Mayall Leads Celebration Of The Blues
John Mayall Festival at Sandpoint, Memorial Field Friday, Aug. 8
The man is a fine blues singer, an inventive blues keyboardist and an absolutely smashing blues harpist.
Yet he’s best known as a guy who discovers great guitarists. How fair is that?
John Mayall proved to the Festival at Sandpoint crowd that he is far more than just a man with an ear for talent. Two of the biggest ovations of the evening came during Mayall’s rollicking boogie-woogie solo piano number, and on his fabulous and familiar harmonica solo turn on his only chart hit, “Room to Move.”
No question about it, Mayall is a man with an ear for talent. His guitarist, Buddy Whittington of Texas, is of the same stunning caliber as some past Bluesbreakers guitarists, including Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor. Whittington was dazzling from the very first number, a guitar instrumental in which he fired off fast and fluid blues phrases.
A Mayall guitarist is by definition a blues purist (that’s why Clapton left the Yardbirds for Mayall) and Whittington’s playing is deeply rooted in the blues traditions. Yet he rarely resorted to the same blues cliches heard thousands of times a night in blues bars across the land. Whittington is a spectacularly inventive player, moving from short, terse Chicago-blues phrases into a series of arpeggios and then into clever and totally unexpected chunks of chords.
The entire evening was a celebration of classic American blues forms, and it no longer seems even a little odd that this celebration should be conducted by a gray-haired Brit.
Mayall and the entire band, which also included John Paulus on bass and Joe Yuele on drums, have a knack for remaining respectful of tradition without copying it. They achieve this partly by steering clear of covers, for the most part. Most of the songs they did Friday night were Mayall originals, tunes from his fine new album, “Blues for the Lost Days.”
One of the best was a harmonica-based tune called “All Those Heroes,” which talks about all of Mayall’s influences as a young musician. It included the line, “Blind Lemon Jefferson, Barbecue Bob, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake / The stories they told about the lives they lived / Stirred imagination and heartache.”
There were a pair of well-chosen covers, including Eddie Harris’ “How Can You Live Like That,” and Ray Charles’ “Just About to Lose Your Clown,” sung by Whittington.
Yet I must confess, my favorite part of the show was Mayall’s rendition of “Room to Move,” with its classic harmonica line. Mayall even did a few mouth-noises, just like the old days.
The big, happy festival crowd swayed and shouted, and the shooting stars streaked above the festival tent.
, DataTimes