John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton

It is said that when this album was released, a certain James Marshall Hendrix, not yet known as Jimi, was so shocked after hearing Eric Clapton play it that he rushed to get the Marshall amplifiers used for the recording. Of course, we will never know if this is just a legend or the bare reality, but it's an anecdote that highlights the shock experienced not only by Hendrix when "Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton" appeared in 1966.

First of all, who was (and still is, long live the king of British Blues!) John Mayall: at the time, he was already in his thirties, in contrast to the young upstarts who occupied the pop and beat scene. A blues enthusiast from a very young age (particularly of J. B. Lenoir), he played and sang with passion in his spare time (professionally he was a window dresser and graphic designer) during years when blues was practically unknown to most. Then one fine day, in his Manchester, he was discovered by another pioneer of British blues, or perhaps the absolute inventor and discoverer of the genre: Alexis Korner. Korner's scene was a real talent factory, performing in his club run together with Cyril Davies, a factory that was reluctant to compromise with pop and beat: these were the years in which American R'n'B was spreading, and there were some who remained faithful to the original dictates, while others either voluntarily or under the pressure of nagging managers succumbed to the allure of the business, sometimes after first passing through Alexis's stable. This was absolutely not the case for John, who, encouraged by his discoverer, decided to dedicate himself full-time to music, forming the Bluesbreakers as his backing group.

Nor was it the case for Eric Clapton: yes, him (try for a moment to forget certain more or less recent episodes that have little or nothing to do with blues). Indignant at the beat turn of his Yardbirds, already quite known in the scene for his inimitable way of playing the guitar, Eric accepted to join Mayall's Bluesbreakers; it was 1965, and the group entered, after a series of genuine discussions with their record label, Decca (which had grasped the band's potential, but would have much preferred less uncompromising music in relation to the trends of the time, essentially a sort of new Rolling Stones), the recording studio to cut the album in question.

From the cover itself, Mayall and his company’s character is evident: no clean-cut faces, but neither the aura of young thugs looking threatening and menacing; instead, serious and prepared performers capable of electrifying stages of dark, dirty, smelly, and smoky London clubs, with such fidelity to the masters and awareness of their instrumental capabilities to be able to take their inspirers' dialogue further.

Today, cranking up the amp and experimenting with feedback in your garage might make you laugh or bring joy to many teenagers attempting to play the electric guitar (though I would advise against it: you risk blowing out the amp, and especially your hearing), but in the mid-'60s, they were considered Star Wars-like special effects: if hearing the opening track, "All Your Love", a true rock blues anthem, still sweeps you away and captivates you today, back then it shocked not only poor Hendrix; "Hideaway", "Little Girl", "Key to Love" and "Steppin' Out" are the other overwhelming tracks that revolutionized the way of playing blues, with accelerated rhythms, solos still electrifying to us; tracks partly original, partly covers of Willie Dixon, Otis Rush, Mose Allison, Freddie King, Ray Charles (a beautiful version of "What 'd I Say", complete with a drum solo by Hughie Flint... one wonders what Ginger Baker and John Bonham thought when they heard it...) and Robert Johnson, where we hear a young and still vocally uncertain Eric Clapton sing. The voice on the other tracks is the shrill and acute one of Mayall, singing about sex with minors, the devil, temptation, so much more than the teen love songs from the dominant pop of the time; Mayall also plays harmonica, piano, organ, and guitar. All of this is surrounded by the powerful and precise rhythmic section of the aforementioned Hughie Flint and bassist John McVie, not yet the millionaire of "Rumors" and "Tusk"; finally in "Have You Heard" saxophonist Alan Skidmore also makes an appearance.

"Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton" marked an indelible turning point for blues and rock blues, laying the foundation for the subsequent hard and heavy evolution: it influenced many musicians, and bands like Cream, Led Zeppelin, and Free, just to name a few, certainly owe something to this record. This record then functioned as a basic text for Mayall's subsequent works with the Bluesbreakers, though with the inevitable differences due to the various guitarists who passed through the formation (and we're talking about people like Peter Green and Mick Taylor, not exactly novices); in fact, the Bluesbreakers immediately lost Clapton in the summer of '66, fresh with the nickname (another legend?) "God" on London walls, who after a short vacation with Stevie Winwood in the Powerhouse formed Cream and became the legend we all know today.

"Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton", unlike many other records of the time, I still often find myself listening to it, not just at home, but in countless pubs and venues, certainly no longer as smoky as those in London of 1965 (these bans...), but fortunately often a bit cleaner, and each time, inevitably, my foot starts tapping under the table leg on the wooden floor. By the way, John is 75 years old, in good health, and continues to perform around, even in Italy. May he live another hundred years.