Life’s Soundtrack – A Good run made Special by John Mayall’s latest – A Special Life

This week has been a topsy-turvy week, Monday it was in the 80s and then was  cloudy all day yesterday (Tuesday) it looked like it was going to rain and the temperatures were in the 60s!  Today (Thursday) it was supposed to be back into the 80s. so last night (Wednesday) I decide that I better run then or face another hot day running! So of course today turned out a lot like yesterday, but I’m still glad that I ran last night!!  I decided to run on of my oldest routes, a slightly up and down run going up…

Continue reading

Lunchtime Music – Blues with a Jazz twist from John Mayall!

Blues and jazz have always been inter-woven, so it was only natural that a blues man would explore blues with a jazz twist. John Mayall did that in 1969 with his album The Turning Point. On that album…. Mayall tried a new format with lower volume, acoustic instruments, and no drummer. He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Jon Mark and flautist-saxophonist John Almond. Mark was best known as Marianne Faithfull’s accompanist for three years and for having been a member of the band Sweet Thursday (which included pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Cat Stevens collaborator Alun Davies, also a guitarist). Almond…

Continue reading

Today in Rock History – Blues Legend John Mayall’s Birthday!

Today is the birthday of a British music legend Mr. John Mayall turns 79 years old today! I am like many, many people whose music collection he touch so Thanks, John!! From Wikipedia: John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band which has included Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Don “Sugarcane” Harris, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar, Hughie Flint, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith,…

Continue reading

Lunchtime with John Mayall and Albert King

On my way back from renewing my auto registration and taking the car through inspection I put on John Mayall’s classic album Turning Point. I only listened to the first three tracks though and was enjoying them. Those tracks appear on side one of the album, which through the years has been the lesser listened to side. Side 2 contains “Thoughts about Roxanne”, “California” and “Room to Move” three all time favorites. Anyway I was checking out Youtube and this is the first video that caught my eye because it brings together two greats John and Albert King! Here they are performing…

Continue reading

Forgotten Music Friday – John Mayall – Chicago Line

So a few weeks ago as I was researching for a post about Walter Trout’s latest album Common Ground ,I discovered or rediscovered that Walter had played on John Mayall‘s 1988 release Chicago Line. I say rediscovered because I probably knew in 1988 that Walter played on the album, but by the time I listened to Walter’s solo albums a few years ago, it was something I didn’t remember! Anyway I went to the CD shelf and pulled out Chicago Line and listened to it. I haven’t listened to it for a while because it currently is not on the…

Continue reading