Crusade
Artist: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Community Score: 10.00

The final album of an (unintentional) trilogy, Crusade is most notable for the appearance of a very young, pre- Rolling Stones Mick Taylor on lead guitar. Taylor's performance is indeed the highlight, just as Eric Clapton and Peter Green's playing was on the previous album. The centerpiece of the album is a beautiful instrumental by Taylor... Read More

As It All Began: The Best of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers 1964-1969
Artist: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers

As It All Began: The Best of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers 1964-1968 is an excellent 20-track retrospective, capturing Mayall's band at their peak. The Bluesbreakers went through several different lineups during those four years, with musicians the caliber of Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Paul Butterfield, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Peter... Read More

Room to Move (1969-1974)
Artist: John Mayall

The majority of Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' best material from the early '70s is collected on this 29-track, double-disc set. Although Clapton appears on a couple of songs, the playing on Room to Move isn't as universally breathtaking as it is on London Blues, but the collection is thoroughly listenable, and it does feature many fine... Read More

London Blues (1964-1969)
Artist: John Mayall

This two-hour-plus compilation of the first five years of the history of John Mayall and his band the Bluesbreakers in their many permutations covers all the expected bases and then some. Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor are all represented, but so are Bernie Watson and Roger Dean, both of whom preceded Clapton in the guitarist's spot... Read More

John Mayall's Blues Breakers Crusade
Artist: John Mayall
Five Live Yardbirds
Artist: The Yardbirds
Community Score: 10.00

Five Live Yardbirds was the first important -- indeed, essential -- live album to come out of the 1960s British rock & roll boom. In terms of the performance captured and the recording quality, it was also the best such live record of the entire middle of the decade. Cut at a Marquee Club show in 1964 , Five Live Yardbirds was a popular album,... Read More

The Best of John Mayall - POLYDOR
Artist: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Bluesbreakers/A Hard Road
Artist: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve
Artist: Chicken Shack

If one can overlook Stan Webb's hyperventilating vocal excesses (which ain't easy), this is a promising debut, especially noteworthy for Webb's Freddie King-inspired guitar sting and Christine Perfect's understated vocals (only two, unfortunately compared to Webb's six). Webb does justice to his mentor with two instrumentals, King's "San-Ho-Zay"... Read More

Thru the Years
Artist: John Mayall

A grab bag of rare tracks from the '60s, some of which stand among Mayall's finest. His debut 1964 single "Crawling up a Hill" is one of his best originals; this comp also includes a couple of 1964-65 flipsides that were never otherwise issued in the U.S. The eight songs featuring Peter Green include some top-notch material that outpaces much of... Read More

The Turning Point
Artist: John Mayall
Community Score: 7.00

Recorded just after Mick Taylor departed for the Stones, John Mayall eliminated drums entirely on this live recording. With mostly acoustic guitars and John Almond on flutes and sax, Mayall and his band, as his typically overblown liner notes state, "explore seldom-used areas within the framework of low volume music." But it does work. The... Read More

Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
Artist: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Community Score: 7.50

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... Read More

Drivin' On: The ABC Years (1975-1982)
Artist: John Mayall

This two-disc, 32-track compilation brings together highlights from Mayall's output for ABC Records in the 1970s, pulling from the albums New Year, New Band, New Company; Notice to Appear; Lots of People; A Banquet of Blues; A Hard Core Package; and Last of the British Blues. These cherry-picked tracks do a nice job of highlighting Mayall's... Read More