully at the age of 90 at his home in California.  John and his Bluesbreakers had a massive influence on me as a teenager; whilst I liked a lot of the pop music around at the time, hearing John Mayall and similar bands made me realise that there was a lot more to music than the stuff that made it into the charts.  I was brought up listening to a lot of Classical music at home and whilst I liked some of the more popular pieces I knew that as a musical genre it really wasn't for me.  When I was at school, at lunchtimes lots of kids gathered in the school hall and played their favourite pop records.  I wasn't amongst them; I was one of the 'cool kids' behind the closed curtains on the stage listening to the likes of John Mayall, Cream, Johnny Winter, Mountain, Caravan, Ten Years After and similar bands.  Listening to those innovative 60's bands with their improvisation led me to my love of Jazz music nowadays.

I saw John Mayall in concert once, in the early 'noughties'.  He was on a double bill with his former band member Peter Green and his 'Splinter Group'.  Peter was good but his drug-related mental health problems were very apparent.  John Mayall was excellent but one of the most memorable things from the evening was wandering up to one of the merchandising desks in the theatre foyer before the show and realising that John Mayall was manning it himself!  I had a chat with him; a lovely friendly guy.

RIP John Mayall; 29.11.1933 - 22.7.2024