The list of people who played in his band, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, contains many who became luminaries, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Taylor. He seems to have had a talent for uncovering musicians with much to give to the world. For that, British rock music still owes Mayall a debt.
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: All Your Love
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: Tears in my Eyes
John Brumwell Mayall: 29/11/1933 – 22/7/2024. So it goes.
Delaney and Bonnie – under whose name along with their friends – this song was released formed a rotating ensemble using many musicians among whom was Eric Clapton who features on this recording.
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends featuring Eric Clapton: Comin’ Home
This is me breaking the (self-imposed) rules of my category – again.
And how does it break the rules?
It’s a Beatles song. (There have been none so far.)
Well, I say a Beatles song but they never released it in the 60s – and the main item isn’t performed by the Beatles.
The song was, though, written by George Harrison for the White Album sessions but not used on the release. Instead it’s notable as the only track on which three members of the Beatles recorded together for an artist other than themselves during the band’s lifetime; the artist being Jackie Lomax. The line-up contained Lomax on vocals, George Harrison and Eric Clapton on guitars, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Paul McCartney on bass, and Ringo Starr on drums, although McCartney’s contribution was actually overdubbed later.
I include a “Beatles” version from the White Album sessions.
I include this not for Clapton’s guitar licks. Those are not what I like most about this track. The best bit is when it becomes less frenetic, slows down and moves into the piano dominated second part.
The Shadows were a bit before my time though they were a kind of Saturday night variety televisual backdrop to my childhood.
But I do know that they were important and that without them there might have been no Beatles, no Clapton, no Jeff Beck, Peter Green, Jimmy Page etc etc.*
It’s only right to mention, then, the passing of bassist Jet Harris.
Terence (Jet) Harris. 6/7/1939 -18/3/2011. So it goes.
*This is maybe overstating the case a little as some of these might have come to prominence anyway but there is more than a grain of truth in it.
Every time I hear this song it takes me back to the Church Hall in Dumbarton and the youth club I used to go to.
I suggested it to the guy in charge of putting the records on. He asked if it was any good. It was.
It is.
The guitar riff at the start of the break is similar to the one in You Never Give Me Your Money (repeated in Carry That Weight) from that great medley of songs on side two of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Not surprising since George Harrison had a hand in Badge’s conception and he and Eric Clapton often worked together.
Cream: Badge
Later edited to add: the line about “the swans that they live in the park” was apparently thought up by one Ringo Starr.
