{"id":26756,"date":"2024-02-13T05:30:53","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T10:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26756"},"modified":"2024-01-30T14:12:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T19:12:48","slug":"take-five-lead-guitarists-from-john-mayalls-bluesbreakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/13\/take-five-lead-guitarists-from-john-mayalls-bluesbreakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Lead Guitarists from John Mayall\u2019s Bluesbreakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrating his 90th birthday this past November 29, John Mayall is the grand old man of British Blues. While Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner and select others deserve credit for launching a British Isles version of American blues, it was Mayall who put together the first and perhaps greatest group in the style, the Bluesbreakers. Mayall\u2019s band would go on to feature some of the biggest names in British blues (and rock, for that matter), and spawned many celebrated spinoff groups like Fleetwood Mac, Mark-Almond and others.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the Bluesbreakers run (1963 to present day, with gaps), the band has gone through myriad lineup changes, with some two dozen musicians occupying the lead guitarist slot. (These days it\u2019s Carolyn Wonderland.) And while every single one of them has been superb, it would be those \u201860s guitarists who became the stuff of legend. Here\u2019s a look at five key Bluesbreakers tracks, each featuring a notable lead guitarist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Roger Dean \u2013 \u201cCrawling Up a Hill\u201d from <em>John Mayall Plays John Mayall<\/em> (1963)<\/strong><br \/>\nOften overlooked due to the succession of high profile guitarists who followed him, Roger Dean (<em>not<\/em> the album cover artist) was a key part of the early Bluesbreakers lineup. The group\u2019s first release was a document of their live set, captured onstage at hip venue Klooks Kleek. \u201cCrawling Up a Hill\u201d swings, and showcases the Bluesbreakers\u2019 formula of combining blues textures with delivery that got hips shaking in the clubs.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W3BK8-Mmn1s?si=dxG8_PP6z2hOUlUS\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Eric Clapton \u2013 \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out\u201d from <em>Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton<\/em> (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nIt was on the group\u2019s second album (often referred to as the \u201cBeano\u201d LP) that the Bluesbreakers truly entered the popular consciousness. With the addition of 21-year-old guitarist and blues purist Eric Clapton, the band dug into its repertoire of classic blues covers. The 12-song record featured no less than seven covers; chief among them was a fiery instrumental reading of Memphis Slim\u2019s \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out.\u201d With due respect to his subsequent work, much of Clapton\u2019s reputation as a guitarist is based upon his work on this LP.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HquRIGE6zDA?si=0FRvvIlgDgpuIGWt\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Peter Green \u2013 \u201cThe Stumble\u201d from <em>A Hard Road<\/em> (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen Clapton departed for the Yardbirds, his place in the Bluesbreakers was taken by Peter Green (ne\u00e9 Greenbaum). Setting aside Clapton\u2019s towering reputation and focusing instead upon the music has led many listeners to conclude that Green was an even better player than \u201cSlowhand.\u201d In any event, Green\u2019s sinewy and assured guitar work on cuts like Freddie King\u2019s \u201cThe Stumble\u201d is thrilling. Elsewhere on <em>A Hard Road<\/em>, 20-year-old Green revealed himself as a fine composer and vocalist; he\u2019d eventually leave the Bluesbreakers to form his own group, Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NLpziHTO-Nc?si=mdNHzB-r__HZjc-i\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mick Taylor \u2013 \u201cDriving Sideways\u201d from <em>Crusade<\/em> (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Bluesbreakers was always a revolving-door affair, so when Green left (taking John McVie and Mick Fleetwood with him), Mayall recruited another superb player in 18-year-old Mick Taylor. Taylor is showcased on another Freddie King number, \u201cDriving Sideways.\u201d Taylor would have a longer tenure with the group than did his predecessors; he played lead guitar on four Bluesbreakers LPs before decamping to replace Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iqKcnIi9MSA?si=R9l57rEv1JC2kyCh\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Harvey Mandel \u2013 \u201cRoom to Move\u201d from <em>The Turning Point<\/em> (1969)<\/strong><br \/>\nTechnically a Mayall solo album \u2013 the Bluesbreakers had temporarily disbanded \u2013 <em>The Turning Point<\/em> was aptly named, as it featured a primarily acoustic, drummerless sound. The radical departure from electric blues proved a winning formula: an original tune, \u201cRoom to Move\u201d would become one of the most well-known tracks in Mayall\u2019s catalog. Fresh from a stint with Canned Heat, American guitarist Mandel plays on the album and would stay with Mayall for a few releases.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zLp0AsKXMEs?si=0BNfrj75JjFSHxOA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrating his 90th birthday this past November 29, John Mayall is the grand old man of British Blues. While Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner and select others deserve credit for launching [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[354,1186],"class_list":["post-26756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-bluesbreakers","tag-john-mayall","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26756","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=26756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26758,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26756\/revisions\/26758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}