The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
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Music People British blues legend John Mayall gained status when Eric Clapton joined his band, the Bluesbreakers. Clapton left to form Cream, but Mayall con- tinued to work with great musicians, tour and record. Sam Spokony talked with Mayall about today’s music industry, Mayall’s place in music history and the blues. Since the Bluesbreakers finally disbanded in 2008 (after over four decades of work with various lineups), how has your musical mentality changed to enter another phase in your career? Well, it’s a new energy. That’s what you get when you start working with new people, and these guys (Rocky Athas – guitar, Greg Rzab – bass, Jay Davenport – drums), as you probably know, are pretty exceptional players. The tour that will take you to the Oneonta Theater on April 1 will also take you around the world, spans from the end of March to December. As someone that’s been on so many lengthy tours, do you find your preparation for them ever changes, or does working with new musicians always just create its own experience along the way? It’s hard to come up with an answer for that. We go on the road and do the same amount of shows every year all over the world, so, you know, that’s just the way it’s always been. Each tour is a separate entity, and that’s how I enter them each time. Do you ever feel like, based on the long history of your career, that audiences now expect something dif- ferent from you as a performer, or as an icon? Not really. We go out on the road and we have fun to- gether, and, you know, that’s always a very exciting prospect. We spend one-third of every year on the road, so it’s exciting every time we get together. On your last album (“Tough,” released in 2009 on Eagle Records) you took the blues straight into today’s societal landscape, using your tunes to comment on the recent economic recession, pop/rap music and other contemporary issues. What is your take on the fact that so many younger artists who play the blues now tend to try so hard to, for lack of a better term, make it sound old? Well, a blues singer, at his best, always sings about the stuff that connects with his own personal life and his own thoughts on what’s going on around him. That’s what I’ve always done. As blues musicians, we should keep moving forward, keep moving on. Amidst all of this generation’s changes in popular taste, the music industry, and, most importantly, tech- nology and digitalization, do you feel that the blues 10 O-Town Scene March 31, 2011 still carries the same weight with a younger audience? Oh, I think so, partially just because there are more young blues musicians right now, and musicians in general, than there ever have been before. So that tells you something. I think the music is very much alive, and is tapping into the enthusiasm of all age groups. So when you listen to or see younger musicians per- form this music, what do you see in their interpreta- tions of it that may be different from what you set out to do in the ’50s and ’60s? I don’t really know; when we’re on the road we don’t really get to hear anybody else live because we’re usually the only ones on the bill. So I only hear what everyone else does, and that happens on the few occasions when I turn on the radio. All I know is that there’s plenty of enthusiasm, because when- ever I pick up a newspaper in any town, I find plenty of blues slots there. That proves that it’s very much alive and kicking. Well, considering your recent comments regarding the rap music of this generation, which I mentioned before and which were pretty pointedly negative, what are your views on that style? I only see and hear what everybody else does. Music does tend to move on and reflect what’s going on in the world. Rap music is a part of that; it’s something that I don’t particularly like, but that’s my own personal opinion. One thing that my peers (I’m 21) generally think is new and exciting about today’s music industry is that we now have the tools to do everything ourselves as artists: write the tunes, perform all the instruments, have control over the process, etc. Well, you basically did just that, in 1967, on “The Blues Alone.” Do you feel that there are more parallels between the music culture of that era and that of today than many people would like to admit? I have no idea. I mean, I only know what I do and what I’ve always done. That’s meant having the freedom to do what I want musically, and always be able to shape it when it came to being in the studio and putting down something lasting. I can only speak for my own take on these things. So, what was your take on things when you were recording an album like “The Blues Alone”? Well, just the same as ever. I’m a musician and I know what I want. What we came up with then has proven to be success- ful all these years, and I just never saw any other way to go Contributed Legendary blues musician John Mayall will perform at the Oneonta Theatre at 9 p.m. Friday. about doing that. Sometimes we have a producer, but it still comes out sounding like my music. You’ve recorded for a long list of different record labels, and that span of time has taken you through some of the big transitional periods in the history of recording technology. Thinking about the level of development we’ve reached now, do you see any connections between this generation’s newfound ease of studio recording and the mentality that goes along with just writing and performing the music itself? I can’t really be sure. Obviously the technology has im- proved, and there are more sophisticated tools for artists to work with, and that’s one of the good things about it. The first album I did with (Eric) Clapton was done on a four-track machine because that was all that was available then. Nowa- days, you have more flexibility and freedom to get down exactly what you want. That’s one of the bonuses of technol- ogy; it enables you do these things more easily. But along with the positive aspects of new technolo- gy, do you feel that anything was lost along the way? In the records you cut with Clapton, Peter Green and others, was there something that’s missing now? Not at all. The technology makes it easier to get what you want, and that’s what really matters. Thinking about your career as a whole and the num- ber of musicians you’ve worked with and influenced, I tend to, looking across genres, compare you to Art Blakey, the great jazz drummer. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Continued on Page 11