Only A Bar Band?

I have friends who will disparage bands they aren’t fond of by saying, “They’re only a bar band.”  Curiously, this includes people who are in the same bar band as me.

To which I say:  Only a bar band?!?  Think about some of the massive albums that were recorded by bands who were still playing in clubs at time.

The Beatles were still gigging at places like the Cavern Club in Liverpool and the Star Club in Hamburg while they recorded Please Please Me.

The Who were performing in clubs when they recorded My Generation.

Eric Clapton achieved his notorious divinity not on the concert stage but in the nightclubs of London, while he knocked off both the John Mayall “Beano” and Fresh Cream albums.

The next year, Eric, The Beatles, The Stones and their pals caught Hendrix at the Bag O’ Nails while he was recording Are You Experienced.

Even Page, Plant &co. played a few club dates before Led Zeppelin I launched them on their path to world domination.

Only a bar band?  I guess if you can have a left-handed compliment, you can also have a left-handed insult.

Undercover Agent For The Blues …

… and Rock!  Take a look at the influence John Mayall has had.  The connections.  The influences. The great music that came out of his influence.

It’s almost unbelievable.  The diagram just depicts the most obvious connections.  The ones that could fit on a page.  It’s missing the Yardbirds-Page-Zeppelin link.  It obscenely abridges Clapton’s reach.  It skips the whole Dylan universe outside the Willburys.  It doesn’t even try to show who Phil Collins has touched, which is, like, everybody.

Was John Mayall as influential as Lennon, Dylan, Jagger, Hendrix or Page?  Maybe not, but when you think about who he’s played with – and who they played with, he’s touched just about everything.  Mayall is one important cat.

A Hard Road

I saw John Mayall in concert a while back. Always a joy to see a legend perform.

And what a legend. Your textbook itinerant bluesman: working hard, grinding it out, spreading the word. Giving it up, getting very little back.

Always a footnote on someone else's career ... Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya, Walter Trout, Buddy Wittington, and now Rocky Athas. An impressive list of sidemen, but I understate.

Anyway, it was a fun show. Great tunes, tight band, lots of energy. Not bad for a 78 year old man.

Good work, John. You've been down so many roads. Glad to see you've still got room to move.