Dead John Mayall, voice of the British re-foundation of the blues

The blues since its inception has been a black man's affair. Then, in the 1960s, along came John Mayall and put on the blue, red and white of the Union Jack, took on the reddish complexion of the people of Britain and became the global phenomenon that it could not have been in the days of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. All this to tell you what we lose with John Mayall, English singer and multi-instrumentalist who died in the heat of California at the age of 90. Bluesman at the helm of his legendary Bluesbreakers, of course, but perhaps we should also say talent scout. Because Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac and Mick Taylor would not have been what we know without his flair. Because sowing, sometimes, is worth more than reaping.

"I never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy and Rolling Stone never did a piece on me," he said when he was still in his eighties. "At the age I am, I'm still an underground artist." Well, he came close to the Grammy in his old age with Wake up call (1993) and The Sun is shinig down (2022), the British Crown consoled him with the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2005, but his is not a story of recognition, it is a story of gratitude: that of those who, thanks to him, have left for the big limelight. And that of those who, thanks to his records, have approached the magic triangle of tonic-subdominant-dominant.

He came from Macclesfield, not too far from Manchester: 'The only reason I was born there was because my father was a heavy drinker, and that was his favourite pub. Dad, contradictions aside, also played guitar and banjo and his boogie-woogie piano records did not fail to fascinate his teenage son. How wonderful the piano was: Mayall learned to play it one hand at a time: one year with his left hand and one with his right, 'so as not to mess myself up'. The piano remained his main instrument, soon joined by guitar and harmonica, but his trademark would become that strident voice bordering on falsetto that in Albion land would open the door to a wonderful new generation of singers, imprecise by stylistic code or perhaps by necessity. See under Mick Jagger.

With this baggage on him, Mayall moved to London in 1962 with the aim of joining up with Alexis Korner who, before anyone else, had hypothesised a British way to the blues. He ended up founding the Bluesbreakers, more than a band: an open community of musicians - all fans of Chicago's electric blues and all monstrously good - who come in and out of formation putting their own spin on it. When they play with John, they serve John who is a decade older than them and, instruments in hand, proves he knows it. When they play elsewhere they make rock history. Mayall's greatest prey was Clapton, who had left the Yardbirds and joined the Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was dissatisfied with the band's commercial direction (if you can really call a song like For Your Love commercial). Together they would give birth to Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (1966), the legendary "Beano" record, where Manolenta plays the Les Paul and sneaks the riff from Day Tripper into What'd I say.

You let a guy like that do what he wants, and indeed Mayall tolerated Clapton's temperament: Eric left a few months after joining the band, only to reappear later that year, sidelining newcomer Peter Green, and then leave the project for good in 1966, under the arm of Jack Bruce, to form Cream. "To a certain extent I used his hospitality, his band and his reputation to launch my career," Manolenta will one day say. Who without Mayall would never have found the courage to sing Ramblin' on my mind, just as Peter Green would never have found the courage to write his own songs and found Fleetwood Mac. Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green among the Bluesbreakers in the late 1960s before going on to record the Rolling Stones's breakthrough records, appreciated the wide-ranging freedom Mayall allowed his soloists: 'You had complete freedom to do what you wanted. And, by doing what you wanted, you found your way.