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John Mayall & His Bluesbreakers
Bowness Community Hall
Bowness Community Hall
Friday, November 13 - Friday, November 13 Saturday, November 14 - Saturday, November 14

More in: Blues / Jazz

The voice of a legend crackles over the phone. Blues legend John Mayall sounds every bit the perfect English gentleman speaking from his home in Los Angeles. He exquisitely pronounces all four syllables, making it sound far more sophisticated than the comparatively crass “L.A.” Mayall has made Southern California his home since the mid-’70s, regularly returning to England on tour, but even now that he’s in his mid-70s himself, he’s never really taken an extended break.

“I don’t really subscribe to that,” he says succinctly. “The way we work is, I go on tour for various stretches, various clumps and we don’t take days off, so we consolidate everything. So if we do 100 shows a year, which is about what we do, it adds up to only a third, which leaves two-thirds for home life. It’s the best of both worlds, really.”

During the mid-’60s, when British kids with American Les Paul guitars and English Marshall amps reinvented rock ’n’ roll and piped it back across the Atlantic, Mayall and the Blues Breakers were on the vanguard of the British invasion, and The Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (1966) stand as a classic by anyone’s standard. Five years ago, Mayall celebrated his 70th birthday by reuniting with Clapton and the original Bluesbreakers for the first time in “many, many years,” as he puts it.

“I hesitate to count,” he says. “There again, it was a quick meeting — we didn’t really do any rehearsing together. If you’re playing the blues, it just comes out. [Clapton] just showed up; we met him in the afternoon, told him what tunes we were playing and then we went in the evening and it was showtime. It just went so well, like clockwork. We had Mick Taylor involved and the horn section, and it was splendid.”

The DVD-CD birthday concert combo showcases a veteran bluesman at his best, although the reunion itself was short, sweet and unlikely to be repeated. “Eric is a very private person — I don’t even know where he lives,” Mayall admits. “There’s no way I could contact him. He would have to contact me, I suppose, or we’d have to go through his management and all that stuff, but when we actually get together, it’s just like old times.”

Mayall certainly doesn’t seem to be living in the past. With a new band and a new record, Tough (his 57th), he’s not showing any signs of slowing down, much less stopping. Tough is a rock solid, off-the-cuff offering that was recorded in a scant, no-nonsense three days, without time for rehearsals. Despite its hasty construction, Tough features some of Mayall’s most serious work, dealing with co-dependency and substance abuse, subjects the singer and guitarist knows well, even if that knowledge isn’t first-hand.

“I’ve definitely seen a lot of people struggle with it,” he says of addiction. “Most of them, you know, didn’t make it. I’ve never used drugs in my whole life, so I wouldn’t know how to talk to that. I spent many years a long time ago drinking, but it’s been over 25 years since I stopped that, so I’ve lived a very healthy life apart from that one little chapter. You see a lot of your friends who didn’t make it and perhaps who are still in trouble, but there’s no future in that. There’s nothing healthy about it. It was fun to write about it, it’s a good subject matter."

Mayall claims to have written the three original songs on Tough during studio breaks while waiting to hear the rough mixes of the songs they were working on. He sings, plays six- and 12-string guitar, piano, organ and harmonica with a strength and passion that will inspire blues musicians a quarter of his age.

When important artists of a certain vintage come to town, there’s always the point of: “Better catch them this time, as there might not be another chance,” but with Mayall, one gets the feeling that he could be around for quite some time yet. “I’m just disgustingly healthy, really,” he says with a sly chuckle. Asked if he considers himself to be a survivor, the father of six (and grandfather of six) replies in his typical no-nonsense fashion: “I don’t really think ‘survivor’ comes into it. I’m a strong working musician, I love playing the blues and will continue to do so.”