LOS ANGELES (US) (AFP) – John Mayall, the British blues pioneer who founded the 1960s musical collective The Bluesbreakers, ushered in a rich era for rock and launched the world into guitarists such as Eric Clapton, has died aged 90, his family said on Tuesday.
Mr. Mayall, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who was called the “godfather of British blues” and whose open arrangements saw masters of the genre honing their craft with him and his band, “died peacefully at his home in California” on Monday, the statement posted on his Facebook page said.
The cause of death has not been revealed.
“The health problems that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally brought peace to one of the world’s greatest road warriors,” the statement said. “For 90 years, John Mayall worked tirelessly to educate, enlighten and entertain us.”
Mayall’s influence on rock music since the 1960s is immeasurable. Members of the Bluesbreakers would later join or form many groups, including Cream, Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones.
In 1963, at the age of 30, Mayall moved to London from the north of England. Sensing a revolution in the air, he abandoned his career as a graphic designer and pursued the blues, a musical style that had originated in black America.
He teamed up with a succession of younger guitarists, including Clapton, Peter Green, who would later become a member of Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor, who helped form the Rolling Stones.
A backstage portrait of British musicians John McVie, Colin Allen, Mick Taylor and John Mayall pose backstage at Park West in Chicago, Illinois, June 13, 1982. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
Stones frontman Mick Jagger described Mayall as “a great pioneer of British blues.”
“He had a great eye for spotting talented young musicians, including Mick Taylor, who he recommended to me after Brian Jones passed away and ushered in a new era for the Stones,” Mick Jagger wrote on social media platform X.
With his 1966 Bluesbreakers debut album, Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, John Mayall enthralled music lovers with his blend of soulful rock and gutsy, guitar-driven American blues, featuring covers of songs by Robert Johnson, Otis Rush and Ray Charles.
The blues music he was playing in British venues was “a novelty for the largely white British public”, he told AFP in 1997.
The album was a hit, catapulting Clapton to stardom and sparking a wave of popularity for more raw, personal blues music.
Mayall moved to California in 1968 and toured the United States extensively in 1972.
He recorded a number of groundbreaking albums in the 1960s, including “Crusade,” “A Hard Road” and “Blues From Laurel Canyon.” Dozens more albums followed in the 1970s, and he released his latest album, “The Sun Is Shining Down,” in 2022.
Mr Mayall was awarded the OBE, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in 2005.
