Customer Reviews

Bare Wires

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A forgotten album that's a dark horse candidate for Mayall's best work. Savage guitar from Mick Taylor; killer horns and percussion. A sense of sadness seeps deep beneath the blues. Very adult music from a musician who was growing old before his time and couldn't do anything about it.

Mayall is a throwback to the "big band leaders" of the early 40s. His greatest talents were recognizing and assembling great musicians; directing and leading those musicians; and arranging and creating great musical compositions. This album highlights all of those strengths and in my opinion is his best. I'm a big fan of Mayall and have all of his early works, 1980 and earlier. I rediscovered this album after I started switching my collection over to CDs...I had long lost or "misplaced" the vinyl. Oddly enough, I guess my aging has changed my taste a bit, because I now put Barewires at the top of the Mayall collection. There is more use of horns and the music is more--I guess "moody" is the right term. I love the suite; it has all the ups and downs of life..."I'm a Stranger" is one of the best songs done by Mayall, it has everything. "No reply", "Hartley Quits" lots of good cuts on this one. This album is so smooth; it's great for a laid back evening of cooling the soul! Jazz/Blues, when done right, isn't a struggle to listen to and this album can be listened to with your eyes closed and your brain set on idle...

When I was in college, you just weren't any fun at parties if you didn't have a good Bob Dylan impression in your pocket, as well as a good John Mayall impression. Mayall's singing was so overtly unnatural that he was a perfect target, it seemed he was straining for every note. That said, Bare Wires is the album where he stays within his range most effectively. The result is that for once one does not have to politely avert one's eyes when he sings.

Bare Wires is certainly Mayall's most unusual album, and in many ways his finest. In addition to the standard blues fare for which he is famous it includes strange and brooding experimental numbers like Bare Wires, Fire, I Know Now, and Sandy. Invariably surrounded by other terrific musicians, this effort boasts one of Mayall's best bands ever, including an outstanding horn section - Chris Mercer and Dick Heckstall-Smith. Henry Lowther adds some particularly eerie, and appropriate, grace notes with his fiddle and coronet. Jon Hiseman is excellent on drums and Tony Reeves anchors the effort well on his bass.

Mayall plays guitar, piano, and harmonica, writes, arranges, sings, and probably puts up the posters too. But he is a not a virtuoso at any of them. His greatness lies in his dedication to the blues and his ability to find and groom talent. For many years Mayall's band was an unofficial Blues Graduate School, turning out such legends-in-the-making as Eric Clapton and Peter Green. When Bare Wires was recorded, Mick Taylor was the new hot thing. (Mayall had originally found Taylor through a newspaper ad when he was only 18, long before his stint with the Rolling Stones.)

The one time I saw Mayall, at the Fillmore East, he had Taylor with him. The kid was putting on a clinic, he was out of his head. That same energy and flare are present throughout Barewires, even on slow numbers like Killing Time. But when you get to the upbeat tracks like Start Walking and Hartley Quits, you'll see why many consider Taylor every bit as good as Clapton, which is saying something. A marvelously obscure and curious CD certain to delight the true collector.

First of all, this album is just plain extraordinary. Secondly, some reviewer down below says this is the only Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album with guitarist Mick Taylor. I think Taylor has been on like 4 or 5 different Mayall albums over the years, my favorite of which is *Crusade* Micks first recording with the band in which he really shines on the guitar, much to the same level as Clapton did on the *Beano* Bluesbreaker album. Shame nobody has reviewed it here on Amazon yet so there's your first five star rating for that album. Bare Wires is a trippy, mesmerizing album that is just astounding and at times scary. The sheer level of musicianship involved is evident all over. Jon Hiseman is a wicked evil drum wizard with a killer groove and fantastic chops. Mick Taylor, already proven on Crusade takes things a step or three further and really delivers the goods on this album. The rest of the band is superb, probably Mayalls best lineup ever right here. But don't take my word for it, GET IT and then go out and get *Crusade*!!

This is certainly the most ambitious album by John Mayall. The first track is a 22 minute suite where he lays out his personal trials and tribulations, from masterbating to problems with girl friends. This could be bad, but Mayall makes it work. The music that accompanies this piece is fantastic. It is lively, jazz and rock oriented blues. There are great solos throughout, especially the guitar solo from Mick Taylor.

The rest of the album is more traditional but transitional for Mayall. On this ablum he is moving out of strict blues and getting more into jazz and rock. Besides Taylor, the album featurs Jon Hiseman on drums and Dick Heckstal-Smith on sax. Both would later form Colesseum.

If you know John Mayall, you probably already know that he was a starting point for many musicians in the sixties, including Eric Clapton. An earlier group featured Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and Jon McVie before the formed Fleetwood Mac.

I've owned this album since I was 18, and it was released in '68.It is different than other Mayall albums in that it is a little more laid back but does have its upbeat moments.The brass at times is sassy! We used to listen to this album on sunday am's when you just had to 'vedge from the punishment we inflicted the night before. I paid more for this vinyl in '68 than the price of the cd!! This is an excellent blues album that must be listened to, I would never part with my vinyl copy.Has anyone ever seen the Mayall album "empty rooms" released on cd?

I remember when this came out .. 1968. everyone was blending tracks together a'la Sgt Pepper . Mayall's Bare Wires Suite is his Sgt Pepper! This is a set of music that has stood the test of time...a real classic British Blues disc .There are wonderful horns by Henry Lowther ,and the Late, great Dick Heckstall-Smith (R.I.P Dick) Jon Hisemans inventive drumming shines throughout this recording , Jon was with the last line -up of the ill -fated Graham Bond Organisation , along with Dick, prior to joining the Mayall Band . Mick Taylor had appeared on the Crusade album prior to this , and would be retained for the next album featuring a stripped down line up of just a four piece .('Blues from Laurel Canyon'which had one track featuring Peter Green.) Obviously , especially as they had not yet 'Cracked America' A large band like this would be impossible to keep on the road for very long , even back then ..Another album with this line -up would have been really something special. This is STILL one of Johns best...

That opening, with the Harmonium, those eerie, hissing vocals ("These are bare wires of my life...") that otherworldly Mick Taylor solo in "I Started Walking," the dual wah-wahs of "No Reply" the swing of "Hartley Quits," the weirdness of "Fire", moody violins, not to mention that swirling album cover design making John look like a Bluesman from Europa. THIS is the Mayall album you need to own. The "Beano" album will always be history but Bare Wires, to me, is the best one. Just too ahead of its time. It actually bombed with critics when it was released - but then again so did "Layla." Mick Taylor is sound supreme. Also, dig the drum sound and the stereo effects - unusual for a blues artist. He really dug deep for this one. It also has a middle-eastern influence to it. Beatnik/Hippie Blues & Jazz from Jupiter. You must own it!!!

After Hard Road and the 'beano album', I was originally outraged that Mayall had included 'horns' on this album. I now have 25 Mayall cds in my collection including anything since Walter Trout and Coco Montoya were members. Mayall and Paul Butterfield turned me onto the blues but this album was rejected. It was not until Kazaa came on the scene before I rediscovered this album. It is the album between 'Hard Road' and 'Crusade'. It contains some classic Mayall, Mike Talyor guitar and some wonderful moody tracks with Henry Lowther on violin. I repent, this is a great album, diminished only by the fact that the first track is a suite of tracks that should have been broken into more sizable chunks.

My friends and I first heard this one as college freshman in the dorm, back in the winter of 1968. Most of us had never heard roots blues before so we didn't have "traditional" models to compare with. We'd heard Butterfield's "Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw" and that's all, other than a few cuts of John Lee Hooker, and some of the 'blues-rock' done by the early Stones, the Animals, and Dylan. We really loved this Mayall album for its atmospheric quality and general moodiness, and its bounciness on the faster tracks; plus the lyrics were very inspiring for us to relate to - on the whole it seemed to model (in sound) personal changes we were collectively going through. The album as a whole fit in perfectly with the rest of the music we were listening to at the time ("Sgt. Pepper's", "John Wesley Harding", "Procol Harum", "Their Satanic Majesties' Request", "The Notorious Byrd Brothers", "Surrealistic Pillow", Country Joe's "Electric Music for the Minds & the Body", "The Doors", etc.)
There is alot of understatement in this music - these 'story-songs' project themselves in a kind of a quiet flow throughout much of the album. If you only appreciate the 'real blues', maybe this isn't for you; but in his bluesy idiom, Mayall does an excellent job capturing and interacting with the sound of a fertile time in rock/pop history. I would consider it essential listening for the era.