Rolling with the Blues
chronicles seven
John Mayall
concerts played between 1972 and 1982.
Mayall
had given up trying to maintain and support a regular backing group by the early '70s, and was instead working with different configurations for specific gigs. For the 1972 Frankfurt show that opens this two-disc set (a third disc is a DVD interview with
from 2002),
works with a lineup of
Keef Hartley
on drums,
Blue Mitchell
on trumpet,
Clifford Solomon
on sax,
Freddy Robinson
on guitar, and
Victor Gaskin
on upright bass.
Red Holloway
replaces
Solomon
on sax for a second show in Frankfurt a year later in 1973. A 1980 show in Huntington Beach, CA, finds
James Quill Smith
on guitar. Two 1982 concerts, one in Minneapolis and one in Chicago, feature
John McVie
of
Fleetwood Mac
on bass, while two shows in Italy later in the year, one in Rome and one in Lugo, sport a stripped-down lineup of
Mick Taylor
,
Steve Thompson
, and
Colin Allen
. For all these personnel differences, the sound is remarkably consistent and the live recordings are quite balanced, although things red-line occasionally and now and then there are some obvious dropouts, but nothing too serious. Among the highlights are the over 12-minute
jazz blues
"Got You on My Mind"
and a scuffling
"No Holds Barred"
from the 1972 Frankfurt show and an appropriately ragged
John Lee Hooker
homage,
"John Lee Boogie,"
from the 1980 Huntington Beach performance. ~ Steve Leggett