“This is Keith” is a pretty mundane phrase, but when you answer your phone and you hear those three simple words growled at you by the most distinguished rhythm guitarist of all time, they make a lasting impression.

The 30-minute interview that follows is no less impactful. Even at 82 years old, Keith Richards is in devilish form, prone to laughing hysterically at his own jokes, dropping clusters of F-bombs, mocking some of GW’s more naive questions and generally behaving like the snaggle-toothed Captain Jack Sparrow caricature that all Rolling Stones fans recognize and appreciate.

Talking to him, you don’t feel like you’re in the company of some godlike rock star; you feel like you’re backstage at a Stones show, laughing it up over life’s more surreal and stupid moments.

Still, Richards, who was infamously labeled “mad, bad and dangerous to know” more than half a century ago – and with good reason (you already know the coke, heroin and switchblade anecdotes) – is a mellower character these days than the terrifying Glimmer Twin persona of decades past.

He’s a well-spoken fellow; you can still hear traces of the suburban London accent that he shares with his fellow Stone Mick Jagger as he talks enthusiastically and at length about all things guitar.

He’s a committed lover of his instrument – almost literally, by the sound of it – and is especially keen to discuss his latest signature model, the Gibson Keith Richards 1960 ES-355 Collector's Edition.

Built by hand at Gibson’s custom shop in Nashville and available in a limited run of 150 units, 50 of which are signed on the F-hole label and headstock and 100 on the label only, this guitar comes in at a marriage-destroying $29,999 and $19,999 respectively, in other words too expensive for you and me; well, maybe you but definitely me.

The point of the new ES-355 model is that Richards’ original, which has been 3D-scanned by Gibson to make the new version a millimetrically identical copy, occupies a rare spot in guitar history; he used it (among other guitars) to record the Stones’ seminal Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. albums in 1971 and ’72, and has played it on every Stones tour since 1997. If you ever get your hands on one, count yourself lucky.

The same adjective applies to Richards himself. He’s still in pretty good shape despite an early-career adherence to the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle that few could possibly survive; he’s an acknowledged legend in his own lifetime; and he still wants to be better at what he does.

I was expecting him to be pretty jaded at the prospect of yet another guitar-related interview, but the opposite turned out to be true. You’ll enjoy the chat that follows, even if your relationship with your instrument isn’t quite as intimate as his.

Hello, Keith. Are you at home in Connecticut?

I am, yes. We’re absolutely snowed in. Nobody can get here except a man with a snowplow. He’s working away right now. I quite like it, because it means I can’t get out.

This new Gibson ES-355 of yours is pretty tasty, isn’t it?

Yeah, yeah! What a surprise, and what a fuckin’ honor. I tell you, when they came at me with this one, I was like, “How can I refuse?” It was a shock to me at first, because when I started, the idea of even owning a Gibson was pretty much out of the picture.

There are only 150 of them. How many of them are Gibson giving you?

Oh look, I have enough guitars already.

Is it true you have 3,000 guitars in your personal collection?

It’s something like that. You can call my guitar man, Pierre de Beauport, if you want the exact number, but it’s around there. But it’s not like I go around buying them or anything; a lot of these guitars have been given to me. I’ve never seen them all.

I actually only use about… well, the working number is about 15 guitars in the rack, for different sounds and whatever. But the other 2,900, I don’t know. They’re taken care of, though. I mean, this is a prime collection.

You’re known for putting groove into your playing and hanging back behind the beat.

It’s actually nothing you can put into words, because it’s just the way I feel the rhythm. I always say that I can only do this because I’ve been blessed with the best drummers in the world. I have the luxury of knowing that the guy knows what he’s doing, you know.

Were you the first guitar player to bring that swing to rock music?

Well, if you think about it, it’s the other way around. Rock music came out of swing music. You listen to any of the old ’30s and ’40s big bands, they’re playing as much rock ’n’ roll as Bill Haley or Little Richard. The essence of a lot of it was in those big bands and their rhythm sections.

You played with Chuck Berry in the ’80s. What was he like?

Chuck, as a person, was an ornery old fucker – a lovable, ornery old fucker.

Why do you admire his guitar playing?

The same thing you’re talking about; there was something about the way he used that rhythm behind the drums that, to me, was fascinating. He said to me, “I was just playing with the right guys, [bassist] Willie Dixon and [pianist] Johnnie Johnson.” And that’s the way I feel about the way I play – lucky to play with the right guys.

We’re talking about a mysterious thing, a thing called feel, a thing called groove. Luckily you can’t put your finger on it, you know. But I try! [Laughs]

Is the way you weave lead and rhythm parts playing with Ronnie Wood an unspoken thing?

Oh, absolutely. There’s something between us. It was the same with me and with Mick Taylor, and also with Brian Jones, back at the beginning. You’d meet the right guys and automatically they knew that “You take over here, I’ll come in underneath,” and there was a beautiful little ballet going on. That’s amazing, and that’s what makes it worth doing, you know – this interconnection between musicians.

When it works, it seems almost telepathic.

Yeah, it is kinda telepathic, in a way. I suppose. You can put that word on it. [Shouts] Ronnie! [Laughs] And it’s something you don’t wanna fuck with. Once it’s there, you don’t talk about it amongst yourselves. It’s an unspoken reliance upon each other, which is a beautiful thing.

You mentioned Brian Jones, who we rarely discuss as a guitarist. What was his playing like?

Personally, he was the first steel slide player I heard. His middle name could have been Elmore, because he used to just play Elmore James stuff. He was really, really in front of that game, and that’s what I really admired about him when we first started playing together.

This band was started by a piano player, Ian Stewart, and he had Brian with him. Once I heard Brian playing Elmore James, I thought, “I’ve found a guy here who I can mess with,” and then we got into Jimmy Reed stuff and, of course, Muddy Waters, all of that… I wouldn’t call it a university education. [Laughs]

Have you ever played with a guitarist who couldn’t groove?

I very rarely play with stiffs! I’ve been lucky to play with the best. Listen, I’ve played with the guys I grew up listening to. Little Richard, Scotty Moore. Jesus Christ, should I go on? [Laughs]

Did you know John Mayall?

I had great admiration for John. He was such a scholarly guy about it. John was sort of a shadowy figure. A lot of those guys came out of the folk music scene, as it was known at the time, because for some weird reason in those early years, there were hierarchies between traditional jazz and folk music.

You know, people got fussy about shit. Anyway, it was amazing to me that these guys were dying to play music that comes from thousands of miles away and that it resonated with them. Therefore the resonation continues; music is about resonation.

Did you like the British folk guitarists?

Yeah, I did listen to them, and they were good pickers, you know. Wizz Jones used to come round to my house and hang out for a few free cigarettes and show you a lick or two. Do you remember Wizz Jones? He was an incredible guy. I really actually admired those guys. Bert Jansch was fuckin’ amazing. And unrecognized, really, for how great they were.

When you got into open-G tuning on five strings, it seemed to change your whole view of guitar playing.

It did, actually, and anybody that tries to get into it, it changes their fucking mind, too. [Laughs] Because it is a really strange setup, especially if you’re used to six-string guitars.

You have to reconfigure everything, and you realize you’ve restricted yourself to five strings and three open notes [GDGBD], you know. You have to learn to play the chords. I figured it out. It’s still fascinating. I’m still rambling around in there, looking for stuff.

Is the objective of the partial chords you often play to strip the music down?

Yeah, basically, because with five strings in open G, your bottom string is a G, so you’re immediately stripping away a whole load of possibilities of being Jimi Hendrix. [Laughs]

Also, if you get into it, you find a million other things people haven’t explored before, or at least, very few of us have. For me, it started off as an interesting sort of experiment and then I suddenly found that, hey, this is the stuff.

You mentioned Hendrix. Did you ever want to be a virtuoso soloist yourself?

No, I have never really wanted to go down that path. I mean, with solos, I admire the virtuoso and the technique and the nimbleness, but at the end of the day, what are you soloing over? You’re the icing on the cake. And I’m the cake!

So what did you think of the Sunset Strip shredders that got big in the ’80s?

[Laughs] I laughed my fuckin’ head off! Like, “Oh my God, what have we spawned?”

They were skilled players, though.

Yeah, they were good pickers, and they had a hit record here and there, but that’s pop music. Look, as long as you’ve got something to solo over, then go. But that never appealed to me. What appeals to me is what’s going on underneath. What I really do love is two or three guitars playing together, because that’s what fascinates me. Just one guy soloing means nothing much to me. Right?

Do you play fewer notes these days?

Yes, I do, because I’m not as fast as I used to be. [Laughs] I tell you what, at my age, what I find most interesting about the guitar is you can compensate for certain disabilities and nimbleness and find other ways of getting around the problem, and it still teaches you another thing – you never stop learning with the damn thing. I love it and it’s my friend forever. If I had to, I’d fuck it.

Noted. Are your hands holding up OK at age 82?

Well, I do have arthritis and very large knuckles. They don’t hurt, but it does get in the way sometimes. I’m going for a wider fingerboard for that reason.

Do you warm your hands up before a show?

I sit on ’em. No, I do have one of those hand pumps, you know. I’m really lax, quite honestly. I just look at my hands and my hands look at me, and we say, “Well, let’s see what we can do today.” And that’s the way I play guitar. I look at it and I say, “We’ve got nothing else to do. Come here. I love you!” [Laughs]

What’s your favorite song ever?

What, just one? Oh man, you’re sticking me against the wall. You’re killing me here.

It’s what we do.

Yeah! I gotta go with Robert Johnson’s Come On in My Kitchen. It’s all there – originality, everything. It’s fantastic.

And if you could only play one guitar for the rest of your life, which would it be?

Whoa… you’re a firing squad, ain’t ya? I have a little black Gibson looking at me right now, a 1936 acoustic, broken, battered. I’d keep that one with me.

You’ve often said acoustic playing is at the heart of what you do.

Well, you can’t become an electric guitar player without knowing where the damn thing comes from. If you don’t get the basics, where do you think you’re going to end up? [Laughs]

Are you still learning as a guitar player?

Who isn’t? That’s the beauty of the thing. My teacher never stops teaching. I’ve been at it for years now and he still knows more than me.

Have you got any advice for our younger readers about guitar playing?

I cannot give you any advice, kids. If you love the thing and feel like playing it, just dig in and find out yourself. It’s a great pal, and when there’s nothing else around, there’s always a guitar. It becomes a friend, a real deep friend, and also a challenge. It looks at you across the room and leers at you. [Laughs] “Come on, you ain’t got nothing out of me yet.”

It’s been 11 years since your last solo album. Will you do another one?

I’m thinking about it. I never plan these things. [Rolling Stones drummer] Steve Jordan and I were having a chat about it the other day, and usually you start by just saying, “Let’s go in and cut a track or two.” Sometimes that’s what happens, and other times you say, “Hey, here’s another one, and here’s another one.” So I’m not counting it out.

Are you still inspired to write songs?

Oh, God, long may they come. They come out of nowhere. They come out of babies’ mouths, they come out of a car crash; you never know. Everything’s a song.

They say the best songs come when you’re feeling anger and frustration. Is that true in your experience?

Anger and frustration help for a while, but you’ll never make a living at it.

What makes you happy these days?

Well, breathing. [Laughs] No, this winter my grandkids have been around. They’re all ones and twos and threes; it’s fascinating to watch. I’m starting to get the hang of it, you know. Over this winter, they’ve been my inspiration.

What are your goals at this point?

To make it to the next winter!

• For more information on the Keith Richards 1960 ES-355, head to Gibson.com.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty has looked back on Eric Clapton's spell in the band, and reflected on why the blues guitar great left for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

During the 1960s, McCarty played with three of Britain's greatest guitarists under the Yardbirds bracket. Clapton was the first of that trio, and was later to be followed by Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page – both of whom also left to explore other projects.

“They were all learning how to do it,” McCarty says, reflecting on that wild, history-making spell with Guitar Player. “They were all part of the team. We were all trying to play and having good fun playing that sort of music. And they were all very different.”

None of their stays were permanent. Clapton, especially, had his reasons.

“Eric was coming from a difficult upbringing, because he wasn’t really brought up by his parents,” the drummer details. “He was brought up by his grandmother, who he thought was his mother. That gave him a challenged outlook on things, and I think he took the blues up as his personal crusade.

“He was totally dedicated to the blues, and very ambitious. Eric was obviously gonna go somewhere,” McCarty continues. “You knew that, yes, one day he’ll be a big star, ’cause he was driven to do that, and he was getting a reputation while he was playing with us.”

During this period, many British players looked overseas to the Black blues guitarists of America who gave birth to, and pioneered, the genre for inspiration. Clapton was among those doing his homework.

“He used to copy blues solos – Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy or Buddy Guy or somebody – and copy them note for note before he got his own thing going,” McCarty says. “But he loved blues and he was very, very serious about it, even though he did actually mess around quite a lot with us in terms of jokes and funny voices.”

Disharmony crept in, though, with McCarty believing Clapton was unhappy with the band's progress – or lack thereof.

“We were trying to get a hit single. We were quite desperate, actually,” he confesses.

Indeed, Clapton had accused the band of selling out when they agreed to record Graham Gouldman's For Your Love. He jumped ship to Mayall's group, which, as history dictates, also had a knack for making guitar stars who would go on to bigger things.

There was another reason, too. As Clapton reflected after Mayall’s passing last year, his new bandleader “rescued” him when he was on the brink of quitting music entirely.

“My wife has enrolled me in a gym, and I have to go lift weights for an hour after this,” chuckles blues guitarist extraordinaire Walter Trout, the 74-year-old survivor of a drug habit and subsequent rehab that would have defeated any lesser man.

Now committed to a healthy lifestyle and pushing through his sixth decade as a sideman and solo artist, Trout is about to release an album, Sign of the Times (it’s just a coincidence, Prince fans), that’s packed with energy and attitude.

This is partly down to Trout’s irritation at some of the more foolish aspects of modern life – smartphones and AI among them – but also down to his determination not just to enjoy his remaining years, but to make them the best of his life.

His sojourns as a member of Canned Heat (1981-84) and with the late John Mayall (1984-89) were productive, but they were marred by drug and booze habits that led to a near-fatal ill-health episode in 2013. Fortunately, a liver transplant saved his life – and Trout is determined to go out fighting.

It looks like you have a full six months of international live dates coming up.

“I’ll be at the grocery store and someone will say, 'Hey, Walter, are you going on tour?' 'Yeah, I am.' 'Where are you going?' 'I don’t know. They told me to be at Los Angeles airport at 10 tomorrow morning, and from there I don’t know shit!'

“But I’m one of the lucky ones, because I actually love being on the road. You couldn’t do almost six years with John Mayall and not learn to love touring, because that guy was ruthless.”

How ruthless?

“We did one tour that was something like 78 cities in 65 days. We’d do doubles on the weekends – play a festival at 2 in the afternoon, then drive 100 miles and play a club at 10 at night. John would have stayed on the road forever if he could, so you either had to learn to love it or you needed to get a different gig. But I was fine.

“I’d get in the van, have a couple of shots and a joint and just keep going. I don’t even know how to start to talk about the love and the respect I have for John, and how he helped me and nurtured me and supported me when I was a drug addict and an alcoholic, and helped me get sober.”

How’s your health these days?

“On July 9, I hit 38 years sober – and I feel great. I’m 74 and I’m on my second liver, but when I go to the liver clinic at UCLA every six months or so, they always tell me I’m in great shape.”

Oh, by the way – Sign of the Times is great.

“Thanks! I’m very pleased with it, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received by people because, you know, I did 15 albums with the same producer. This time, my wife Marie – who is my partner in crime, she’s managed my career for 33 years – said, ‘Maybe it’s time to do something different and have it sound different. You need to produce yourself. You don’t need somebody saying to you, “Play the solo over again.” You know if you like the solo or not.’”

Which guitars did you play on the album?

“I did the whole record with my Delaney Walter Trout signature model. It plays beautifully and sounds wonderful. I’m taking it on tour. I also have a Delaney in Europe, and my son Jon will be touring with me, so he’s going to be using that. And I have a sunburst Fender Strat that I’ll take as a spare, as well as a couple of acoustics.”

How old is the Strat?

“It’s from the early ’70s. I’ve retired my old Strat, the one that’s on the cover of all my albums. I told my wife that if somebody offered me 10 million bucks for it, I wouldn’t take it. She goes, ‘Well, we may need to talk about that.’ [Laughs]”

Will you have a pedalboard on stage with you?

“No. I go straight into my Mesa/Boogie. As you know, Mesa Boogies have what they call ‘suggested settings.’ Now, for all the bluesers out there, I’m going to tell you my suggested setting. I have it set for death metal.”

You’re kidding, right?

“I’m serious. If I want to clean it up, I just turn the volume down on the guitar. Between about 5 and 10 on the volume knob, it adds overdrive. Listen to the lead solo on Sign of the Times. That’s the death metal setting with the guitar turned all the way up.”

Do you have happy memories of being in Canned Heat?

“I had a great time with Canned Heat. I love those guys. I love Fito de la Parra, the drummer. He’s like a brother to me, and I had the best time touring with those guys. I will say it was a bit of a crazy time, because I was drinking and taking lots of drugs.”

What was your drug of choice?

“Whatever I could get, but it was normally cocaine or crank. At the time, we were managed by – I can’t say their name in print – a well-known biker organization, and the first gig I did with them, these people handed me a mayonnaise jar full of cocaine and said, ‘Welcome to the band.’ So there was a lot of that.

“It was pretty crazy, but it was really fun. I had a great time. I still love those guys. If they come to your town, they still sound great, so go see them.”

When you listen back to your early recordings, how does the guitar playing stand up?

“I think it sounds really good. I saw John Mayall two years ago, when he came to my gig in LA, and I asked him, ‘How did you put up with my insane behavior when I was so drug addicted and so alcoholic?’ He had two answers.

“His first answer was funny. He said, ‘Well, Walter, there was a certain kind of humor to it,’ meaning I was this doped-up fucking clown. But then his serious answer was, ‘No matter how loaded you got, you always seemed to be able to play the music. If we had come out one night on stage and you couldn’t play my music, I’d have sent you home the next day.’

“So when I listen to those old records I did when I was so fucked up, the playing is still there, but there’s no edge. I’m dull. The edge came when I got sober. And I think on this new album, there’s a whole lot of edge.”

Name your top three most influential guitar players.

“The main reason I grabbed a guitar in the first place – an acoustic – was because my brother brought home The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the album with Blowin’ in the Wind and A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall. At the time, I was going to be a jazz trumpet player; I wanted to be Miles Davis.

“But my brother brought that album home and I heard all this substance and incredible depth with those three chords. So I got a guitar and started learning, because I just wanted to play folk music.

“Then the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. There wasn’t one particular guitar player, but those guys changed everything. So now I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got to get an electric guitar and maybe I could be in a band like that.’

“I got an electric guitar – a Silvertone, the little cheap one with the speaker in the case – and I’m trying to learn Beatles songs. Then my brother comes home with another album and says, ‘I’m going to play this for you, but you have to sit down because when you hear this guy, you’re going to fall over.’

“It was The Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Michael Bloomfield on Born in Chicago and all those songs. Nobody played like that, and that’s when the world opened up to me about what was possible on the guitar. I realized you could play that music with rock ’n’ roll aggression and fire and swagger.”

What are your goals at this point?

“I still have a purpose. I’m going to create, and I’m going to try to contribute to the world, not sit back on the couch. I hope I’m able to keep going and doing this for a long time, so I push myself.

“People look at my schedule, and they say, ‘We couldn’t do that if we were 20.’ But I’ve always done that, because I wanted to do this from the time I was a little boy. I wanted to be a musician, and I wanted to travel the world and play music.

“It’s a beautiful experience. It nourishes me, sustains me and gives me a sense of purpose. It keeps me young in my brain, because every night I go up there and I try really hard to play something I’ve never played before.”

Any final advice?

“I see a lot of people my age – people I’ve grown up with – who have given up. They’ve lost their joy of life and their wonder. They’ve lost their drive and sense of purpose. Don’t lose those things. Your body can get old, but keep that joy and that wonder of life. Hold on to it to the very end, man. Don’t give up.”

• Sign of the Times is out now via Provogue.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the ‘60s British blues guitar scene, when a new generation of guitar heroes mined the original source of blues playing and put their own spin on it.

In doing so, they not only brought blues into the mainstream, calling attention to the original pioneers, but reconfigured popular culture, providing a launching pad for the big beasts of rock that would emerge in the decade that followed.

But this boom did not exist in a vacuum, and here we offer 9 essential albums that had an immeasurable impact on the scene and its players.

Robert Johnson – King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Released more than 20 years after his passing, Johnson’s small but extraordinary recorded output had a huge impact on the fledgling blues scene in Britain. The mystique surrounding the Johnson legend ticked all the boxes for a new generation of blues fans. Essential listening.

Standout track: Terraplane Blues

Muddy Waters – Live in 1958 (1993)

Although released decades later, this is the only known recording of Waters and the Chris Barber band from the groundbreaking tour of 1958 – also featuring Muddy’s regular pianist Otis Spann, an important bluesman in his own right. You can only imagine the effect this tour had on the young Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton who witnessed it.

Standout track: Hoochie Coochie Man

Big Bill Broonzy – The Bill Broonzy Story (1960)

Recorded over several sessions in 1957, this three-volume set showcases the intimate side of Broonzy that UK audiences would have heard when he became the first blues artist to tour there with Chris Barber. Although entirely acoustic, one can hear how he would have left a big impression on the music when it transitioned to electric.

Standout track: Joe Turner Blues

Chris Barber Jazz Band & Skiffle Group – New Orleans Joys (1955)

This 10-inch album epitomises the link between jazz, blues and skiffle that existed prior to the 1960s. It’s the album that features Lonnie Donegan’s versions of Rock Island Line and John Henry and its impact on the British blues boom cannot be overestimated.

Standout track: Rock Island Line

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Gospel Train (1956)

Tharpe’s soulful bluesy gospel approach provided another key ingredient in the development of the 1950s and 60s blues revival that led to the more pop-oriented direction many of the UK blues bands took. That’s aside from her often ferocious guitar style!

Standout track: Up Above My Head…

Various Artists – The Original American Folk Blues Festival (1962)

Here’s an example of what happened once the blues scene had established itself to the point where entire festivals featuring US legends began touring Europe from the early 60s onwards.

This was the first time audiences outside the US could see the likes of T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and a host of other pioneers on the same stage.

Standout track: Shake It Baby (John Lee Hooker)

The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones (1964)

This is the band responsible in many ways for bringing blues into the mainstream. This, the Stones’ debut album, paved the way for rock to develop. Quite simply, the rest of the 60s and early 70s blues rooted bands would have sounded different without it!

Standout track: Route 66

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers – Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton (1966)

As hyperbolic as it may seem, it is often said that Blues Breakers is one of the most important albums ever recorded.

Also known as ‘The Beano Album’, this LP marks the crossroad between the initial blues craze and the beginnings of a heavier sound that paved the way for such heavyweights as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Free – among many others.

Standout track: Hideaway

Few guitarists will forget the first time they heard Clapton’s ecstatic playing on the track Hideaway from the Bluesbreakers’ ‘Beano’ album.

The tone EC achieved on that record has become one of the classic archetypes for how an electric guitar should sound. His Les Paul is pushed hard, its voice a full-throated yet expressive song – with the dynamics to reveal the nuance of every phrase – but enough sustaining compression to really take flight when Eric lets rip.

The basics of how he got that sound, in terms of gear, are known. The guitar used was, of course, the ‘Beano ’Burst’ whose current whereabouts are unknown (though widely speculated upon).

Stuart Robson of Sunbear Pickups, a tone archivist by trade, fills in some of the other details of the guitar, both documented and conjectured: “When it comes to Clapton’s long lost ‘Beano ’Burst’, speaking in absolutes is rarely, if ever, possible. After all, this ’Burst, which helped inspire so many to pick up the guitar themselves hasn’t been seen in 57 years.

“With that said, it’s broadly agreed that this Les Paul, with its double black [bridge] and double white [neck] PAF pickup set was a 1960. This helps us a little when it comes to its pickups but not quite as much as it might first appear.”

“Some key changes occurred at Gibson through 1960, so the elusive detail of precisely when the guitar was built leaves us relying just as much on the recordings themselves as anything else, and what recordings they are!

“To my ear, this Les Paul has the certain strident ‘shouty’ edge common to later PAF specs and this leads me to feel the coils were probably quite even, Leesona-wound spec, likely Alnico V magnets and a moderate-to-high wind in the PAF range of the time.

“The guitar howls and responds in Clapton’s hands as few things can more than a classic, unpotted PAF and regardless of the specifics, they were clearly a pair that exhibited much of what made these sometimes inconsistent pickups so legendary.”

The amp used was, famously, a Model 1962 Marshall combo with two 12-inch speakers that was effectively a JTM45 in combo format. But Adrian Emsley of Orange Amps cautions that, when trying to achieve Clapton’s sound on the album, you have to factor in the compressors and mic preamps used for the session – things that aren’t usually on guitar players’ radars but which were just as present and influential in the signal chain as any other element.

“People will go, ‘Oh, I have a JTM45, I have a Les Paul, but it doesn’t sound like Bluesbreakers,’ and that’s because you haven’t got a mic preamp with 48-volt rails going into a [Teletronix] LA-2A Leveling Amplifier [compressor] going into a tape machine. That is a massive part of it,” Adrian explains, with a wry smile.

“In the 1970s, that became an [Universal Audio] 1176. But it’s still the same. Back then it was literally: microphone, mic pre, line level, compressor, tape machine.”

The recent passing of the ‘godfather of British blues’, John Mayall, marks the closing of an extraordinary chapter in British music history. His 1966 album, Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, was a pivotal moment between the initial blues scene that produced The Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann and The Yardbirds and the post blues-boom era of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac.

But how did the blues arrive in the UK in the first place and what made so many young musicians fall under its spell to the point that it changed the make-up and sound of music throughout the world?

To answer these questions we need to travel back to the late 1930s where, in the United States, an interest in early jazz and blues pioneers began to gather momentum. Both genres, still intrinsically linked at that point, had evolved at a startling rate since the birth of the recording industry.

Pop music of the day was ruled by a combination of swing-era big bands and balladeers, or ‘crooners’ such as Bing Crosby. Blues had somewhat fallen behind and continued to be sold almost exclusively to black record buyers.

However, a young generation of white fans were discovering the music through the work of white musicians that had absorbed the style of those early black innovators.

This so-called ‘revivalist’ movement was primarily led by father-and-son ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax who travelled throughout the US (and many other countries) gathering ‘field recordings’ and interviews with as many folk and blues musicians as they could find. Their work, heroic as it turned out, was an attempt to create a timeline linking music harking back to slavery with the pop music of the day.

Of particular interest to this story is that they attempted to track down Robert Johnson in 1941, only to discover that Johnson had already passed away. Locals recommended Muddy Waters as someone they might like to meet.

At the time Waters was working on a farm, but realising that there was fresh interest in his music decided – for the second time – to pursue music full-time. For Muddy Waters, the rest is history.

Later into the 1940s a revival also started for traditional jazz forms. By that time, jazz had experienced the bebop revolution, which led many to look back at the early New Orleans artists that had started the jazz ball rolling around the turn of the century. The music of those old-timers still had its roots firmly in the blues leading the two genres to effectively have the same set of new fans.

Many of these jazz and blues innovators had given up music as a profession by this time. They were left behind stylistically as developments in the music rendered them old-fashioned and passé. Suddenly, with this renewed interest in their music, they were back on the road and in the recording studios.

The British scene

In Britain, from the late 40s until the arrival of The Beatles, there occurred the first British musical ‘boom’. Existing side by side with the burgeoning rock ’n’ roll scene, the ‘trad boom’ was huge with bands led by Ken Colyer, Humphrey Lyttelton and Chris Barber, among others, filling concert halls and clubs with eager teens finally having a music to call their own.

As youngsters themselves, they had also fallen under the spell of the Lomax recordings and featured folk, blues and spirituals arm in arm with their trad jazz tunes at gigs and concerts.

Jazz trombonist (and bassist) Chris Barber led a band with trumpeter Ken Colyer at the end of the ’40s, and hearing of a young guitarist called Anthony Donegan, invited him to audition. Still a teenager, Donegan joined the band and brought with him his folk and blues influences, which began to be featured as part of the band’s set.

Anthony soon changed his name to Lonnie Donegan and quickly became a hugely popular and influential part of the revival scene in Britain. The name change was inspired after Donegan heard 1920s blues maestro Lonnie Johnson in concert in the early 50s. These interval sets performed by Donegan became known as the ‘skiffle break’ and introduced British audiences to the music of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie among others.

Such was Lonnie’s popularity that by 1954 he’d made several recordings. In that year he recorded one of the most important records in British music history with his cover of Leadbelly’s Rock Island Line.

Originally part of a Chris Barber 10-inch LP, Rock Island Line was eventually released as a single at the end of 1955. The B-side was John Henry, which Donegan had heard from Woody Guthrie’s recording.

By early 1956 it had reached the Top 10 in the UK, but perhaps more significant is the fact it also made the Top 10 in the USA. The seeds for the subsequent British Invasion had been sown!

It was the record that made an entire generation of fledgling musicians believe they could do the same. These youngsters realised they could make music with little or no training and with cheap, often homemade equipment. It was a seismic shift in musical tastes that foreshadowed the punk explosion of the 1970s.

Hooked on skiffle

This was post-war Britain, still on its knees economically. Coincidentally, wartime rationing finally ended in 1954, the year that Donegan recorded Rock Island Line. Musical instruments were expensive and few could afford the luxury of owning one.

Britain went skiffle crazy with bands and clubs forming everywhere up and down the country, but most famously in Liverpool where a skiffle group called The Quarrymen had Rock Island Line as a focal point of their shows. Those youngsters were later to change their name to The Beatles, but that’s a whole other story…

Realising the commercial potential and cultural significance of this wave of interest in folk and blues, Chris Barber set about inviting some of the originators of the music to the UK to take part in his touring schedule.

The first artist to appear in the UK courtesy of Barber was a true icon: William ‘Big Bill’ Broonzy. Broonzy was a virtuoso guitarist and vocalist who released a string of popular and influential records in the 1930s.

As part of the initial revivalist movement in the US, in 1938 and 1939 producer John Hammond (who brought the likes of Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan into the public eye) staged a pair of concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall entitled From Spirituals To Swing.

Hammond’s success in educating the so-called sophisticated New York audience to what they had previously considered ‘primitive’ music was a big achievement for its time and paved the way for African American artists to be seen for the exceptional artists that they were.

The shows featured, in chronological order, gospel groups, blues, traditional New Orleans jazz and the top swing musicians of the day such as pianist and bandleader William ‘Count’ Basie.

To fulfil the folk-blues element of the show, Hammond had wanted Robert Johnson to perform, only to discover – as the Lomaxes did – that Johnson had passed away. Broonzy was drafted in to take his place.

As for Robert Johnson, despite his unimpeachable status today, he was a relatively obscure artist during his lifetime in comparison to Broonzy. Jumping on the revivalist bandwagon, the record label Columbia rediscovered Johnson’s recordings, which had been languishing in their vaults for more than two decades.

Re-released on 12-inch LP under the title King Of The Delta Blues Singers in 1961, at the height of the first wave of the blues boom, Johnson’s place as a genius was finally realised. The album’s influence over a generation of young blues fans cannot be overestimated.

Broonzy’s tour of the UK was the first opportunity for British audiences to see and hear the ‘real deal’, although it wasn’t without some controversy. It’s worth noting that blues musicians were, at that time, defined by their recorded output. Labels were not interested in anything but blues from artists such as Broonzy, despite the fact that his shows also featured Tin Pan Alley ‘standards’ alongside folk and even pop songs.

When Broonzy presented his regular show in Britain, he was dressed in a sharp suit and went through his entire repertoire. Audiences were shocked with some even accusing Big Bill as inauthentic.

Quickly realising what was going on, Broonzy changed his set to purely folk-blues and spirituals and, incredibly, now dressed in dungarees and wearing a straw hat, ticket-buyers were ‘satisfied’…

Despite this initial setback, the tour was a huge success and paved the way for many other artists, by now neglected in the US, to embark on European tours. Barber set up many other tours including the incredible duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, but the most explosive and revolutionary visit was the 1958 tour featuring none other than Muddy Waters.

Uncharted territory

History hasn’t recorded whether Barber knew what he was letting himself in for when Muddy Waters arrived in the UK armed with a Fender Telecaster. Perhaps he was expecting Muddy to perform his Delta-style country blues on the tour?

This tour truly represents a pivotal moment in music history. It could even be argued that rock itself would have taken a different path if Muddy hadn’t got on stage and plugged in for his 1958 tour.

Fans in the UK still saw blues as an ingredient of jazz in 1958. They saw it as a primitive folk form and hadn’t yet heard the urban version of blues that was emanating from Chicago in the late 1940s.

Muddy’s music had evolved from the Delta and was now raw, gritty and loud. Audiences had simply never heard anything like it before but, importantly, neither had a group of young pretenders namely Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, among scores of others. The early influence of skiffle seemed old-hat overnight, with Waters’ tour spawning hundreds of new, dedicated blues clubs across the country.

However, Muddy’s 1958 tour wasn’t the first time UK audiences had heard electric blues guitar. That honour goes to Sister Rosetta Tharpe who toured with Chris Barber a year earlier in 1957, armed with a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop.

Despite her overdriven guitar sound, Tharpe’s music was heavily focused on gospel and spiritual songs. What made Waters’ tour arguably more influential was the fact he played the type of heavy blues that continues to form the DNA of rock music to this day.

Blues bonanza

As the blues boom gathered pace, promoters rushed to sign up as many African American blues artists as they could find. Visits across the Atlantic quickly evolved into package tours, effectively a travelling festival. By the early 1960s an organisation called the American Folk Blues Festival was in full swing, bringing an incredible line-up of artists on tour to Europe.

Along with Waters and Tharpe, the likes of John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Otis Rush, Big Mama Thornton (who performed the original version of Hound Dog), Lightnin’ Hopkins, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Willie Dixon (his song You Need Love morphed into Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love) and Sugar Pie DeSanto, and a wide host of others, regularly toured on this side of the Atlantic through the 1960s and beyond.

In 1957, harmonica player Cyril Davies and multi-instrumentalist Alexis Korner formed the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. Initially a skiffle venue, it also hosted many of the visiting American blues artists that Barber was promoting.

The next year, in response to hosting the Tele-wielding Muddy Waters and growing tired of the skiffle craze, the pair formed the now infamous group Blues Incorporated. Both Korner and Davies recognised that the future was electric, but found their new, loud and raucous music was too much for the club’s clientele.

By 1961 they had relocated their club to Ealing in West London and the umbilical cord between traditional jazz, skiffle and blues was finally cut as the Ealing Blues Club was the first establishment dedicated to electric blues. Things would never be the same again.

A new generation

Korner and Davies had first worked with Chris Barber back in 1949 and recorded with him in the mid 1950s, so they were already a feature on the trad jazz, skiffle and blues scenes. Each of those three strands of African American music had existed side by side throughout the 50s in the UK as though waiting for one of them to break away. The introduction of the amplified guitar served as the fuse that caused the explosion.

The Ealing Blues Club had initially opened as a jazz venue in 1959. Arthur Wood, Blues Incorporated’s vocalist and, incidentally, the brother of Ronnie Wood, suggested the venue to Korner and Davies and it soon became the go-to place for the increasing number of young blues musicians and enthusiasts in London.

Among those in regular attendance were Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton who were later to become Cream. Graham Bond, Rod Stewart, Paul Jones, Manfred Mann and Eric Burdon were among many others frequenting the club.

Perhaps most famously, the Ealing Blues Club is the venue where in 1962 Charlie Watts, Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger first met. In July of that year, this line-up played their first gig at London’s Marquee Club, with the Ealing Blues Club’s stage a key part in their early performances.

On Alexis Korner’s advice, John Mayall moved to London from Manchester in 1963, formed his band The Bluesbreakers and started playing at the Marquee.

Their original guitarist Bernie Watson, a sadly now-forgotten cog in the wheel, came over from Cyril Davies’ group, the R&B All-Stars, which Davies formed shortly after his departure from Blues Incorporated. The Bluesbreakers’ next guitarist Roger Dean was present when the band supported John Lee Hooker on his 1964 UK tour.

1964 was also the year that both The Rolling Stones and The Beatles first toured America. These early tours set off the ‘British Invasion’ that saw these young, white British kids effectively ‘selling coal to Newcastle’.

Both groups were staggered to discover their heroes were neglected, and sometimes forgotten, in their own countries. Both groups were a culmination of a decade’s worth of musical development in the UK with The Beatles growing directly from skiffle and The Stones from blues. Both owe a lot to the foresight of people such as Chris Barber and Alexis Korner.

Around the same time bands including The Who, The Animals, The Kinks and The Yardbirds were taking the UK, and then the US, by storm.

All were under the spell of those mid-50s blues masters who had travelled to Britain, and each had their own ideas on where to take the music. They took traditional blues and rock ’n’ roll elements and cranked them through Vox or Marshall amplifiers. Then, by the mid-60s, another split to the musical atom started to take place.

Cashing in

The point of division was between those that saw dollar signs and those that felt the music was losing its blues roots. Eric Clapton had joined The Yardbirds in 1963 when the group were almost exclusively disciples of the type of Chicago blues they’d heard Muddy Waters perform in 1958. By 1965, and with inevitable record company pressure, they’d recorded and released the hit single For Your Love.

Clapton was unhappy with the commercial path the band was taking and left shortly after the song’s release. Feeling the need to stay true to his love of blues, Eric joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and recorded one of the most staggering albums in guitar history. As for The Yardbirds, they had no need to worry about Clapton’s departure – they had Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page onboard in no time!

And so it was with a lot of bands that had emerged from the initial blues scene. Most followed a path that strayed from the blues with The Rolling Stones arguably managing to maintain their own blues roots more than the others.

New influences were making their way over from the States at the same time. Soul and Motown sounds were becoming popular but kept only tentative links to blues. Artists such as James Brown were taking soul in another direction and inventing funk in the process.

All made a big impact on British music and threatened to kill off the hardcore blues scene were it not for the likes of Alexis Korner and John Mayall who remained steadfastly loyal to the blues.

Had they decided to ‘sell out’, the British Blues Boom might have ended there. But with the release of the iconic ‘Beano’ album, a new strand of blues was created that paved the way for groups such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac and Black Sabbath to conquer the 1970s. Each of these put their blues roots before commercial pressures and managed to find huge audiences as a result.

Out of obscurity

The story of the British Blues Boom isn’t without its ironies. Artists such as Buddy Guy, BB King and others enjoyed a whole new career path as a result of it. Many great and important American blues musicians struggled with the advent of rock ’n’ roll, a genre that stemmed directly from blues.

Many had to give up music as a full-time job and many were ‘rescued’ from obscurity after a bunch of British lads took American music back to where it had originated and reminded Americans that many of those originators were still alive and kicking.

But perhaps the most poignant part of the story is that of Jimi Hendrix. An obvious supreme talent who, had he never been ‘discovered’ playing a small club in New York in 1966, would still have been able to boast an impressive CV.

He’d already played and toured with a veritable who’s-who of American soul and rock ’n’ roll stars such as Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson, but he was yet still unnoticed for his genius and was always constantly broke financially.

When Chas Chandler, bassist from The Animals, saw him for the first time he couldn’t believe that Hendrix hadn’t been signed up for stardom. Recognising that the music scene in Britain that had been kickstarted by Jimi’s predecessors might be the answer, he soon had him on a plane to London to find out.

Within days Jimi was being hailed as a messiah by every blues and rock star that saw him play. Here, suddenly, was a genuine, authentic blues musician of their generation! The British Blues Boom had unwittingly created a space for this unknown American to find his voice. Jimi’s arrival gave British music a shot of adrenaline that it wasn’t primed for.

It would likely never have happened for Jimi Hendrix in his native country, yet within nine months he was back in the States as a superstar, leaving Americans wondering how they could have missed out on him before he’d left.

It definitely wouldn’t have happened for Jimi in the UK had the interlinking strands of traditional jazz, blues, skiffle and rock ’n’ roll not created the perfect platform for him to ride in on.

It was a scene that originated from an interest in folk blues and early jazz going back to the 1930s before crossing the Atlantic – constantly being fuelled by small groups of enthusiasts huddled around a 78rpm record player listening to whatever discs they could lay their hands upon.

As it gathered pace in pubs, clubs and dance halls, it was inevitable that the surviving pioneers would be sucked in eventually, where, from there, it took on a life of its own in the ensuing decade. A generation of young musicians were transfixed, and, without realising it at the time, forged a new music for the world – a music that was revolutionary and pioneering in its own right yet never lost its respect in those who had created it.

The late John Mayall’s ability to nurture blues guitar prodigies is comparable to Yoda’s knack for training hot Jedi prospects. Chiefly known for giving Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor the opportunity to shine in the 1960s, Mayall’s eye for talent proved powerfully sharp both before and after the star trio’s respective stints in his legendary outfit the Bluesbreakers.

The band’s first decade remains of central importance, thanks to the seismic influence of albums like Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, A Hard Road and Crusade. Moreover, Mayall’s artistic development from the band’s formation in 1963 to the end of the ‘60s uncovers a trailblazing trajectory of pioneering, popularizing, then progressing the blues with more experimental records.

Join us now for a whistle-stop guide to the most iconic era of Mayall’s six-stringers.

(All Mayall quotes are taken from his autobiography Blues From Laurel Canyon – My Life As A Bluesman.)

Bernie Watson – 1963-64

Cyril Davies was a leading light of the ’60s, along with Mayall and Alexis Korner. Mayall said that Bernie Watson, who came from Davies’ R&B All Stars, “professed disdain for anything other than classical music” and yet played blues “with such emotion and finesse you’d swear it was his forte.”

Watson’s sharp solo on the Bluesbreakers’ debut single Crawling Up A Hill proves the point.

Davy Graham – 1964

Besides towering achievements as a folk pioneer – penning classic fingerstyle instrumental Angi, which popularized DADGAD tuning – Graham enjoyed a fleeting stint as Mayall’s live guitarist on at least one occasion.

Inserting a pickup into the soundhole of his acoustic guitar, Graham’s performance was described as “spot on” by an eyewitness.

Roger Dean – 1964-65

When brief incumbent John Gilbey proved a bad fit, Mayall recruited Dean, a country and western fan unfamiliar with the blues.

Though the band leader considered Dean a “very accomplished technician,” he felt that on studio recordings, “the fact that he wasn’t a natural blues player was obvious.”

Eric Clapton – 1965-66

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (aka The Beano Album) is revered as a classic – but the track that sold Mayall on Clapton was the lesser-known Got To Hurry. It was the B-side to the Yardbirds’ For Your Love – the poppy single which had prompted Clapton to quit the band.

Hearing the track, Mayall “felt a surge of excitement,” and explained: “I could almost feel Eric talking to me through his solos, which conveyed the power and emotion of great blues guitarists like Freddie King.” Clapton was working on a building site when Mayall tracked him down. In a tribute after Mayall’s death, Clapton thanked him “for rescuing me from oblivion”.

Mayall later revealed the young guitarist’s groundbreaking approach to recording Blues Breakers, saying that engineer Gus Dudgeon “was horrified that Eric intended to play through his Marshall amp at full volume, [but] Eric stood his ground.” Mayall’s pivotal influence encouraged Clapton to record his first vocal performance on Ramblin’ On My Mind.

Clapton’s tenure proved as tempestuous as it was influential prior to his permanent departure in July 1966, to form Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce – the latter of whom was briefly a Bluesbreaker himself in 1965.

Peter Green – 1965, 66-67

When Clapton quit to travel across Europe in summer 1965, Mayall promised to allow him to rejoin if he wanted. As he held an onstage audition to find a replacement, Green asked to take part. Plugging his Harmony Meteor guitar into Mayall’s amp, Green delivered “a revelation” and “the purest tone I’d heard since Eric,” Mayall enthused.

While being ousted on Clapton’s return in December that year, Green was Mayall’s first and only choice after Clapton’s final exit. The older player dubbed Green “a bona fide blues legend,” praising the “savage genius” of his work on the So Many Roads single.

He even said he preferred 1967’s A Hard Road to the Clapton album, due to its variety – evidenced by the Latin-style percussion on Green’s stunning showcase The Supernatural.

Green left June 1967, forming Fleetwood Mac with ex-Bluesbreakers Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. But he contributed some tasteful acoustic slide work on Mayall’s 1969 solo single Picture On The Wall.

Mick Taylor – 1967-69

Mayall first encountered Taylor in April 1966, when the 18-year-old volunteered his services at at a gig in Hatfield after Clapton failed to arrive. Taylor’s “terrific” playing made a powerful impression on the band leader – but he vanished before phone numbers could be exchanged.

Hoping to reconnect on Green’s departure, Mayall’s ‘guitarist wanted’ ad in Melody Maker brought Taylor into the ranks. A month after joining in June ‘67, the new boy was adding stinging lead work to the raw, exciting Crusade album, cut in 11 breakneck hours.

He developed as a soloist at a remarkable pace through 1968’s experimental Bare Wires and Blues From Laurel Canyon. Onstage, “anything Mick played raised the roof,” Mayall recalled – an impressive feat with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush sitting in during the period.

Dissolving the line-up in June 1969 to pursue an acoustic direction, Mayall recommended Taylor to Mick Jagger when the Rolling Stones vocalist sought his advice regarding a replacement for Brian Jones.

Jon Mark – 1969-70

Seeking a break from the guitar, organ, bass and drums lineups he’d favored, Mayall took his experimentation to a bold extreme in 1969 after being inspired by Jimmy Giuffre’s stripped-down, drum-free combo seen in 1958 concert film Jazz On A Summer’s Day.

He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Mark after first meeting him as a member of Marianne Faithfull’s band. The gamble paid off, most demonstrably on The Turning Point, recorded live at New York’s legendary Filmore East – described by Mayall as “a high point in my career.”

Mark’s nimble licks on I’m Gonna Fight For You J.B. are a mellow delight. He’s less upfront on 1970 studio follow-up Empty Rooms; but his eloquent, minor-key solo on Counting The Days is as arresting as anything played by his plugged-in predecessors.

When Mayall’s muse took him in a different direction in summer 1970, Mark and flautist/saxophonist Johnny Almond kept it low-key and groovy with Mark-Almond (not to be confused with the Soft Cell vocalist).

On 22 July, blues legend and bandleader John Mayall died at his home in California. He was 90 years old. Mayall was born in Macclesfield in 1933, and first courted music by scouring his father’s imported collection of blues 78s, before teaching himself piano, guitar and harmonica.

After completing national service in Korea, Mayall returned to Britain in the 1950s, unimpressed by, according to Classic Rock magazine, “a monopoly of trad-jazz bands all playing the same tunes.”

As Joe Bonamassa shares in his tribute, “John’s importance in music is as profound as the guitarists he hired.” This is a pertinent comment before we even consider the careers Mayall nurtured, and the calibre of musicians that were attached to his bands across the years.

Although Mayall had been involved with music for many years, starting groups such as R&B dance band the Powerhouse Four at art college in Manchester, and the Blues Syndicate after military service, in the early ’60s he decided to focus more seriously on music and moved to London, throwing himself into the city and forming the Bluesbreakers in 1963.

The band’s lineup was continually shifting, with soon-to-be guitar legend Eric Clapton replacing Roger Dean in 1965. This resulted in Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton in 1966.

Often considered Mayall’s greatest achievement, ‘The Beano Album’ (nicknamed due to an uncooperative Clapton reading the aforementioned comic on the cover) evolved the sound of the electric guitar, with the 21-year-old guitarist’s switch from Fender Telecaster to a Gibson Les Paul and 50-watt Marshall amplifier.

Not to be undone by Clapton’s departure in July 1966 to form Cream, Mayall hired Peter Green and claimed to producer Mike Vernon that he was ‘better’ than Clapton: ‘“You wait, in a couple of years he’s going to be the best.”

The Bluesbreakers’ second studio album, A Hard Road, was a great effort, with much-deserved praise going to Mayall for his skills as bandleader through this ever-changing line up, as well as plaudits to Green for his elegant guitar and vocal contributions.

As Mayall told the Guardian in 2014, “In blues history, you find bands formed around the bandleaders, trying to realise the sound they wanted. I was bandleader as well as a frontman.”

Mayall’s drive saw the Bluesbreakers release numerous albums throughout the ’60s and ’70s, and the band’s conveyor belt of members included Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Mick Taylor (who Mayall also recommended to Mick Jagger after Brian Jones died) and others, who joined and left the outfit.

Several of the albums from this period, such as Blues From Laurel Canyon, Bare Wires and Looking Back, are considered high points and examples of when Mayall began to create his particularly personal sound.

Although often considered primarily a piano player and organist, Mayall was an accomplished guitarist and a great blues harp player. He loved to decorate guitars and famously played a nine-string in the early days.

But he also told us in 2014 that “the one on the cover of A Special Life is my favourite. It’s an Eric Johnson Stratocaster in origin, but as with all my guitars I cut them up and make personal designs out of them.”

However, later Mayall took a simpler route, telling Guitar World in 2020 that his sunburst Gibson ES-125 was “the only guitar I take on tour; I just pick it up and plug it in, and I’ve never used any special tunings over the years.”

Mayall’s career barely slowed as the decades rolled by. In 1984, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, going on to put out albums such as Behind The Iron Curtain and Chicago Line, playing numerous shows before retiring the Bluesbreakers name in 2008.

He then formed a new band and released albums like Tough, with a leaner, four- or five-piece set-up. In 2013, he signed to Forty Below Records, and was finally inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2016, an overdue nod to a prolific and generous master of his craft. And on that note we’ll leave the last word to Clapton.

“When I was a young man and about to quit music he found me, took me into his home and asked me to join his band,” Slowhand recalled in an emotional tribute.

“He taught me that it was okay to play the music you wanted to play. He was my mentor and a surrogate father, too. He taught me all I really know, and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or without limit. I’ll miss him. Thank you, John, I love you.”

John Mayall was the linchpin figure behind much of the boom in British blues rock players in the 1960s. The likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jack Bruce and John McVie all passed through the Bluesbreaker ranks and benefited from Mayall’s passionate guidance and shrewd stewardship.

Clapton put it best, in his response to the blues icon’s passing: “I want to say thank you, chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion and God knows what when I was a young man around the age of 18/19 when I decided that I was going to quit music,” said the guitar hero in his tribute to Mayall.

“He taught me all I really know and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or without limit.”

A master band-leader, songwriter, vocalist, and no slouch on the guitar himself, Mayall’s early interest in the six-string came as a result of his father’s endeavors as a jazz guitarist – not to mention a record collection containing giants like Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian.

Mayall’s own music would later represent an equally seismic reshaping of the guitar landscape, as with the help of the young Clapton – and ‘the Woman Tone’ created by a pairing of the so-called ‘Beano ’Burst’ Les Paul and a Marshall JTM45 – Mayall was able to summon a hot-rodded take on his beloved Chicago blues.

It laid the foundation for everything from Clapton and Cream to establishing the Fleetwood Mac juggernaut, the Rolling Stones recordings with Mick Taylor (everything from Let It Bleed, to Exile on Mainstreet), and on into the ’70s as Led Zeppelin took heavy blues rock to its world-conquering zenith.

Mayall released no less than 96 albums across a near-70-year career. As such, whittling this legacy down to a single playlist of his most influential and essential recordings is something of a Herculean task, albeit a pleasant one, but in honor of the late and truly great Mayall, we’ve done just that…

1. I'm Your Witchdoctor backed with Telephone Blues (1965)

This Jimmy Page-produced 45 was a powerful harbinger of things to come. The intensity of this track is highlighted by Eric Clapton's incredible tone and haunting controlled feedback.

2. Blues Breakers: John Mayall and Eric Clapton (1966)

From the initial sonic blast – an aggressive slide up the neck at the top of Otis Rush’s All Your Love – the gauntlet is thrown down in terms of a new direction in British blues. Clapton’s virtuosic display on every track is nothing short of phenomenal, as he is backed brilliantly by Mayall’s keyboards and the rock-solid bass/drums combo of John McVie and Hughie Flint.

Standout tracks: Hideaway, Steppin’ Out, Double Crossing Time, Have You Heard

3. A Hard Road (1967)

Peter Green is tasked with filling the shoes of Clapton, the man referred to as God. Green proves to be more than up to the task, providing mind-blowing guitar throughout.

Standout tracks: The Stumble, The Supernatural, Someday After a While (You’ll Be Sorry)

4. Crusade (1967)

Half way through 1967, Green left the Bluesbreakers, along with McVie and Fleetwood, to form Fleetwood Mac. Mayall recruited 18-year-old Mick Taylor, who, like Green, proved himself an able replacement. Within two years, Taylor would leave Mayall’s band to join the Rolling Stones.

Standout tracks: Oh, Pretty Woman, Driving Sideways, Snowy Wood

5. Bare Wires (1968)

Aside from Taylor, this album was recorded with an entirely new lineup and was the last to be credited to the Bluesbreakers.

Standout tracks: Killing Time, Bare Wires Suite, Hartley Quits

6. Blues from Laurel Canyon (1968)

Mayall’s final Decca release features a small four-piece band, including Taylor as well as Green, who guests on one track.

Standout tracks: Laurel Canyon Home, 2401, First Time Alone (with Green)

7. Diary of a Band, Vol. 1 & 2 (1968)

This live collection features Mick Taylor and drummer Keef Hartley along with Chris Mercer and Dick Heckstall-Smith on sax. Culled from 60 hours of club recordings, it is the first of many live collections from Mayall’s personal collection.

Standout tracks: I Can’t Quit You Baby, My Own Fault, Crying Shame

8. Looking Back (1969)

This retrospective is a fantastic document of Mayall’s career, starting with his earliest Bluesbreakers recordings from 1963 up until the spring of 1969.

Standout tracks: Stormy Monday, So Many Roads, Looking Back

9. The Turning Point (1969)

For this July 12, 1969, Fillmore East performance, Mayall assembled yet another lineup, this time designed to play low volume music. The final track, Room to Move, became a minor hit for Mayall and garnered much FM radio airplay.

Standout tracks: Room to Move, The Laws Must Change, I’m Gonna Fight for You J.B.

10. Back to the Roots (1971)

This exceptional double album features a stellar band including Clapton, Taylor and Harvey Mandel on guitars, Larry Taylor on bass, Keef Hartley on drums, Don "Sugarcane" Harris on violin and Johnny Almond on sax and flute.

Standout tracks: Television Eye, Prisons on the Road, Force of Nature

11. Chicago Line (1988)

Roaring back with a new lineup of Bluesbreakers, this disc features great guitar work from Coco Montoya and Walter Trout.

Standout tracks: Chicago Line, The Last Time, Tears Came Rollin’ Down

12. 70th Birthday Concert (2003)

This live set features Clapton, his first time performing with Mayall in nearly 40 years. The double CD also features Taylor and Buddy Whittington.

Standout tracks: Grits Ain’t Groceries, I’m Tore Down, Oh, Pretty Woman

John Mayall – British blues patriarch, godfather, progenitor, legend, musical force and every accolade one could ascribe – passed on July 22 at age 90. Starting in the mid-’60s and continuing throughout his long and illustrious career, Mayall has been nothing less than a blues messiah to generations of listeners.

He deserves acknowledgement as a vital figure in the development and ultimate massive popularity of blues and blues/rock music. His prodigious career spanned an incredible seven decades, from the late 1950s till his recent retirement from touring just two years ago in 2022 at age 88.

In the mid/late-’60s, his band, the Bluesbreakers, served as an incubator to many of Britain’s most revered blues musicians, as John’s mentorship developed the careers of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Aynsley Dunbar, Andy Fraser, and so many others.

He produced some of the most influential blues albums of all time, most notably the landmark Blues Breakers: John Mayall and Eric Clapton, considered to be the template for the future sound of blues/rock guitar via Clapton’s phenomenal playing. Armed with a 1960 flametop Les Paul plugged straight into a Marshall JTM45, Clapton changed the course of the instrument on this seminal release.

Mayall was a complete artist. He displayed masterful creativity in every endeavor: a gifted singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, band leader, musical alchemist and talent scout, as well as an artist and graphic designer, as he created the iconic covers for so many of his albums while also often writing insightful and historically important liner notes.

To call him prolific is an understatement. He released 96 albums: 38 studio, 34 live and 24 compilations, plus four EPs, 44 singles and four video albums (VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD). He was a documentarian, capturing the sounds and images of thousands of live performances throughout his career and continuing to offer these recordings to listeners till the end. Mayall's final studio album, The Sun Is Shining Down, was released on Forty Below Records in 2022. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.

Mayall was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, on November 29, 1933. His father, Murray Mayall, played guitar in local bands and sparked John’s interest in the instrument via his collection of recordings by Andrés Segovia, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson and Carl Kress, and Dick McDonough. Starting at age 13 – and self-taught on piano, guitar and harmonica – John’s focus was more on rhythm guitar than soloing, studying the recordings of Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy, Teddy Bunn, Ledbelly and John Lee Hooker.

He also was intrigued by the recordings of what he called “the triumvirate of boogie-woogie piano – Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis.” As Mayall told me in 1991, “Back in 1959, any record that said ‘boogie’ on it, I would buy! At the time, these 78s were very hard-to-find prized possessions in England.”

After serving in the army from 1952-55, Mayall trained as a visual artist at the Manchester College of Art. “It never dawned on me that I could make a living playing music,” he said. “For many years, it was just a hobby, a way I could express myself.”

His first band, the Powerhouse Four, formed in 1956, but it wasn’t till 1963, when he was 30, that Mayall moved to London to become a full-time musician on the suggestion of Alexis Korner, with whom Mayall would become a linchpin of the blossoming British blues scene. Following a stint in the Blues Syndicate, Mayall formed the Bluesbreakers in late 1963 and recorded a live album, John Mayall Plays John Mayall, for Decca. The album was poorly received, and Mayall was dropped.

In April 1965, Mayall recruited 20-year-old hotshot guitarist Eric Clapton from the Yardbirds to join his band. “[Producer] Mike Vernon talked Decca into giving me another chance on the basis of Eric’s popularity, so the Bluesbreakers record was my very first studio recording.”

Regarding the explosive impact of this record, Mayall said, “You don’t think about ‘posterity’ in that moment. Your concern is making an honest record, and making it ‘real,’ with real emotions on it. That was everything.”

After Clapton left in June of ’66 to form Cream, Mayall’s band went through many lineup changes and featured future stars like Peter Green and Mick Taylor.

Beginning in 1969, John began to experiment with different instrumentation and styles and subsequently moved from England to the Los Angeles suburb of Laurel Canyon. His groundbreaking live album, The Turning Point, was recorded at the Fillmore East and featured the harmonica tour de force Room to Move, which became John’s signature tune, one he would continue to perform throughout the next half-century.

In the ensuing years, Mayall’s bands featured a cast of brilliant guitar players, including Harvey Mandel, Rick Vito, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, Buddy Whittington, Carolyn Wonderland and others. With nearly 100 albums to his credit, there’s a rich musical history to study in the timeless music of John Mayall.

Peter Green was the founding member of Fleetwood Mac, and having put the band together, was generous enough to name it after the drummer Mick Fleetwood, and bass player John McVie, both stalwarts of the ’60s British blues scene and John Mayall alumni.

Green followed Eric Clapton in Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, a tough gig to take on, but B.B. King was famously quoted as saying that Green was “the only one to give me the cold sweats”.

A master of Chicago blues and also an innovator as a composer, Green was responsible for a number of imaginative hit songs, including The Green Manalishi, Black Magic Woman (also a huge hit for Santana), Albatross, and Oh Well.

However, in this lesson I will focus on a minor blues and an uptown major blues inspired tune. The examples focus on the minor blues and the sample solo switches to the major key.

It’s worth picking through the licks to get a feel for the kinds of melodic shapes and note choices that Green favoured, such as the use of the 9th degree and the straight minor pentatonic.

In the sample solo, I used a classic '60s blues approach of stressing the tonic major pentatonic on the I chord (A), then moving to the tonic minor pentatonic on the IV chord (D).

If you look carefully, you’ll see that I have generally altered the minor pentatonic by replacing the 7th degree with the major 6th. The major 6th of A minor pentatonic (F#) is also the 3rd of the D chord, so makes harmonic sense, particularly when you consider that the note G can be displeasing when held over a D or D7 chord (this is often called an ‘avoid note’, meaning that it’s not to be held for too long).

Green’s phrasing was possibly so musical because he was such a great singer; his phrasing on the guitar has a vocal quality and a real sense of pace and drama.

Peter’s treatment of the D# diminished 7th chord is worth noting. He often hits the root of that chord but then goes back to bluesy Am6 pentatonic ideas; his navigation of the chord changes was masterful.

Other than one example that shows some of the scale options over a bluesy sequence in A, the demos are all over a slow 12/8 groove, and the rhythms exploit the options within the subdivisions of a 12/8 pulse.

Don’t be overly concerned with working out the rhythms mathematically – if you’re not well acquainted with reading in 12/8, there’s no shame in referring to the video/audio. It’s certainly what Peter would have done!

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 5, Bass 7, Treble 6, Reverb 4

Peter’s Gibson Les Paul was wired with out-of-phase humbuckers. It is not essential to replicate this but there’s a delicate quality to Peter’s sound with a cleanish British tone at its core. Peter worked his amps hard and that natural colouration is key. Effects were not a big part of Green’s world, but you might want to add quite a bit of reverb to get that airy sound.

Example 1

In our first example, we start by leaving a little space between the phrases. Be careful with the high bends as their pitch requires accurate targeting.

Example 2

Here we’re starting to use 1/16th-note triplets for variety. In bar 3, we start to get a little more bluesy with the use of the C natural note (minor 3rd).

Example 3

This example starts in a fairly common pentatonic blues box shape. The flourish at the end of the bar sounds not unlike the kind of lines that Eric Clapton was playing around the time. Green saw him live with The Bluesbreakers and was deeply affected by his playing.

Example 4

This one starts on the V chord. It’s interesting to note how just stating the root of the V chord (C#) really gives a sense of making the changes.

Example 5

Here we see some of Peter’s scale choices. The A minor pentatonic can be changed to A minor 6 pentatonic on the D chord for a little more finesse. The blues scale works over A7 and D7 if used carefully.

Solo

This final piece amalgamates much of what has been covered earlier, putting it all together for a musical performance. Looking at it overall, you will notice how much colour and variety is achieved from just a few positions on the fretboard: 9th fret zone and 12th fret zone.

This is where the guitar can be most vocal – the notes aren’t too low to get lost in a band mix or too searing and screaming. Add in blues notes, bends and legato, and it’s a wealth of emotion and tasty soloing!

The Rolling Stones have been around since 1962, so this is their seventh decade making music. With such a long history, the iconic band has a massive body of work, a discography that was recently enlarged by their latest album, Hackney Diamonds.

Starting out as a London-based blues group, The Stones achieved phenomenal worldwide success mixing pop, rock, and blues, crafting their own unique sound that’s stood the test of time with classic songs like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, and Angie which, even decades on, still sound fresh and exciting.

The Stones have always been a two-guitar outfit, with the legendary Keith Richards having been there from the beginning, partnered originally by Brian Jones, who tragically drowned in his swimming pool in 1969. Jones was followed by ex-John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers guitarist Mick Taylor, who in turn was replaced by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood in 1975.

Throughout their recorded works, the guitar sounds of The Rolling Stones have been a mix of electric- and acoustic-based, with references to the band’s blues roots in cover versions of classic songs like I’m A King Bee and Little Red Rooster, and Richards, Jones, Taylor, and Wood all contributing slide guitar in various songs, too. Keith Richards' inspired guitar riffs have become the stuff of legend via songs like Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Satisfaction, the latter of which was played using a Gibson Maestro FZ1 fuzz-tone pedal.

Perhaps one of the most recognizable and consistent musical sounds in the Stones' catalog is Richards' open tunings, where his guitar is tuned to open chords such as D, E, or, usually, G, where he removes the sixth string. This can be heard on numerous songs – such as Honky Tonk Women and Start Me Up – and has a big, rich, immensely pleasing sound. 

These songs, among many others, would probably have been played using arguably Richards' most famously recognizable guitar, his 1950s Fender Telecaster, nicknamed Micawber, which features a Gibson PAF humbucker pickup in the neck position.

In this feature we’ll be looking at the styles of all the Stones' guitarists, with examples featuring their individual approaches – including their use of bluesy ideas such as mixing Minor and Major Pentatonic scales, country style flavors with the use of 6th interval shapes, and rock 'n' roll influenced double-stops.

We also look at Richards' open G-tuned rhythm style, as well as some Brian Jones-esque slide. There are also three ‘mini pieces’ which have a short rhythm guitar beginning followed by a solo. These are in three distinct musical flavors – a Major tonality piece, a Minor tonality piece, and a blues style piece.

It’s only rock 'n' roll, etc, so have fun!

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 4, Bass 3, Middle 6, Treble 7, Reverb

Either a single-coil or humbucker-equipped guitar can be used here, since all four guitarists regularly switched between the two. A higher action might be better suited to slide though. You can use anywhere from clean to light or medium overdrive for both rhythm and solo duties. Feel free to add reverb or a mild delay for ambient thickening.

Keith Richards

Example 1: Keith Richards

This is in the key of C and features melodic C Minor Pentatonic licks (C-Eb-F-G-Bb) over the Major chords C, F, and Bb. 

Example 2: Keith Richards

This demonstrates Richards' rock 'n' roll influence from players such as Chuck Berry. Make sure the third string’s tone interval bends are accurate. 

The double-stop bends on the third and second strings in bars 2-4 can be achieved with either the third or fourth finger of the fretting hand pushing upwards, or the flat of the third finger pulling downwards. Either way, make sure the third string bends up a tone and the second string bends up a semitone.

Example 3: Keith Richards

This exercise demonstrates Richards' style of rhythm playing using open G tuning. Tuning as follows, low to high: D-G-D-F-B-D. However, Richards famously removes his sixth string for this tuning, so as to avoid unwanted sixth string noise completely. 

If you don’t want to go to such lengths, simply mute the sixth string with the tip of your fretting hand’s first finger when fretting the chords. Tuning it down to D of course, means if you do accidentally hit it, it’s not a disaster.

Example 4: Keith Richards

An extension of the previous exercise, this one shows how the chords can be embellished with open-string runs and pull-offs to make for a more involved rhythm part. Richards used this idea in tracks like Tumbling Dice and Honky Tonk Women to create an instantly memorable sound.

Brian Jones

Example 1: Brian Jones

This slide guitar example uses open G tuning and a clean guitar tone. Ensure correct pitching by placing the slide directly over the fret. Then add light vibrato.

Example 2: Brian Jones

Another slide guitar example, this uses open E tuning. Tune the strings low to high: E-B-E-G#-B-E. A distorted guitar tone is used here, and side-to-side slide vibrato. Jones was a natural musician, playing a number of instruments and styles. His slide guitar topped the charts on Little Red Rooster.

Mick Taylor

Example 1: Mick Taylor

This example shows how the ‘country’ 6th interval is often played by the band. Taylor, Wood and Richards can all be heard using this approach at various times. 

Make sure your fretting-hand fingers make the appropriate 6th interval shape, with the picking hand either using a fingerstyle approach of thumb and finger, or a hybrid picking approach of pick and fingers, or just the pick using alternate picking. Of the three approaches, hybrid probably makes the most sense.

Example 2: Mick Taylor

This example features some melodic bluesy licks, typical of Taylor’s lyrical style. Bar 1 involves bending the string up a tone but only letting it down by a semitone, so accurate pitching is essential. 

Taylor likely learned this idea from copying Eric Clapton, who favored this often in his soloing. The repeating phrase over two strings in bar 2 is important to play cleanly. As a suggestion, try a downstroke on the second string and an upstroke on the third string.

Ronnie Wood

Example 1: Ronnie Wood

This country-toned E Major Pentatonic (E-F#-G#-B-C#) idea features a 6th, with the third string bending up a tone (use the fretting hand’s third finger), while the fourth finger frets the first string. In bar 3, use the same fingering for the bend on the second string, with the fourth finger fretting the first string.

Example 2 

This example shows how the Major and Minor Pentatonic scales can inter-weave over a Major tonality chord progression in order to create a colourful mix of sweet Major sounds blending with bluesier Minor approaches. B.B. King was the master of this, with Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and others highly influenced by it.

Rolling Stones Mini-Pieces

Piece 1: Major

This piece is in the key of A and is in open G tuning with the capo at the 2nd fret. The first eight bars are a rhythm part and feature our Keith Richards-style approaches. The following eight bars are the solo. As the first string is lowered by a tone, remember the notes won’t be in the same place as they normally are.

Piece 2: Minor

Our Minor piece has a tonal center of B Minor and alternates between a bar of B Minor and a bar of E; the overall sound is B Dorian (B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A). 

After the first four bars of ‘rhythm,’ the subsequent solo section mainly contains bluesy B Minor Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A) licks. In bars 7 and 8 we encounter some E Major Pentatonic country flavored licks over the E chord, adding another tonal character to the solo.

Piece 3 

This 12-bar blues in G has a straight, driving feel, with two bars of chunking blues shuffle rhythm before the solo kicks in. Featuring licks containing both G Major Pentatonic (G-A-B-D-E) and G Minor Pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F), the overall feel of the solo is melodic. Make sure your string bends are pitched accurately.