guitarist and piano player has lead bands with a group of musicians that would fill fictional Who´s who in British Blues.
John Mayall in turn employed in his band in the 60's called Blues Breakers a big number of later world-famous musicians: Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Andy Fraser, and these are just a few
Born 1933, Mayall still tours around the world with his band.
Sunday June 19th it was time for a concert in Malaga, Teatro Cervantes. The band started the concert at 20.15, which is a very early time in Spain. In Cervantes, many earlier concerts (including Marianne Faithfull, Van Morrison, Bill Wyman & Rhythm Kings) have started at 22 (10 pm).
The songs were in the beginning good old blues standards often heard on his records. Maestro himself started singing, accompanying himself with only harmonica. The second song came from the whole band: Rocky Athas, guitar,Greg Rzab bass and Jay Davenport drums. Mayall played keyboards and harmonica. Guitar, unfortunately, he didn´t play during the evening at all.
The audience seemed to be more than happy with the band's skilled playing and tasty music. One and a half hour in set included only a few songs fr m his last album, Tough.
The audience seemed to be more than happy with the band's skilled playing and tasty music. One and a half hour in set included only a few songs fr m his last album, Tough.
The reason why Mayall has never risen to the same super-stardom as many of his disciples, however, is clear: man has (at least in my opinion) very little stage presence. To see and hear the man is, of course, experience, fantastic evening of great music.
The man is already 69 years old. The tour program is tight. Let's hope that he´s gonna be still going strong for years to come. And if he still occasionally comes to play somewhere where the journey to see him is less than 100 km (it was now only about 40 km) I sure want to go. Check the tour schedule and find out the nearest town to see and hear one of the living legends of the blues!
