A quarter of a century can change the landscape of the blues considerably. The last time I saw John Mayall was roughly a quarter of a century ago. He was still leading a version of the Bluesbreakers with Texan guitarist Buddy Whittington, and the blues existed in a rather different landscape. B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and Otis Rush were still alive and active on the concert circuit. Many of the musicians who had created the language were still around to speak it themselves.
Twenty-five years later, a lot of those voices are gone. John Mayall, remarkably, is still here.
At 85, he walks onto the Bataclan stage as one of the remaining direct links to a period when British musicians were absorbing American blues records and introducing that music to an entirely new audience. His résumé alone could fill the room. The Bluesbreakers gave early platforms to Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya and Buddy Whittington, among many others, while Mayall's own discography stretches back more than half a century.
At 85, he walks onto the Bataclan stage as one of the remaining direct links to a period when British musicians were absorbing American blues records and introducing that music to an entirely new audience. His résumé alone could fill the room. The Bluesbreakers gave early platforms to Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya and Buddy Whittington, among many others, while Mayall's own discography stretches back more than half a century.
But history isn't what fills the Bataclan with noise tonight. People are drinking, shouting and dancing. There is no sense of attending a solemn tribute to a fading musical form. The blues is doing exactly what it was designed to do, turning trouble into rhythm and bringing people together for a good time.
Mayall has another excellent band to make sure of that. Greg Rzab is on bass, Jay Davenport on drums, and the newest arrival is Carolyn Wonderland on lead guitar. Given the guitarists who have occupied that position before her, joining John Mayall's band comes with some intimidating baggage. Wonderland wisely seems uninterested in carrying any of it.
Mayall has another excellent band to make sure of that. Greg Rzab is on bass, Jay Davenport on drums, and the newest arrival is Carolyn Wonderland on lead guitar. Given the guitarists who have occupied that position before her, joining John Mayall's band comes with some intimidating baggage. Wonderland wisely seems uninterested in carrying any of it.
The Texas-born guitarist has her own sound, her own attack and plenty of personality. Her solos draw some of the night's biggest reactions, but she is just as effective filling the spaces between Mayall's vocals or adding a short phrase at exactly the right moment. She can play with finesse, then dig in and get dirty when the music opens up. By the end of the evening, comparisons with former Bluesbreakers guitarists have become irrelevant. Carolyn Wonderland is a formidable blues guitarist in her own right, and the Bataclan responds accordingly.
Mayall remains a wonderfully unpretentious bandleader. He moves between keyboards, guitar and harmonica, singing in that instantly recognizable voice and leaving enormous amounts of room for the musicians around him. At 85, a comfortable greatest-hits set would be entirely understandable. Instead, the show reaches across decades and makes room for material from the excellent new album Nobody Told Me, released only a couple of months ago.
Two of the night's most affecting songs reach back more than thirty years to Chicago Line. "One Life to Live", inspired by Mayall's military service in Korea, inevitably carries a different weight when sung by a man looking back across eight and a half decades. "Gimme One More Day" revisits his struggle with alcohol. Both songs have accumulated history along with their singer.
Then comes "Mail Order Mystics", the Chris Smither song the Bluesbreakers recorded on 1993's Wake Up Call. The band stretches it into a bluesy, funky, hard-rocking and increasingly psychedelic ten-minute jam, with guitar, harmonica, keyboards, bass and drums all getting room to breathe. The song becomes a framework for five musicians to listen, react and push one another, the solos growing naturally out of the groove rather than interrupting it. For ten minutes, the entire history lesson disappears and the Bataclan simply becomes a very sweaty blues club.
Then comes "Mail Order Mystics", the Chris Smither song the Bluesbreakers recorded on 1993's Wake Up Call. The band stretches it into a bluesy, funky, hard-rocking and increasingly psychedelic ten-minute jam, with guitar, harmonica, keyboards, bass and drums all getting room to breathe. The song becomes a framework for five musicians to listen, react and push one another, the solos growing naturally out of the groove rather than interrupting it. For ten minutes, the entire history lesson disappears and the Bataclan simply becomes a very sweaty blues club.
That moment also says plenty about Mayall's role in the music. His contribution to the blues can be measured in records, but also in the musicians who have passed through his bands. Clapton, Green, Taylor, Trout, Montoya and Whittington all came through that revolving door. Mayall gave them room to play, and they carried what they learned into their own music. Now Carolyn Wonderland is standing beside him at the Bataclan, adding another name to a remarkable lineage.
The scene outside the performance itself may say even more. Before the concert, Mayall sits at a table signing records, selling merchandise, posing for photographs and talking to people. After the concert, he's back there doing exactly the same thing. There is remarkably little distance between the legendary musician onstage and the people who have come to hear him.
At 85 years old, John Mayall is still playing, still introducing audiences to musicians and still passing the blues along. For more than half a century he has been a performer, bandleader, talent scout, transmitter and ambassador. The chain remains unbroken.
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