John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton

This one started it all...

... or so they say. Really, though, this was more a culmination of something that had been brewing and stewing in England for quite a few years already. And it is the album that spawned that anonymous person to write "Clapton Is God" on a subway wall somewhere in London.

By today's standards, this is pretty average. But for the day in which it was released, it was revolutionary. Clapton's sound was mature; John Mayall had a great band wrapped around it and it crystalized a moment in musical history.

I won't give you a blow by blow, but if you really want to have a good history of Blues collection, this is one you must have along with Fathers & Sons by Muddy Waters.
November 18, 2008

Music For The Ages

Being a person that owns a whole lotta vinyl I am always thrilled when I can freshen up my collection, less the pops and tics of records, with any digitally remastered great work.
Add to that previously unreleased material and you have a win win situation.
This "album" still plays as sweetly and savagely as it did when it was first released in 1965.
John Mayall and ALL of his Blues Breakers were and still are extremely talented musicians with many being trendsetters. August 9, 2007

Wow

I've owned the original Mono Vinyl and 2 earlier editions of the CD and the sound quality on disk 1 is incredible. Like hearing it for the first time. Disk 2 has a bunch of great rarities that would probably cost about $5,000 to get in their original vinyl though the sound quality is all over the place. I've always kept this in my 60's punk rock category rather than my blues. This is raw garage junk with the best English guitarist ever. My best purchase of the year so far. March 22, 2007

Clapton is God

This album sparked the saying "Clapton is God" all over the U.K. This Album is where Clapton plugged a Gibson Les Paul into a marshall amp and changed rock music forever. This is my all time favorite blues album. Clapton plays guitar with a lot of fire. This collection is awesome. February 12, 2007

Guitar Heaven By Eric Clapton!

Few albums have had greater impact than John Mayall's 1966 landmark "Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton." Released by the Decca label in Britain on 22 July 1966, literally days after Clapton left the Bluesbreakers and just a week before Cream's debut, it went all the way to #6, a pretty mean feat, since Mayall's band had never had a hit single. This may have been a first in Britain.

Of course, this is the album that set the blues and guitar worlds aflame and established Eric Clapton's name worldwide as the most passionate of musical interpreters. If you haven't yet heard "Beano" -- as it is affectionately known, because Clapton is pictured reading a "Beano" comic book on its cover -- then you ain't heard nuthin' yet! This is the stuff of legends.

From the album's first notes, you realize that you're in guitar heaven, as "Slowhand" shows us the way electric guitar can and should be played. Clapton's virtuoso playing is white hot throughout. Playing with a maturity beyond his 21 years, the young Eric Clapton so influenced the guitar world that Gibson eventually reissued the Les Paul model -- out-of-production since 1960 -- which Clapton then played.

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers served -- and serves still today -- as a finishing school for great musicians and sidemen (Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, John McVie, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Fleetwood and others). Mayall's proselytizing the blues (he's 73 years old!), his songwriting skills, and his other musical talents should not be ignored nor taken lightly.
January 9, 2007

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