John Mayall, influential British blues pioneer, dies aged 90

John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died aged 90.

A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page said the musician died Monday at his home in California.

“Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.

Mayall is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s.

At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Taylor, who played for five years with the Rolling Stones, Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.

Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.

“I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”

Although Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s.

“I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.”

Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for Wake Up Call which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album The Sun Is Shining Down and was made an OBE in 2005.

He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton is considered one of the best British blues albums.

Born on November 29, 1933, in Macclesfield, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favourite pub was.”

His father also played guitar and banjo, and his records of boogie-woogie piano captivated his teenage son.

Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — a year on the left hand, a year on the right, “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”

The piano was his main instrument, though he also performed on guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a distinctive, strained-sounding voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played all the other instruments for his 1967 album Blues Alone.

Mayall was often called the “father of British blues,” but when he moved to London in 1962 he aimed to soak up the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon were among others drawn to the sound.

The Bluesbreakers drew on a fluid community of musicians who drifted in and out of various bands.

Mayall’s 1968 album Blues from Laurel Canyon signalled a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.

The 1970s found Mayall a low ebb personally, but still touring and doing more than 100 shows a year.

In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the personnel changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.