Album Reviews

As a talent scout, bluesman John Mayall has no equal. Everyone knows he 'discovered' Eric Clapton and that the Blues Breakers album (Decca SKL 4804) became a best seller and a classic, but the list of Mayall discoveries and/or early accomplices is astonishing: John McVie (Fleetwood Mac), Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac), Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), David O' List (The Nice), Andy Fraser (Free) and more recently (though still 25+ years ago!) Coco Montoya and Walter Trout.

As a talent scout, bluesman John Mayall has no equal. Everyone knows he 'discovered' Eric Clapton and that the Blues Breakers album (Decca SKL 4804) became a best seller and a classic, but the list of Mayall discoveries and/or early accomplices is astonishing: John McVie (Fleetwood Mac), Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac), Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), David O' List (The Nice), Andy Fraser (Free) and more recently (though still 25+ years ago!) Coco Montoya and Walter Trout.

Mayall has released dozens of blues albums over the years, with this one from 2009 being his latest. He's 77+ and still going, though not as strongly as he used to (no big surprise). On this album he plays piano, organ harmonica and 6 and 12 string guitar and he sings.

Singing has never been Mayall's strong suit: he's got a thin whiney voice that's gotten thinner over the years. He sounds sort of like what Ray Romano would sound like if he could sing the blues. Mayall can sing the blues and his delivery more than makes up for his pipes. 

Face it though, we're entering a blues-free era, or at least one where blues is starting to sound faux menacing and faux tough. The whole cave man approach to boasting and womanizing is kind of over and done and much of the genre just sounds silly. But that really isn't the point. The genre is "classic" just as old cars are and equally dated and impractical. But they sure are fun and so is the blues.

Mayall's latest band consists of blues drumming veteran Jay Davenport who keeps a tight lock of the groove. Lead guitarist Rocky Athas played with and was good friends with Stevie Ray Vaughan and was named one of the ten best guitarists in Texas. Bassist Greg Rzab has played in bands headed by everyone from Buddy Guy to, Otis Rush Albert Collins and Jimmy Page (put a big etc. at the end of the list).Keyboardist Tom Canning has an equally incredible resume working with everyone from Freddie King, Delbert McClinton, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello and many, many others. 

In other words, the band behind Mayall here is as usual, really good!

There are eleven hard rocking electric blues tunes on this double album and there's not a bad one in the bunch—assuming you like the form, because if you don't you won't like any  of it! The first side's three tracks are more like menacing hard rock than bluesy. Things "blues out" more after that. Mayall's autobiographical "Slow Train to Nowhere" sums up where he's been and where's he's ended up (in a much better place). It also sums up the album's basic "love and hope" theme and the idea that no matter how far you've fallen, there's a way up. Mayall takes a pot shot at Rap while extolling the virtues of "rock and blues" and who can blame him? These guys play.

The recording was done at LAFX studio in L.A., which has a vintage rebuilt API board, but this sounds like ProTools all the way. It's dark. The cymbals just sound smothered. I don't blame the engineer, who's organized everything well. i blame the ProTools algorithms. Do those folks really listen to music? I  wonder. You have to crank it up and then you can push some life out of and it doesn't sound half bad except for the cymbals, though it's an airless environment.

The 180g pressing sounds like United in Nashville. Lots of non-fill at the beginning of the sides but from there it's not bad actually. In other news, I heard from the new head of United and he's determined to turn the place into a first rate pressing plant. There's no reason why it can't be. Rainbo did it. 

I have to say that the first few plays left me unimpressed with this record, perhaps partly because of the dark sound, but once I got into the spirit, I dug it. It's great party music and you'll be rocking out to it in no time if you give it a chance. 

Mayall is a survivor. This is his 57th album! Good grief!  He's definitely tough enough!