Being obsessed with the Blues from an early age (I bought Chris Farlowe's 'Stormy Monday' when I was 13 and had been collecting EP's by Big Billy Broonzy, Leadbelly and Howlin Wolf and Josh White from even younger - pretentious moi!?). This album came as a total surprise and I still have it on vinyl somewhere. I had a phase of following John Mayall and bought quite a few albums in the reduced bins and paying little more that 10/- if I could (that is ten shillings to those who don't know and was my pocket money at the time equivalent today of 50p)

On this day in music history: July 22, 1966 - “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton” by John Mayall & The Blues Breakers is released. Produced by Mike Vernon, it is recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, UK in March 1966. The album is initially planned as a live recording, but the recordings are scrapped and the band record in the studio instead. It is released to great acclaim upon its release in the UK, further cementing Eric Clapton’s reputation as a brilliant lead guitarist, and is regarded as one of the quintessential British blues recordings. Clapton uses his newly acquired (and now legendary) 1960 Les Paul during the sessions. The albums now famous cover photo features the band posed together looking at the camera, with Clapton eyes averted reading a “Beano” comic book. In 2006, Universal Music Group releases a double CD Deluxe Edition of “Blues Breakers” featuring a remastered version of the original album with the original stereo and mono mixes, with the second disc featuring live recordings made for and originally broadcast on the BBC radio program “Saturday Club Sessions” as well as the stand alone single “Lonely Years” and its original B-side “Bernard Jenkins”. “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton” peaks at number six on the UK album chart.




We all aspired to play like this in 'Hideaway' and its changes in tempo is something I had become addicted to in my own playing and tried my best to emulate whenever I could. If it sounds overly simple today it is largely thanks to Eric Clapton and thousands of fans who dragged the blues into common parlance as it were. It has become a standard by which every guitar player was judged