John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
A Hard Road

"The blues in its true form is a reflection of a man's life and comes from personal experiences, both good and bad. I acknowledge that I have unintentionally hurt many people, left friends, and now the only thing worth living for is the blues"

John Mayall, 1967

Take John Mayall, one of the most important and influential figures brought to prominence by the British blues invasion in the second half of the '60s, when he was not just some youngster with chart ambitions, but a man over thirty with a mad love for the blues.

Take John Mayall, and associate him with the words consistency, passion, and perseverance.

Since '64, the year of his (raw) debut, 46 years have passed, during which Our Man has released an infinity of albums, that if you asked him the exact number he might not even know. What is certain is that, at least until 1980, each year saw at least one new release, whether recorded in the studio or live matters little; the blues is beautiful regardless. And then if you look at his subsequent discography, it's not exactly sparse, quite the opposite.

Here, if you take John Mayall, you see how the words he wrote in '67 were not unfounded but could have been written yesterday, perhaps on the back of the latest "Tough," released just a few months ago.

You see the greatness of a musician especially over the long run, if an album is re-released on CD 30 or 40 years after its release, if an album still sells, it means something. Mayall has produced a handful of masterpieces (one above all, "Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton") and a long series of excellent works, all regularly pressed on CD by record labels.

Among them, one of the most delightful is certainly "A Hard Road," released under the name John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, a name inaugurated with the previous album where Eric Clapton was the star, fresh from his departure from the Yardbirds. Mayall found in him a perfect partner for the blues standards that made up the band's repertoire, and he was taken aback by the guitarist's decision to leave after the album's success to join the future Cream. But Mayall is not a man to lose his cool and replaces Slowhand with the then-unknown Peter Green for the remainder of the tour supporting the album: the audience welcomes him tepidly, disappointed by Clapton's absence, but Mayall allows the young man to grow alongside him, taking him to the studio for the recording of the single "Looking Back/So Many Roads" and later confirming him for the sessions of the Long Playing which will bear the name "A Hard Road."

The album is just one of the numerous projects that the leader carries forward: producing singles, concerts, a record, and even an EP with the American bluesman Paul Butterfield in a few months. "A Hard Road" sees the light in February '67, composed largely of original compositions interspersed with some covers, going against the trend of the previous release, where the original pieces were just four. As if that were not enough, the release is embellished with two pieces by Green: "The Same Way" and (above all) "The Supernatural" are two excellent episodes that already at the time made the detractors reconsider the new Bluesbreaker's validity. "The Supernatural," in agreement with Mayall's own thinking, is probably the highest peak reached by the LP, an instrumental that offers 3 extremely intense minutes not lacking in psychedelia.

The covers are each more beautiful than the other, "You Don't Love Me" by Cobbs captures Green's first vocal performance, "Dust My Blues" is a fiery rock version of Elmore James' classic "Dust My Broom," while the instrumental "The Stumble" and the splendid blues ballad "Someday After A While (You'll Be Sorry)" are both drawn from Freddie King's repertoire, written in collaboration with Sonny Thompson. On the front of Mayall's originals, there are many convincing episodes: above all the title track, "Another Kinda Love," "Top Of The Hill," "Hit The Highway" and "Leaping Christine." But not all that glitters is gold. Alongside great pieces, we indeed find episodes like "There's Always Work" that frankly have little to do with John Mayall's mastery.

Perhaps due to too many commitments, and also the brevity of the compositions (14 tracks in 37 minutes), "A Hard Road" fails to achieve masterpiece status; it remains nonetheless a remarkable album played by a cohesive band despite having only a few months to find their groove. Compared to "Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton," the only survivor is the bassist John McVie, so besides the Clapton-Green handover on guitar, there is also a change between Hughie Flint and Ansley Dunbar (future sessionman for Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Jeff Beck, and many others) on percussion.

Enriched at certain moments by the push of horns (but only on some tracks of the album, and in any case only in the studio, Mayall assures) "A Hard Road" is the third album by the bluesman (the second with the Bluesbreakers) confirming the band at very high levels: the Bluesbreakers (with a changed lineup) will create another two LPs before being dissolved by the leader, who will continue his career as a soloist. Their records have been reissued in deluxe versions and continue to sell more than forty years after their release despite the crisis in the record market.

Not bad.