BLUESBREAKERS
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of "Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton" (1966).
Decca released the LP in Britain on 22 July 1966, literally days after Clapton left the Bluesbreakers and just a week before Cream's launch. “Bluesbreakers” reached number 6 on the UK album charts – no mean feat for a band that had never had a hit single. The LP acquired such myth-like status that it’s easy to forget that it was only Mayall’s third best-selling album of the 1960s – a decade in which he released ten LPs, of which six reached the UK Top Ten LPs chart.
‘British blues’
“Bluesbreakers” was produced by Mike Vernon, who later set up the Blue Horizon label. Vernon produced albums for a large number of British blues stars during the late 1960's, including Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown and Duster Bennett.
“Bluesbreakers” had a major influence on the British blues 'movement'
The new wave of British blues bands, formed after 1966 highlighted individual virtuosity – especially of their lead guitarists and keyboard players:
· Cream featured Eric Clapton
· Fleetwood Mac featured Peter Green and slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer
· Free was led by guitarist Paul Kossoff
· Guitarist Alvin Lee led Ten Years After
· The Animals featured Alan Price on keyboards, Eric Burdon vocals
· The Spencer Davies Group had Steve Winwood on keyboards, guitar and vocals
Each band retained blues or rhythm and blues standards in its repertoire. For example, seven of “Bluesbreakers” twelve tracks are covers of existing blues or R&B songs:
· “All Your Love” (Otish Rush)
· “Hideaway” (Freddie King / Sonny Thompson)
· “What’d I Say” (Ray Charles)
· “Parchman Farm (Mose Alison)
· “Ramblin’ On My Mind” (Robert Johnson)
· “Steppin’ Out (L. C. Frazier) 2:30
· “It Ain’t Right” (Little Water) 2: 42
The covers on Bluesbreakers were very true to the originals. For example, Clapton’s version of Otish Rush’s “All Your Love” follows the original almost note-for note:
· OTIS RUSH (1958) “ALL YOUR LOVE” Cobra (single)
· BLUESBREAKERS “ALL YOUR LOVE”
Additionally, band members began to write their own songs that were neither blues nor pop. They were called ‘blues-rock’ and started a distinction between ‘pop’ and ‘rock’ that would persist for years. Here’s Mayall’s “Key to Love”
· BLUESBREAKERS “KEY TO LOVE”
Not all of Mayall’s originals broke free of the blues, however. His “Another man” was clearly written by a man who’s listed to a lot of blues harp player Sonny Boy Williamson.
· BLUESBREAKERS “ANOTHER MAN”
· SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON “BYE BYE BIRD” (1963) Checker (single)
Indeed, when Mayall performed the Williamson original, he did more with it than his own original!
· JOHN MAYALL “BYE BYE BIRD” (1966?) from “Live at the BBC” (2007) Decca; also on the expanded “Bluesbreakers” album released in 2007.
When British blues bands started to tour the USA, they promoted a resurgence of interest there in ‘original’ blues:
· Young American blues fans ‘rediscovered’ accoustic blues musicians from the 1920s and 1930s, such as Son House, Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt, who became popular performers on the folk circuit.
· Electric blues musicians from the 1940s and 1950s, such as Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and B. B. King, suddenly saw their declining careers – and fees - take an unexpected upturn as they played to white, middle class teenagers and were praised by white guitar legends such as Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield. The Rolling Stones and Cream hired original blues artists to open their shows.
‘Authenticity’
Blues has always featured two mutually-reinforcing ideals:
· Expressiveness. The romantic ideal that performers ‘express’ themselves through the music they perform.
· BLUESBREAKERS “DOUBLE CROSSING TIME”
Hendrix often stripped back all the electronic tricks and techniques when playing ‘traditional’ blues such as ‘Red House’ or ‘Hear my train a-comin’’ (only recorded accoustic?).
· Interpretation. The ideal in oral cultures that a performer’s performance of material matters more than its originality. For example, many blues songs are collections of stock phrases – both musical and lyrical – given new life by the particular musician’s interpretation of them.
· BLUESBREAKERS “RAMBLIN’ ON MY MIND
· BUKKA WHITE (1940) “PARCHMAN FARM BLUES” Okeh.
· MOSE ALISON “PARCHMAN FARM” (1957) from Local Color (Prestige) (Original: Bukka White [1940] Okeh.)
· BLUESBREAKERS “PARCHMAN FARM”
Recorded blues added a third ideal which could conflict with the first two:
· Accuracy. The technical ideal of reproducing accurately the ambience of ‘the concert hall’ and of a musician’s performance in it.
No surprise, then that Mayall originally intended that “Bluesbreakers” - his second LP - should be a live album. A set was recorded at the Flamingo Club, but the recordings were too poor (‘technically’) for release.
The emergence of electric blues in Chicago (was it controversial there?) to the ‘Muddy Waters UK tours’ story and to Dylan’s electric set at Newport.
You’d better move on
Despite the late 1960s blues revival in the USA, soul music was the contemporary music of much of young, black America, for whom blues just wasn’t ‘relevant’ to the new assertive black consciousness. For Nelson George (1989 The Death of Rhythm & Blues. E. P. Dutton.), that cultural gap in the late 1960s between blues and soul derived from an essential difference between black and white cultures in the USA:
The black audience’s consumerism and restlessness burns out and abandons musical styles, whereas white Americans, in the European tradition of supporting forms and styles for the sake of tradition, seem to hold styles dear long after they have ceased to evolve. ... Blacks create and then move on. Whites document and then recycle. (p108)
The Rolling Stones had been part of the boom in British blues and R & B almost from its start and while blues and R & B dominated their first two albums. Here’s their version of Jimmy Reed’s “I’m A King Bee” from their first LP (“The Rolling Stones”) in 1964:
· ROLLING STONES “I’M A KING BEE” (1964) The Rolling Stones. Decca.
By their third LP - ‘Out of Our Heads’ (1965) – they’d moved on from blues to soul. Alongside Jagger & Richard songs such “Heart of Stone” and “I’m Free” were their versions of Solomon Burke’s “Cry To Me”, Otis Redding’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is”, Don Covay’s “Mercy, Mercy” and Marvin Gaye’s “Hitch Hike”.
· ROLLING STONES (1965) “HITCH HIKE” Out of Our Heads. Decca.
... and finally
“Bluesbreakers’ launched Clapton’s career as ‘guitar hero, even though by the LP’s release, he’d left the band to form Cream.
His combination of a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and a 1962 45-watt Marshall amplifier turned up full) would influence countless guitarist ... and boost the flagging sales of the Gibson Standard! We can see the beginnings in “Steppin’ Out” (credited to L. C. Frazier, a.k.a Pete Chatman, a.k.a. Memphis Slim. Released 1959 on Vee-Jay.)
· BLUESBREAKERS “STEPPIN’ OUT”
Clapton’s Gibson/Marshall set-up
It was notable for its driving rhythms and Clapton's rapid blues licks with a full – even distorted – sound. He plugged a sunburst 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar into a 45-watt model 1962 Marshall 2x12 combo amplifier turned up full. The result was a thick, overdriven sound with tremendous sustain. This particular combination led to the electric guitar becoming a distinctive characteristic of ‘British blues’; and it would become a classic combination for British blues (and later rock) guitarists.
The guitar had with two PAF (literally: Patent Applied For) “Humbucking” pick-ups. “Humbucking” pickups reduced the hum often associated with electric guitars. They used a pair of coils arranged in parallel with opposing polarities. This innovation in pickups debuted on Les Pauls in 1957 and became the flagship pickup design most associated with Gibson. Many other guitar companies followed suit, outfitting their electrics with versions of the humbucking pickup.
In 2012 Gibson issued a replica of the 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard, calling it the ‘The Gibson Custom Shop Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul’ and emphasising that it had been created ‘with the close personal cooperation of the artist, and with painstaking reference to available photographs.’
‘Eric Clapton’s first record with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers was the single “I’m Your Witchdoctor.” A limited edition single and the trendsetting sole LP followed shortly thereafter. ... Producer Jimmy Page added TONS of reverb to Clapton’s solos, making them even more soaring and fiery than they already were. For example, right after Mayall’s “Got my eye on you...” Clapton lets loose with a ferocious solo with constantly repeated finger vibrato that foreshadows the track one could hold responsible for heavy metal - Cream’s “Cat’s Squirrel.”
Side One
“All Your Love” (Otis Rush) – 3:36
“Hideaway” (Freddie King / Sonny Thompson) – 3:17 (interpolates “The Walk”
by Jimmy McCracklin – as did King’s original)
“Little Girl” (Mayall) – 2:37
"Another Man" (Mayall) – 1:45
"Double Crossing Time" (Clapton/Mayall) – 3:04
“What’d I Say” (Ray Charles) – 4:29 (interpolates “Day Tripper” by Lennon &
McCartney)
Side Two
"Key to Love" (Mayall) – 2:09
“Parchman Farm” (Mose Allison) 2:24
"Have You Heard" (Mayall) – 5:56
“Ramblin’ On My Mind” (Robert Johnson / Traditional) 3:10
“Steppin’ Out (L. C. Frazier, a.k.a Mmphis Slim, a.k.a. Pete Chatman) 2:30
“It Ain’t Right” (Little Water) 2: 42
Recorded: March 1966 at Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London.
Released: 22 July 1966 on Decca in the UK and London in the USA
Musicians:
John Mayall – lead vocals, piano, Hammond B3 organ, harmonica
Eric Clapton – guitar (lead vocals on "Ramblin' on My Mind")
John McVie – bass guitar
Hughie Flint - drums
Additional musicians
Alan Skidmore – tenor saxophone John Almond – baritone saxophone
Derek Healey – trumpet
Jack Bruce – bass (disc two tracks 14–19, not on the original album)
Geoff Krivit – guitar (disc two tracks 8–10, not on the original album)
Production
Mike Vernon - producer
Gus Dudgeon – engineer
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