John Mayall, the musician and bandleader often referred to as the godfather of British blues — and whose long-running group the Bluesbreakers incubated some of rock music’s greatest talents, including Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Mick Fleetwood — died Monday at his home in California, according to a statement posted by his family on his official Facebook page. He was 90.
The statement did not specify the cause, but attributed the death to “health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career.”
Mayall, who had been performing on tour through 2022, was set to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October as the winner of the organization’s Musical Influence Award. On its website, the hall praised Mayall’s “rugged individuality and distinctive voice and style” and said he “continually experimented with and expanded the blues.”
“The blues is for me an inexhaustible source of inspiration,” he told The Times in 1990. “It really is inexhaustible.”
A guitarist, keyboardist, singer, harmonica player and songwriter, Mayall released dozens of albums and performed countless concerts over a career that spanned more than half a century. But he is best remembered for helping to spark the 1960s blues revival that would make pop stars out of Clapton, the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac.
Their 1966 LP “Blues Breakers,” on which Clapton played guitar (shortly after he left the Yardbirds), is widely considered a classic of the genre and earned a spot on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Mayall was born in 1933 near Manchester, England, where his father collected records and played music as a hobby. At age 3, he “became addicted” to the music of the Mills Brothers, he told The Times; after being discharged from the British Army at age 20, he formed his first band “strictly for my own satisfaction.”
However, when he was 30, he moved to London to pursue music professionally and found a thriving blues scene that he described in an interview with The Times as “the south's answer to the north, to the Beatles-dominated Liverpool pop-rock.” Beyond Clapton, the Bluesbreakers eventually attracted Peter Green, who left the band to form Fleetwood Mac; Jack Bruce, who played with Clapton in Cream; and Aynsley Dunbar, who played drums for Frank Zappa, among other artists.
Mayall moved to Los Angeles in 1969 and spent the 1970s expanding his focus into jazz. But he reformed the Bluesbreakers in the mid-1980s and was soon back to playing an average of 120 dates a year.
“There would be more, but I put a limit on it,” she told The Times. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have a family life, and that’s very important to me.”
Mayall is survived by six children: Gaz, Jason, Red, Ben, Zak and Samson; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His family statement said he was “also surrounded by the love of his previous wives, Pamela and Maggie, his devoted secretary, Jane, and his close friends.”
