![\"Issue36-john-mayall\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Issue36-john-mayall.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nBy Jeff Tamarkin<\/b><\/p>\n
A towering figure among the progenitors of British blues, John Mayall\u2019s dedication to his craft remains as strong as when he first discovered the music. Now 80, the blues pioneer still relishes the road\u2014playing more than 100 gigs a year\u2014and the recording studio. In fact, Mayall\u2019s latest record, A Special Life<\/i>, finds him as excited as ever\u2014and that\u2019s saying something for a guy who has more than 60 albums to his credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having a lot of fun because my band is so great,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much energy among the four of us that it\u2019s always a pleasure. There\u2019s so much material to choose from when we play live and so much improvisation that goes on. So when we went into the studio to do this album, everyone knew what everybody else was doing\u2014and it only took us three days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album is \u201ca statement about enjoying my later years,\u201d Mayall says, \u201cbut I don\u2019t feel old. This kind of music demands full health and energy so you can get it across to the audience. They don\u2019t want to see somebody sitting around in a chair with no voice left.\u201d<\/p>\n
The musicians on A Special Life<\/i>\u2014guitarist Rocky Athas, bassist Greg Rzab and drummer Jay Davenport\u2014take their place among a rather elite grouping. Various lineups of Mayall\u2019s bands have featured future rock icons\u2014particularly his most celebrated group, the Bluesbreakers, which at one time or another included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce (Cream), Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), and Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green and John McVie (Fleetwood Mac). \u201cI\u2019ve never been able to explain why I was able to find them all, other than the fact that I\u2019ve been listening to music all my life,\u201d says the Cheshire, England, native. \u201cI know what to look for when I hear it. I find it very easy to know it\u2019s the right person. A bandleader has that element in his being.\u201d A longtime resident of Southern California, Mayall discussed his love of the blues\u2014past, present and future.<\/p>\n
How do you keep up at 80?<\/b><\/p>\n
The fact that I haven\u2019t abused my body with drugs or alcohol for the last 30 years or more is one thing that\u2019s kept me in shape. I\u2019ve had a healthy life, a special life\u2014which is why I\u2019ve named the album that. It\u2019s difficult to say why I\u2019m still so healthy, but I don\u2019t feel the elements of age whatsoever. My bandmates are way, way younger than I am but we\u2019re all probably in the same state of health. I haven\u2019t found anything going wrong yet, and I\u2019ll keep going till something different happens. We don\u2019t have days off when we go on the road, so it all gets consolidated. We can do 100 shows with no problem. This year alone we\u2019ve got 136 dates. I just love what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
Do you prefer to record quickly?<\/b><\/p>\n
By the time we get into the studio the songs are already chosen, so the day before we run through them and get the arrangements sorted out. When we go in the studio we\u2019re there from noon to six\u2014regular, sensible hours.<\/p>\n
Why produce yourself?<\/b><\/p>\n
I feel very comfortable with my band. We\u2019ve been together long enough that we can read each other\u2019s minds, and we have a lot of energy and fun. We\u2019ve had producers in the past who\u2019ve directed traffic, so to speak, but ultimately it\u2019s always down to me musically.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorld Gone Crazy\u201d is very political.<\/b><\/p>\n
If you\u2019re doing an album you should include one song that touches on the world around us. It\u2019s good subject matter, and that\u2019s what the blues is all about at its finest points\u2014it should be talking about things people can relate to. Perhaps you\u2019re putting the seeds of ideas into other people and giving them something to think about. When I\u2019m about to do an album I think, \u201cWhat am I going to write about?\u201d \u201cWorld Gone Crazy\u201d is relevant because you only need to pick up the paper to see it\u2019s nuts out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeartache\u201d was on your first record\u2014why rerecord it?<\/b><\/p>\n
We started playing it live and developed it into something new, and it seemed like one that would fit the album\u2014especially because there\u2019s a 50-year gap between the two versions. It goes down very well in performances.<\/p>\n
Mind playing fan favorites nightly?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, because we play them differently. There\u2019s so much creativity within this band that even if we play songs that are really old, we still bring up-to-date energy to them. We haven\u2019t been playing \u201cRoom to Move\u201d nightly in the past few years. But sometimes I\u2019ll forget that it\u2019s a different audience every night and the new people want to hear it, so I\u2019ve been playing an abbreviated version. Instead of endless solos, I\u2019ve trimmed it down so it\u2019s just the tune at the front, harmonica breakdown in the middle, and then out. It comes down to about three and a half minutes, and we throw it in as an encore. And it\u2019s worked very well for us.<\/p>\n
Why list the key of each song?<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always done that in liner notes because budding musicians appreciate it. For some reason many can\u2019t figure out what key it is on their own, and they find it helpful. They can pick up a harmonica or a guitar and know what key to pursue. It\u2019s something I get lots of comments about.<\/p>\n
Were you a jazz fan before the blues?<\/b><\/p>\n
Actually, a mixture of both. My father\u2019s record collection was mainly jazz\u2014Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others from the 1920s and \u201930s. But also in there were Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang. Right from the very beginning I was listening to Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy and all these great bluesmen, so I\u2019ve had a grounding in both blues and jazz.<\/p>\n
Why was the blues so popular in the U.K. in the \u201960s?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think because Europeans didn\u2019t have this music on their own doorstep, they tended to idolize the black musicians who were probably separated from the white population in America and were not appreciated as much here. Europeans held all these musicians in great reverence, and we lapped it all up. It was an incredibly stimulating time in Britain because the boom happened so suddenly.<\/p>\n
How did you feel about bands like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds?<\/b><\/p>\n
It was great. There was a feeling of camaraderie among all of the bands. Each band had a different slant on the blues, and it was exciting to hear everyone\u2019s take on it. Dixieland jazz all basically had the same instrumentation and the repertoire was all the same, whereas all the people who came up with the blues sounded different from each other. We all appreciated the fact that we had an audience.<\/p>\n
Was it surprising when Eric Clapton left to form Cream?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, there was so much change going on with everybody. Everyone was young and still finding their way. Once a person wants to leave a band, obviously his heart\u2019s not going to be in playing with you anymore. It happened very amicably.<\/p>\n
Why do lineups change frequently?<\/b><\/p>\n
Because Eric, Peter and Mick came and went in quick succession, people tend to think I change my bands a lot. But in fact when [guitarist] Buddy Whittington was in the band, he was in for 15 years. My current guitarist, Rocky Athas, has been with me for six years. That\u2019s more than 20 years between those two. Overall, I\u2019ve always had a very relaxed time because the musicians are best friends on and off the stage. You need that in order for the music to work. You\u2019re traveling around together and you don\u2019t want to be hating everybody\u2019s guts. Otherwise it\u2019s just a job. My bands are an adventure, not just a job.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the future of the blues?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s quite obvious from the number of teens taking up the guitar and wanting to play the blues. When something like that happens, it keeps getting passed on from generation to generation. The blues can\u2019t go out of fashion because it reflects what\u2019s going on in the world. It\u2019s universal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOHN MAYALL For the British blues master, music proves the fountain of youth By Jeff Tamarkin A towering figure among the progenitors of British blues, John Mayall\u2019s dedication to his craft remains as strong as when he first discovered the music. Now 80, the blues pioneer still relishes the road\u2014playing more than 100 gigs a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3805],"tags":[7657,7652],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14641,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14639\/revisions\/14641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}