John Mayall – Big Man Blues (2012)
By the time John Mayall recorded this album in Los Angeles mid-1980 the core line-up of his band had played hundreds of shows together over the previous year, and were a tight and well-oiled electric Blues machine. This album encompasses the absolute contemporary experience, complete with airtight rhythm section, piercing guitar licks and Mayall’s fierce harmonica, and distinctively soulful vocals. “Big Man Blues” is a more than worthy addition to any Blues fan’s collection.As the elder statesman of British blues, it is John Mayall’s lot to be more renowned as a bandleader and mentor than as a performer in his own right. Throughout the ’60s, his band, the Bluesbreakers, acted as a finishing school for the leading British blues-rock musicians of the era. Guitarists Eric…
Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor joined his band in a remarkable succession in the mid-’60s, honing their chops with Mayall before going on to join Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and the Rolling Stones, respectively. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser (of Free), John Almond, and Jon Mark also played and recorded with Mayall for varying lengths of times in the ’60s.