John Mayall, tireless and influential pioneer of British blues, dies aged 90

LONDON — John Mayall, the British blues musician whose Bluesbreakers formed the foundations of Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.

A statement posted on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death Tuesday, saying the musician died Monday at his home in California. “The health challenges that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of the world’s greatest road warriors,” the post read.

He is credited with helping to develop the English version of Chicago-style urban rhythm and blues that played a significant role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who later formed the Mark-Almond Band.

Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of music he first heard on his father’s 78 rpm records.

“I’m a bandleader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends to me,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s really a family. It’s really a small thing.”

A small success that endures. Although Mayall never achieved the fame of some of his illustrious former students, he was still performing in his late 80s, playing his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition bothered him a little, and he was not shy about saying so.

“I’ve never had a hit, I’ve never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a single article about me,” he said in a 2013 interview with the Santa Barbara Independent. “I’m still an underground artist.”

Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall was nominated for a Grammy for “Wake Up Call” with guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album “The Sun Is Shining Down”. He also gained official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.

He was selected for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 and his 1966 album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton” is considered one of the finest British blues albums.

Mayall was once asked whether he continued to play because there was demand or simply to show that he could still do it.

“Luckily, the demand is there. But it’s really not for those two reasons, it’s just for the love of music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we practice.”

Mayall was born on 29 November 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester, in central England.

Echoing the down-on-his-luck bluesman’s attitude, Mayall once said: “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favourite pub was.”

His father also played guitar and banjo, and his piano boogie-woogie records captivated his teenage son.

Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time – one year on the left hand, one year on the right, “so as not to get tangled up.”

Piano was his primary instrument, but he also played guitar and harmonica, all the while singing in a characteristically strained voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played every other instrument on his 1967 album, “Blues Alone.”

Mayall has often been called the “father of British blues”, but when he moved to London in 1962, his aim was to immerse himself in the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon, among others, were drawn to the sound.

The Bluesbreakers relied on a fluid community of musicians who came and went from different bands. Mayall’s greatest achievement was Clapton, who had left the Yardbirds and joined the Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was unhappy with the Yardbirds’ commercial direction.

Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist would later recall that Mayall had “the most incredible record collection I’ve ever seen.”

Mayall tolerated Clapton’s whims: he disappeared a few months after joining the group, then reappeared later that year, pushing aside newly arrived Peter Green, then left permanently in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which enjoyed meteoric commercial success, leaving Mayall far behind.

Clapton, interviewed for a BBC documentary on Mayall in 2003, admitted that “to a certain extent I used his hospitality, used his band and his reputation to launch my own career.”

“I think he’s a great musician. I admire and respect his perseverance,” Clapton added.

Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his songwriting abilities.

Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, appreciated the great latitude Mayall gave his soloists.

“You would have complete freedom to do whatever you wanted,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You could also make as many mistakes as you wanted.”

Mayall’s 1968 album Blues from Laurel Canyon marked a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.

The following year he released “The Turning Point”, arguably his most successful album, featuring an atypical four-piece acoustic line-up, including Mark and Almond. “Room to Move”, a song from this album, was a popular favourite throughout Mayall’s later career.

By the 1970s, Mayall was at a personal low, but he continued to tour, performing over 100 shows a year.

“Throughout the ’70s, I did most of my shows drunk,” Mayall said in a 1990 interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine. One consequence of that incident was an attempt to jump from a balcony into a swimming pool that missed its mark, breaking one of Mayall’s heels and leaving him limping.

“It was an incident that made me stop drinking,” Mayall said.

In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the lineup changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was retiring the Bluesbreakers name permanently, and in 2013 he led the John Mayall Band.

Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They had two sons.