A young John Mayall thought he would be a professional artist and began studying art at age 13. At 16, he worked as a department store window dresser and later for a London ad agency.
Thanks to his family’s collection of 78 records, Mayall became fascinated by the boogie-woogie of American pianists Albert Ammons and Roosevelt Sykes. He later began to listen to guitarists Big Bill Broonzy and Leadbelly. A completely self-taught player, Mayall would practice piano, guitar, and harmonica when he thought nobody was listening.
Blues in the 1950s developed in England in a different manner than in the U.S., where the audience for blues was largely segregated and few white listeners were aware of the blues. To young British musicians, their exposure to blues came as American performers like Broonzy and Brownie McGhee made their early trips to the U.K. and Europe, often hiring British players to back them.
In combination with the burgeoning folk movement of the late 1950s, British musicians became some of the first white people to take on American blues music. This ultimately was a factor in what became the “British Invasion” of the 1960s, led by groups like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
As a bandleader, Mayall worked around England, building his reputation and often playing virtually every night with his group, then called The Blues Syndicate. Some of the musicians who passed through the ranks of his group were Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, later of Cream; Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones; and Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, later of Fleetwood Mac.
Mayall credits a young Eric Clapton for getting him focused on authentic American blues. Clapton’s reputation as a soloist was already established when he left the commercially successful group the Yardbirds to join Mayall for his most significant early release, Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton.
Mayall got a real hands-on education in blues when he was asked to back-up American bluesmen like Sonny Boy Williamson, who he emulated, and John Lee Hooker on their tours of the U.K. As he told Blues Blast in 2016: “We loved the music, but we hadn’t understood really the roots of it sufficiently enough to be convincing.”
In 1969, Mayall was convincing enough that he was voted England's No. 1 blues artist in Melody Maker’s annual poll. He displayed a talent for mentoring gifted young musicians and bringing out the best in them. After Clapton left to form Cream with Bruce and Baker, Mayall brought on guitarist Peter Green.
When Green left The Bluesbreakers to form Fleetwood Mac, Mayall enlisted another young guitar phenom, Mick Taylor, just 18 at the time. In 1969, Mayall decided to change formats, letting go of the traditional blues band line-up to work with acoustic guitar and no drummer.
So, as Taylor left to join the Rolling Stones, Mayall commenced to record one of his most popular albums The Turning Point, with the single “Room to Move."
He continued writing, recording and performing through his 80s, making more than 60 albums and doing the art design on most of them.
Mayall continued to mentor younger guitarists, fostering the careers of Coco Montoya, Walter Trout and Carolyn Wonderland. In 2022, at age 88, he released his final studio album, The Sun is Shining Down - with Bobby Rush, Mike Campbell and Marcus King.
In 2005, Mayall was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the arts, and in 2024 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Influence category.
John Mayall forever changed the appreciation of blues and rock on both sides of the Atlantic.
