John Mayall has been an ambassador of the blues for parts of seven decades. At 76, Mayall is still rocking and commandeering yet another blues outfit of accomplished musicians.

At the Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk Sunday, Mayall ran through a two-hour set after quietly selling CDs and graciously signing anything from tickets to album covers in the club’s ticket office room. After the show he hustled through the crowd to get back to his display table with CDs of his latest album Tough.

This is a busy and active man for 76 and he still sings in his unique high-pitched, blues-flavored style, plays a mean boogie-leaning piano, adds a 12-string guitar on one tune in this night’s set and has probably never sounded better on harmonica, which he played frequently during the show.

Although many cite Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies as true fathers of the British Blues, it’s Mayall that has that moniker associated with him and none deserves it more.

He brought attention more than any other Brit to the wealth of American bluesman in the 1960s who were being virtually ignored by the U.S. public, and with a string of quality lineups through the ’60s and ’70s helped reestablish blues in this country as well as the U.K., being at the forefront of electrified and modern blues interpretation.

Don’t forget the guitar players who passed through Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: Eric Clapton, on the original Bluesbreakers album often dubbed Beano; Peter Green, founding member of Fleetwood Mac; and Mick Taylor, later a Rolling Stone, all played with The Bluesbreakers, learning and trendsetting with Mayall as the father figure.

Was there a more revolutionary electric blues album than Beano for guitarists? Wasn’t Green singled out by American bluesman, in particular B.B. King, as the one who scared them the most as a player.

And Taylor played in arguably the Stones’ best era or at least last, great era as the world’s greatest rock ‘n roll band.

There have been many others that have passed through Mayall’s ranks. The unit he has now is one of his best in years and they all play on Tough: Rocky Athas on guitar, boyhood friend of Stevie Ray Vaughan is an inventive and powerful force who tips his hat to his influences but brings a fresh and exciting style to his playing, Greg Rzab, bass, Tom Canning, keyboards and Jay Davenport, drums, all of whom are more than just solid, competent players as the evening’s unfolding demonstrated.

I saw Mayall last several years ago in New London at Garde Arts Center opening for Peter Green and though his band was tight and featured Buddy Whittington on guitar, another wondrous blues player, he shied away from playing some of his most recognizable tunes. Not at the Infinity.

He opened playing solo on electric piano with a tune called Streamline that featured a boogie-woogie style of playing. When his band joined him they ripped into the opening track from Beano, the Otis Rush classic All Your Love, on which Athas did an admiral job and was complemented by solos from Mayall and Canning.

The evening included several cuts from his the Tough album, including Nothing To Do With Love, the Walter Trout tune Playing With A Losing Hand and Numbers Down, with Mayall on 12-string, the one tune that didn’t quite fit comfortably into the set, and a Rush slow blues So Many Roads from the Looking Back album.

The audience was ecstatic throughout, even Mayall seemed a little taken back by the unbridled enthuisasm and spontaneous standing ovations. The highlights, though, were two songs from the Turning Point album, one the biggest sellers of his career, California and the closer Room To Move, which featured an outstanding bass solo by Rzab, who showed he can not only hold down a rocking and funky blues bottom but can also slap and pluck in extraordinary style.

Rzab started with back-and-forth answers opposite Mayall on harmonica and then took off on a solo flight with some unique slapping techniques, a tip of the hat to Jimi Hendrix via Jaco Pastorius with the melody line from Third Stone From The Sun, and a series of punchy and adept solo lines using all parts of the neck.

This gave way to a concise, explosive solo from Davenport on drums that thundered through the Music Hall, climaxing with a double-bass drum pedal eruption.

The group returned with its encore, again from Beano, the Freddie King instrumental classic Hideaway, which rocked as hard if not harder than anything before it.

Besides New London, I had seen Mayall live one other time during the winter of 1968 at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York, as described in this post, with the classic Crusade lineup that included Mick Taylor on guitar and Dick Heckstall-Smith on a variety of horns. I mentioned this to Mayall on Sunday and he looked a little startled but said “Yes, that’s the lineup.” He added his new band “would bring me up to date.” It surely did.