John Mayall is 80 years young, and hes still got it, to judge from his appearance on the Andrew Marr Show the other week. I fired up the Linn today with A Hard Road, his 1967 (Decca) post-Clapton outing, with the wonderful Peter Green bringing his fabulously soulful playing and songwriting talents to the party, together with John McVie on bass and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. So it was that Mayall pretty much birthed Fleetwood Mac, having given Clapton his first break a few years before on the Beano album. This Hard Road line-up is a super group in all but name, since for some strange reason a group has to have Clapton in it to be termed super. This album is really superb, with loads of fine original songs as well as a brilliant version of Freddie Kings wondrous The Stumble. Very highly recommended, and its great to see Mayall still performing 50 years on from that first Bluesbreakers album. We followed it with Birds Of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra (CBS, 1973) - another chance to check out John McLoughlins celebrated guitar work. This album was very different to the eastern mysticism pervading other albums of Johns Ive heard: it was bordering on heavy metal in places, though with some epic, prog-ish moments too. Not an easy listen, but encouraging enough to try out more, as I have quite a few of his albums in the Vaults racks at present. Next up came another guitar god in Nils Lofgren, with his 1981 (MCA) outing Night Fades Away. Really fine album, this, with some startlingly exotic instrumentation and a great cover of The Beatles Any Time At All (the opening track of Johns on Beatles For Sale) that Id not come across before. Nils is performing at Cambridge Corn Exchange in January, and Im hoping to get down there. As the stampface became ever busier, we had to make do with repeat plays of Steve Miller Bands Anthology (Capitol, 1972), a double set showcasing many magnificent moments from Millers celebrated psychedelic era, before the quirkier commercialism that began with 1973s The Joker. This was one of the finest double albums Ive heard in many a year, one of its many crowning moments being a wonderfully mournful, dronal version of a song given an inappropriately uptempo, jaunty treatment by Clapton on 461 Ocean Boulevard a few years later. But if you dont believe that Steve really bested Eric, dont take my word for it: https://youtube/watch?v=SOtuQQJiG68
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:13:40 +0000