even if this is your first or fortieth album of his you too will be surprised by the depth and quality on offer from start to finish …. Technically and morally it’s wrong on many levels to be surprised by an album when it comes from someone with a pedigree like John Mayall but we’ve all spent hard earned cash on releases by similar acts over the years and been left hugely disappointed but trust me here …. Of course there are some Guest Star guitarists here complimenting not just The Grandee himself but his #1 guitarist, Carolyn Wonderland too but this isn’t about them … this is a simply and collectively a John Mayall album in all its and his Glory. Then there is the slick One Special Lady, which even on an album of this quality still stands head and shoulders above the rest with Mayall’s Hammond B3 holding the piece together like Jimmy Smith or Georgie Fame at their combined height and ‘that’ guitar isn’t actually a guitar it’s Jake Shimabukuro playing an electric ukulele which is a first for me …. I’d not heard of Tinsley Ellis before last week when I reviewed his own latest album and here Mayall takes his A Quitter Never Wins and turns it into the type of slow and swoonsome Blues we expect from a mash up of Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King and Little Walter. In between covers a couple of fabulous songs I wasn’t aux fais with Bernard Allison’s stupendous Chill’s n Thrills, Roosevelt Sykes slow and funky Driving Wheel and Bobby Rush’s I’m As Good As Gone, which features some stunningly cool guitar licks from Buddy Miller alongside Mayall’s leathery and world weary vocals.Īfter spending the best part of half a century living in the USA Mayall’s ‘sound’ now owes a lot more to Chicago and New York than it does the English Home Counties and that comes across in not just the previously mentioned tracks but his own Masterworks Can’t Take No More plus the cool ambiance of Deep Blue Sea and especially the former, when his brass section sound like the Memphis Horns on steroids. and they won’t stop until the fabulously slinky title track, The Sun Is Shining Down closes proceedings in Mayall’s trademarked fashion. which will have your toes a’tappin and head a’noddin right from the first few bars …. I’m in the 1%, as I can name two others apart from this … his umpteenth release and a doozy right from the off with the sizzling and Soulful Hungry and Ready …. John Mayall is very definitely a Living Legend of, not just the British Blues scene but world wide too yet apart from ‘The Beano Album’ I kinda guess 99% of Blues fans couldn’t name another album in his 60 year career. After Over Half a Century The Grandee of The Blues Can Still Manage To Surprise The Faithful.
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