{"id":16369,"date":"2019-04-04T05:30:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T09:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16369"},"modified":"2019-03-15T11:35:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T15:35:20","slug":"album-review-john-mayall-nobody-told-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/04\/album-review-john-mayall-nobody-told-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: John Mayall &#8212; Nobody Told Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16370\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/john_mayall_ntm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/john_mayall_ntm.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/john_mayall_ntm-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/john_mayall_ntm-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>In the 1960s when a wider audience of white listeners embarked upon a belated discovery of the blues, it was thanks in no small part to the championing of the blues form by British musicians. The Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds all made a point of acknowledging their African-American musical forbears. But the undisputed godfather of that British blues resurgence was John Mayall.<\/p>\n<p>A singer, songwriter, harmonica player, guitarist and keyboardist, Mayall has always been a keen interpreter of the blues, deftly mixing standards and his own original material into a rich musical tapestry. But it\u2019s as a bandleader that he\u2019s most well known; many of those in his employ would go on to acclaim on their own.<\/p>\n<p>Today at age 85, Mayall is himself a grand old man of the blues. Of late Mayall has been touring with longtime associates Jay Davenport (drums) and bassist Greg Rzab. For his latest (and something like his 90<sup>th<\/sup>) album, Mayall has augmented that lineup, returning to an approach that has served him well before: working with musical guests.<\/p>\n<p><i>Nobody Told Me<\/i> is a solid studio set, and features lead guitarists from inside and outside of the blues idiom. Some guest choices are fairly obvious: Joe Bonamassa takes the lead on a reading of Magic Sam\u2019s \u201cWhat Have I Done Wrong\u201d and one other; Carolyn Wonderland rips it up on three tunes, including a pair of Mayall originals.<\/p>\n<p>Other guests are somewhat unexpected, even for the genre-spanning Mayall. Todd Rundgren (whose own 2011 blues excursion <i>Todd Rundgren\u2019s Johnson<\/i> was uncharacteristically unsatisfying) plays stinging and melodic lead on a horn-heavy reading of the Jerry Garcia Band\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s What Love Will Make You Do.\u201d Even more left-field is the appearance of Rush\u2019s Alex Lifeson on Jeff Healey\u2019s \u201cEvil and Here to Stay.\u201d But all of Mayall\u2019s choices work.<\/p>\n<p>On all ten cuts, Mayall sings lead; his distinctive voice is in as fine form as it was a half century ago. And for listeners who wish to join in on guitar, harmonica or other instruments, Mayall\u2019s brief liner notes indicate the key for each song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the 1960s when a wider audience of white listeners embarked upon a belated discovery of the blues, it was thanks in no small part to the championing of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49],"tags":[1186],"class_list":["post-16369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","tag-john-mayall","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16371,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16369\/revisions\/16371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}