John Mayall: The Blues Alone (sleevenotes)


 * Peel wrote the sleevenotes to the John Mayall solo album The Blues Alone (Decca, 1967).

In the summer of 1966 I was working for a radio station in Southern California and, in my capacity as resident Englishman and therefore intimate friend of all groups, I had to contribute a column of light hearted chatter about the British music scene to the station paper. Part of this column was a listing of the current British top ten. As far as the inhabitants of San Bernadino and Riverside counties knew, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers had a string of enormous hits during that summer – a number of them being, in some curious fashion, LP tracks. Chart-rigging was a hideous reality in unsuspecting California.

Shortly after returning to London I met John Mayall and found him to be a very warm-hearted person despite his somewhat forbidding stage presence. He has a huge laugh that springs from some deep recess within him and tumbles into all corners of the room. I was featuring his LP ‘A Hard Road’ (Decca LK 4853) on the air and was amazed that, in addition to writing 8 of the 12 numbers on the record, playing 5 and 9 string guitar, organ, piano, harmonica and singing, he had written the sleeve notes and painted the portrait of the group on the front cover.

With this new LP he has carried all of this to its logical conclusion and has produced a record featuring no other musician than himself except for the occasional aid of his drummer Keef Hartley. This then is John Mayall – one of the greatest bluesmen in the world.