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. Continue reading Mayall still living in the blues →