Blues From Laurel Canyon [Original recording remastered]

Arriving in California in late July 1968 for a 3-week vacation, Mayall met other like-minded people and it prompted a splurge of songs from him that musically documented his feelings of elation and finally belonging. When he got back to Britain, he took his new stripped-down 4-piece band into Decca's Studios in West Hampstead for a 3-day session - 26 to 28 August 1968 - and out popped what many feel is his best album - "Blues From Laurel Canyon" - the entire record infused with reinvigoration and purpose.

The band for the session was:
JOHN MAYALL - Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards & Vocals
MICK TAYLOR - Guitars
STEPHEN THOMPSON - Bass
COLIN ALLEN - Drums & Tablas

This expanded 2007 CD reissue (Decca 984 083-9) breaks down as follows (61:13 minutes):
Tracks 1 to 12 are the album "Blues From Laurel Canyon" issued in November 1968 in the UK on both MONO and STEREO - Decca LK 4972 and Decca LKS 4972 (it peaked in the UK charts at Number 33 in January 1969). It was also issued February 1969 in the USA in STEREO-only on London PS 545 (it peaked at a more modest 68).

The Stereo version has been used for this remaster with two bonus tracks thrown in. First up is a "single version" of "2401", the B-side of the "The Bear" which issued on 45 on Decca F 12846 in November 1968 in the UK; second is a rare eight and half minute live version of "Wish You Were Here" recorded in Sweden in December 1968 with the same band as the album line-up (it was first released on the "Primal Solos" LP in 1977 on London LC 50003 in the USA and then in 1983 in the UK on Decca TAB 66). A real let down however is that the MONO mix didn't make the CD - but in fairness to the compilers - even if you drop the twelve and half minutes of the two bonus tracks - it would have been a push to get both versions on here intact - and the live track is a great addition - especially for fans of this wonderful band line-up.

Co-produced by MIKE VERNON (of Blue Horizon fame), the sound quality achieved on the original vinyl albums was famously superb and PASCHAL BYRNE of Audio Archiving has only amplified that in this truly fantastic remaster - ballsy, clean and beautifully clear. The 16-page booklet features the original Mayall liner notes, the lyrics and a detailed and affectionate appraisal of the album by noted writer and project co-ordinator MARK POWELL. There are even outtake photos from the album cover shoot.

The LP itself played like his emotions - tracks segue into each other, which either lifts the mood up or down depending on the tempo of the song - a clever representation of what he was feeling - jumping one moment, mellow the next. Highlights include the blisteringly good "Walking On Sunset" (lyrics above) which itself segues into the slinky and fabulous piano blues of "Laurel Canyon Home" which name-checks Zappa's girl-group signing "The GTO's" - while genuinely lamenting his departure from that Californian suburb in the lyrics "...here's a way of living that I will sorely miss..."

"The Bear" was a tribute to Canned Heat's lead singer BOB HITE while the quietly plaintive "First Time Alone" features the echoed licks of PETER GREEN as a guest guitarist. It's followed by superb keyboard work from Mayall on "Long Gone Midnight" which then gives way to the album's big finisher - and what an Outro it is - the stunning nine minutes of "Fly Tomorrow". After Chris Allen's Tabla intro, Mick Taylor finally gets room to stretch and show how he can play guitar. It's magnificent - and when I feature it on a shop play list, it brings customers to the counter asking - "who's this?"

So there you have it - John Mayall's "Blues From Laurel Canyon" is like Blodwyn Pig's "Ahead Ring Out" (1969) (see review), Fleetwood Mac's "Then Play On" (1969) and Taste's "On The Boards" (1970) - a properly great rock album from that extraordinary period of time - and it still stands up some forty years after the event.

Mick Taylor went on of course to join the Stones and the wow of "Beggars Banquet", "Let It Bleed". "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile On Main Street" - and in 2009 aged 76, Mayall is still playing the music he loves - the blues - with a little bit of boogie and rock thrown in.

A fab reissue then with quality remastered sound and annotation.

Five out of five.

Another brilliant re-release from John Mayall, with some extra tracks, which have been available before. This was the last electric guitar based album he made, before moving to an acoustic format. Once again, superb musicianship and good songs produced an album which must be in the collection of all British blues fans. Guitarist Mick Taylor was given plenty of room to stretch out on this one, and he proved his huge talent, which unfortunately was rather wasted when he subsequently joined the Rolling Stones!

John Mayall is of course the Godfather Of British Blues, first recording in 1965 and still touring and recording prolifically today, well into his seventies. My favourite of his many albums is this outstanding offering from 1968, which is both a collection of original blues-based songs with contemporary psych overtones and also a diary in music of his three-week vacation in Los Angeles that summer: either a song cycle or a concept album, according to your own definitions, but certainly unique among the slew of straightforward blues albums being produced by white performers on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Starting with the roar of a jet swinging across the stereo plane - a device cheekily lifted from the Beatles' White Album - the record chronicles Mayall's discovery of the heady delights of late sixties LA, his first sojourn in Laurel Canyon where he would later make his permanent home, his stay as a guest of Canned Heat with whom Mayall struck up a strong and lasting rapport - later, both Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor would leave Heat to join Mayall's band - and, in considerable detail, his mission to get laid. It ends with a rueful recollection of the brief love affair and a moody anticipation of returning home to the UK.

In fact this is a collection of many moods, from joyous exploration of glamourous new surroundings, to irritable self-examination following a bust-up with an unidentified companion, to deep and intimate relations in the bedroom. The changes of mood are emphasised by Mayall's constant switches of instrumentation - he was already virtuosic on piano, Hammond and mouth-harp and capable on guitar - and by the careful segue of each track into the next, plus the pitching of each song in a different key. Every one of the twelve keys of the chromatic scale, except F#, is used (try playing blues in Db or Ab, if you will).

Backup is provided by the rock-solid rhythm section of drummer Colin Allen and 18-year-old bassist Stephen Thompson, while guitarist Mick Taylor, on his final studio outing with Mayall prior to joining the Stones, wields his Les Paul always tastefully and often excitingly throughout. Production by Decca's veteran producer Mike Vernon is commendable for those eight-track days.

My standout tracks are Ready To Ride, on which Mayall's overactive hormones fuel some explosive harp work; The Bear, whose intro pays tribute to a well-known Heat riff before segueing into a delightful piano-led country blues dedicated to Bob Hite; and Miss James, in which the Hammond reels through the jazzy changes in best Jimmy Smith style. But individual tracks cannot do justice to this album; for best effect it demands to be heard in sequence at a single sitting. Highly recommended.