Customer Reviews

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

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Few albums have had greater impact than John Mayall's 1966 landmark "Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton." Released by the Decca label in Britain on 22 July 1966, literally days after Clapton left the Bluesbreakers and just a week before Cream's debut, it went all the way to #6, a pretty mean feat, since Mayall's band had never had a hit single. This may have been a first in Britain.

Of course, this is the album that set the blues and guitar worlds aflame and established Eric Clapton's name worldwide as the most passionate of musical interpreters. If you haven't yet heard "Beano" -- as it is affectionately known, because Clapton is pictured reading a "Beano" comic book on its cover -- then you ain't heard nuthin' yet! This is the stuff of legends.

From the album's first notes, you realize that you're in guitar heaven, as "Slowhand" shows us the way electric guitar can and should be played. Clapton's virtuoso playing is white hot throughout. Playing with a maturity beyond his 21 years, the young Eric Clapton so influenced the guitar world that Gibson eventually reissued the Les Paul model -- out-of-production since 1960 -- which Clapton then played.

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers served -- and serves still today -- as a finishing school for great musicians and sidemen (Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, John McVie, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Fleetwood and others). Mayall's proselytizing the blues (he's 73 years old!), his songwriting skills, and his other musical talents should not be ignored nor taken lightly.

I'm writing a review of the 1983 pressing on the London label. I think that the audio quality is pretty good. I've also heard the mfsl version and I think that the it is a bit more relaxed sounding, but it is also much more expensive. This is an excellent sounding cd for the money. Oh, and the music is great too.

If there had been any previous doubt Eric Clapton firmly established with this record that he was the finest blues guitarist in England. His playing here has unsurpassed power and expressiveness. The only things that prevent this album from being a complete delight to listen to are John Mayall's thin whiny vocals and his mundane, cliched lyrics. (yes, I know-the blues are cliches). Clapton has one vocal here and it's rather, perhaps surprisingly, quite solid. If only he could have handled all of the vocals. . .
To my mind the crop of British blues guitarists at the time, the best of them, like Clapton and Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and Peter Green were finer, more imaginative and technically skilled than any comparable American blues guitarists. B.B. King is great but he never transcended his genre the way these 4 British guitarists have.