On July 22, 2024 we lost John Mayall, the godfather of British blues.
The tributes are pouring in from rock-and-roll’s most famous, pivotal pathbreakers such as Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Jagger and others, for whom Mayall’s band The Blues Breakers served as the seminal woodshed factory in which they created that unmistakable sound known as the British Blues Boom.
It was the sound of Chicago Blues via white British boys who learned to sing in soulful American while weeping the blues on their guitars. It was pure magic. It was electric.
Literally.
The original acoustic guitar of the Mississippi Delta Blues had given way to the electric guitar as people migrated further north. Thinner strings bent pliantly, and the guitar began to cry like a human being. Guitar solos grew longer and electronic effects made an appearance.
The stories were still of pain and suffering, loss and longing, because that’s essentially what the blues are all about, but the references were urban and dealt with city life.
The music couldn’t be contained. It flew across the shores of America and reached the ears of John Mayall in England. It irrevocably changed him and the course of rock and roll as we know it.
The legion of today’s British rock and roll legends who cut their teeth on Mayall’s careful nurturing and his far-reaching vision include Jack Bruce, Peter Green, Paul Butterfield and Mick Taylor, to name only a few. The list is almost endless since Mayall’s uncommonly lengthy career lasted an astonishing 70 years. I guess you’d have to be British. It’s in the genes.
The first of Mayall’s some 70 albums was called ‘Blues Breakers, John Mayall with Eric Clapton.’ Affectionately called The Beano Album (because you see Clapton reading a comic book named Beano), it was the beginning of a guitar-led, blues rock revolution that reached in and grabbed the soul of a new generation all over the world.
It wasn’t music that they played on the radio in India. It wasn’t Cliff Richard. It wasn’t the antics of Chuck Berry or the coolth of Elvis, it was something entirely different. It was pure, filled with heart and it spoke to everyone who was listening. The year was 1966. I was only 11 and didn’t know my future was being written by someone I would never meet.
It wasn’t until about 1973 that I first heard what would eventually become my defining introduction to the blues and everything-else-rock-and-roll, from one Babu Joseph, the lead singer of India’s most famous band at the time, The Human Bondage. They were playing at The Cellar, a disco/restaurant in Delhi’s Connaught Place.
He was singing ‘Laurel Canyon Home’ (from the album Blues From Laurel Canyon) in a plaintive, clear, very musical and precise wail that echoed John Mayall. When he finished singing, he would pick up a blues harp, bending the notes and trilling. Suresh Shottam, the band’s fiery guitar player (whom I eventually married) had already channeled Eric Clapton, with every flourish, every harmonic, and every blues ending. That all important blues ending which some bands can extend for several minutes.
That song has special significance.
Mayall had moved to the US and was living in legendary Laurel Canyon where some of his neighbours were Mama Cass, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Carole King, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Harry Nilsson… I need to take a breath.
It is incredible to realise just how many rock-and-roll legends lived so close to each other in that hilly area. I feel they must have pissed in the waters or discovered some other method of transmitting genius, because it’s quite unreal to count the number of hit records that came from Laurel Canyon.
This is a tribute to John Mayall. But does it matter that I first heard his music second-hand? Covered by a band from India? A band that I would ultimately join? Life is weird.
In the early 70s in India, the latest releases from the US and the UK didn’t make their way to their devoted audiences in the subcontinent unless you had connections with people who travelled abroad. American and British albums weren’t sold in the shops. Reading between the lines, it means you needed to be connected to wealth to hear the latest music.
Xerxes Gobhai, who played bass in Human Bondage was one such lucky dude. His sister Shireen studied at Mills College in California and her trips back home ensured that her brother and his band were always nourished with the latest music.
Then came the wave of hippies who quickly cottoned on that new albums were gold in India. They dotted Connaught Place, learning how to meditate, in their jholas and chappals while swapping albums for cash. It was a groovy time.
One way or another, HB always covered new music within a few months of its release. It was a badge of honour. And I came to understand first-hand that they were original compliant in every possible way. Mostly.
Music and melody are easy enough to copy, but lyrics are another thing altogether. Very often (in the pre-cassette era) you made your best guess with the words, because the accent was incomprehensible. There’s a word for singing the wrong lyric. It’s mondegreen. All cover bands in India were guilty of it at one time or another.
I first heard honest-to-goodness, genuine, almost the real thing, ultra loud John Mayall at The Cellar where rock and roll ruled. It sounded other-worldly. ‘Looking back a century, I look at where I stand. It must have looked the same as when Apache’s roamed the land.’ I instantly knew that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing rock and roll like Babu. Like John Mayall.
This is a version of Walking on Sunset by Human Bondage, a live recording from 1974.
And this is the original Mayall version from 1968.
So you will agree that it’s perfectly natural I quit college, broke my parents’ heart and joined the band. It’s not a decision I regret. I thank John Mayall for all the music. And Babu too.
Radha Thomas is a jazz singer who started out singing rock and roll. She is also an author.
