John Mayall: The Masters

[michelej1]

Review from All About Jazz

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=30050

John Mayall
The Masters
Eagle Records
2008

Live at The Marquee 1969 is released concurrently with a two-CD set titled The Masters, the first disc of which overlaps some of the content included on another double disc set The Turning Point Soundtrack (Eagle Records, 2004). It also shares some of the same archive material as a two-CD set released in 2004 along with a companion piece to the documentary The Godfather of The British Blues (Eagle Records, 2004). These sets, interesting as they may be to the Mayall fan, thus reveal little if anything that is new about this period in his career and, arguably, they may be considered redundant by definition give the existence of an expanded version of The Turning Point, itself a live recording from Bill Graham's Fillmore West.

The inclusion of interviews with Mayall himself, as well as Eric Clapton, Peter Green and bass guitarist John McVie (who left Mayall to form Fleetwood Mac in 1968) and British journalist Chris Welch (who writes informed and passionate liner notes as he usually does for such releases) also constitutes re-release of footage some of which appeared on the DVD: it is somewhat difficult to follow here as audio only, without visuals, even in those interludes of band rehearsal.