John Mayall - Room To Move (2006)



Video: PAL, MPEG-2 at 6 000 Kbps, 720 x 576 (1.333) at 25.000 fps | Audio: AC-3 6 channels at 448 Kbps, 48.0 KHz
Genre: Blues | Label: All Stars Nl | Copy: Untouched | Release Date: 18 Sep 2006 | Runtime: 68 min. | 3,29 GB (DVD5)
A live DVD featuring the Godfather of Blues, John Mayall, here backed by fine
musicians like Coco Montoya and the extraordinary Walter Trout.
As the elder statesman of British blues, it is John Mayall's lot to be
more renowned as a bandleader and mentor than as a performer in his own
right. Throughout the '60s, his band, the Bluesbreakers, acted as a
finishing school for the leading British blues-rock musicians of the
era. Guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor joined his
band in a remarkable succession in the mid-'60s, honing their chops with
Mayall before going on to join Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and the Rolling
Stones, respectively. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, Jack Bruce, Aynsley
Dunbar, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser (of Free), John Almond, and
Jon Mark also played and recorded with Mayall for varying lengths of
times in the '60s.
Mayall's personnel has tended to overshadow his own considerable
abilities. Only an adequate singer, the multi-instrumentalist was adept
in bringing out the best in his younger charges (Mayall himself was in
his thirties by the time the Bluesbreakers began to make a name for
themselves). Doing his best to provide a context in which they could
play Chicago-style electric blues, Mayall was never complacent, writing
most of his own material (which ranged from good to humdrum), revamping
his lineup with unnerving regularity, and constantly experimenting
within his basic blues format. Some of these experiments (with jazz-rock
and an album on which he played all the instruments except drums) were
forgettable; others, like his foray into acoustic music in the late
'60s, were quite successful. Mayall's output has caught some flak from
critics for paling next to the real African-American deal, but much of
his vintage work -- if weeded out selectively -- is quite strong;
especially his legendary 1966 LP with Eric Clapton, which both launched
Clapton into stardom and kick-started the blues boom into full gear in
England. When Clapton joined the Bluesbreakers in 1965, Mayall had
already been recording for a year, and been performing professionally
long before that. Originally based in Manchester, Mayall moved to London
in 1963 on the advice of British blues godfather Alexis Korner, who
thought a living could be made playing the blues in the bigger city.
Tracing a path through his various lineups of the '60s is a daunting
task. At least 15 different editions of the Bluesbreakers were in
existence from January 1963 through mid-1970. Some notable musicians
(like guitarist Davy Graham, Mick Fleetwood, and Jack Bruce) passed
through for little more than a cup of coffee; Mayall's longest-running
employee, bassist John McVie, lasted about four years. the
Bluesbreakers, like Fairport Convention or the Fall, was more a concept
than an ongoing core. Mayall, too, had the reputation of being a
difficult and demanding employer, willing to give musicians their
walking papers as his music evolved, although he also imparted
invaluable schooling to them while the associations lasted. Mayall
recorded his debut single in early 1964; he made his first album, a live
affair, near the end of the year. At this point the Bluesbreakers had a
more pronounced R&B influence than would be exhibited on their most
famous recordings, somewhat in the mold of younger combos like the
Animals and Rolling Stones, but the Bluesbreakers would take a turn for
the purer with the recruitment of Eric Clapton in the spring of 1965.
Clapton had left the Yardbirds in order to play straight blues, and the
Bluesbreakers allowed him that freedom (or stuck to well-defined
restrictions, depending upon your viewpoint). Clapton began to inspire
reverent acclaim as one of Britain's top virtuosos, as reflected in the
famous "Clapton is God" graffiti that appeared in London in the
mid-'60s.
In professional terms, though, 1965 wasn't the best of times for the
group, which had been dropped by Decca. Clapton even left the group for a
few months for an odd trip to Greece, leaving Mayall to straggle on
with various fill-ins, including Peter Green. Clapton did return in late
1965, around the time an excellent blues-rock single, "I'm Your
Witchdoctor" (with searing sustain-laden guitar riffs), was issued on
Immediate. By early 1966, the band was back on Decca, and recorded its
landmark Bluesbreakers LP. This was the album that, with its clean,
loud, authoritative licks, firmly established Clapton as a guitar hero,
on both reverent covers of tunes by the likes of Otis Rush and Freddie
King and decent originals by Mayall himself. The record was also an
unexpected commercial success, making the Top Ten in Britain. From that
point on, in fact, Mayall became one of the first rock musicians to
depend primarily upon the LP market; he recorded plenty of singles
throughout the '60s, but none of them came close to becoming a hit.
Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in mid-1966 to form Cream with Jack
Bruce, who had played with Mayall briefly in late 1965. Mayall turned
quickly to Peter Green, who managed the difficult feat of stepping into
Clapton's shoes and gaining respect as a player of roughly equal
imagination and virtuosity, although his style was quite distinctly his
own. Green recorded one LP with Mayall, A Hard Road, and several
singles, sometimes writing material and taking some respectable lead
vocals. Green's talents, like those of Clapton, were too large to be
confined by sideman status, and in mid-1967 he left to form a successful
band of his own, Fleetwood Mac.
Mayall then enlisted 19-year-old Mick Taylor; remarkably, despite the
consecutive departures of two star guitarists, Mayall maintained a high
level of popularity. The late '60s were also a time of considerable
experimentation for the Bluesbreakers, which moved into a form of
blues-jazz-rock fusion with the addition of a horn section, and then a
retreat into mellower, acoustic-oriented music. Mick Taylor, the last of
the famous triumvirate of Mayall-bred guitar heroes, left in mid-1969
to join the Rolling Stones. Yet in a way Mayall was thriving more than
ever, as the U.S. market, which had been barely aware of him in the
Clapton era, was beginning to open up for his music. In fact, at the end
of the 1960s, Mayall moved to Los Angeles. Released in 1969, The
Turning Point, a live, all-acoustic affair, was a commercial and
artistic high point.
In America at least, Mayall continued to be pretty popular in the early
'70s. His band was no more stable than ever; at various points some
American musicians flitted in and out of the Bluesbreakers, including
Harvey Mandel, Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor, and Don "Sugarcane"
Harris. Although he's released numerous albums since and remained a
prodigiously busy and reasonably popular live act, his post-1970 output
generally hasn't matched the quality of his '60s work. Following
collaborations with an unholy number of guest celebrities, in the early
'80s he re-teamed with a couple of his more renowned vets, John McVie
and Mick Taylor, for a tour, which was chronicled by Great American
Music's Blues Express, released in 2010. It's the '60s albums that you
want, though there's little doubt that Mayall has over the past decades
done a great deal to popularize the blues all over the globe, whether or
not the music has meant much on record.

Artists:
- John Mayall: Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica
- Coco Montoya: Guitar, Vocals
- Walter Trout: Guitar

Tracklist:
01. Birthday Blues
02. Rolling With The Blues
03. I'm Your Witchdoctor
04. Parchman Farm
05. Lost And Gone
06. Riding On The L.N.
07. John Lee Boogie
08. Little Girl
09. Why Worry
10. It Ain't Right
11. Stepping Out (Instrumental)
12. Roadshow
13. Room To Move
14. One Life To Live
15. Blues Lightning

Extra:
- Biographies

Features:
- Direct Scene Access
- Interactive Menu







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