Rating:
Genre: Rock
Release Date: 01/29/2008
Run Time: 37:06

Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton was Eric Clapton's first fully realized album as a blues guitarist -- more than that, it was a seminal blues album of the 1960s, perhaps the best British blues album ever cut, and the best LP ever recorded by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Standing midway between Clapton's stint with the Yardbirds and the formation of Cream, this album featured the new guitar hero on a series of stripped-down blues standards, Mayall pieces, and one Mayall/Clapton composition, all of which had him stretching out in the idiom for the first time in the studio. This album was the culmination of a very successful year of playing with John Mayall, a fully realized blues creation, featuring sounds very close to the group's stage performances, and with no compromises. Credit has to go to producer Mike Vernon for the purity and simplicity of the record; most British producers of that era wouldn't have been able to get it recorded this way, much less released. One can hear the very direct influence of Buddy Guy and a handful of other American bluesmen in the playing. And lest anyone forget the rest of the quartet: future pop/rock superstar John McVie and drummer Hughie Flint provide a rock-hard rhythm section, and Mayall's organ playing, vocalizing, and second guitar are all of a piece with Clapton's work. His guitar naturally dominates most of this record, and he can also be heard taking his first lead vocal, but McVie and Flint are just as intense and give the tracks an extra level of steel-strung tension and power, none of which have diminished across several decades. [In 1998, Polygram Records issued a remastered version of this album on CD, featuring both the stereo and mono mixes of the original tracks and new notes.]

~Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

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John Mayall - Organ
John Mayall - Guitar
John Mayall - Harmonica
John Mayall - Piano
John Mayall - Arranger
John Mayall - Keyboards
John Mayall - Vocals
John Mayall - Main Performer
John Mayall - Performer
John Mayall - Layout Design
Alan Skidmore - Saxophone
Alan Skidmore - Sax (Tenor)
John Almond - Saxophone
John Almond - Sax (Baritone)
Mike Vernon - Producer
John McVie - Bass
John McVie - Guitar (Bass)
John McVie - Performer
Eric Clapton - Guitar
Eric Clapton - Vocals
Eric Clapton - Performer
Gus Dudgeon - Engineer
Hughie Flint - Drums
Dennis Healey - Trumpet
Neil Slaven - Liner Notes
John Tracy - Coordination
John Tracy - Research
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Performer
Jackie Stansfield - Assistant Coordinator

Them
    Them / CD / 1965
Having a Rave Up
    The Yardbirds / CD / 1965
The Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hit Makers)
    The Rolling Stones / CD / 1964
Sky High
    Alexis Korner / CD / 1966

Release Date: 01/29/2008
Genre: rock
Run Time: 37:06