For nearly six decades, John Mayall’s name has been synonymous with the blues, especially in England. The man responsible for spotlighting young blues guitarists like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, as well as future superstars John McVie and Mick Fleetwood in his Blues Breakers line-ups, Mayall is the Eveready Bunny of the blues, still going and going at the age of 87.
His cumulative discography, including studio and live LPs and compilations, totals somewhere around 100 albums, and he’s also released dozens of singles.Now, through what must have been years of painstaking mining of archives and headphone time, the Madfish label of Snapper Music Ltd. has released the deluxe 35 disc box set John Mayall – The First Generation 1965 - 1974 .
With
a pressing limited to 5,000 copies, this massive collection demonstrates how
prolific Mayall was in his early years, though he certainly hasn’t slowed down
since. The collection includes newly remastered versions of 19 of Mayall’s
albums, from 1965’s John Mayall Plays
John Mayall through 1974’s.
he Last Edition with the exception of 1969’s Primal Solos, an archival album whose songs are included as bonus tracks in other discs on this box set.The incredibly productive Mayall himself is a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboards, harp and guitar, in fact playing all of them on the 12 tracks of his 1967 album The Blues Alone (included in this box set), recorded when multi-tracking and overdubbing were still in their infancy. He got started relatively late in life, recording his first album at the age of 31 after he’d been playing professionally for nearly a decade. A onetime art student, Mayall is also known for having designed many of his own album covers and carving his guitar bodies into works of art.
The box set was put together with John’s full cooperation. It contains: - 35 discs, including 3 CD Singles & 8 previously unreleased discs, alongside newly remastered versions of the original Decca & Polydor albums
- Seven previously unleased live recordings, including Windsor
1967, Gothenburg 1968, Berlin 1969 and San Francisco 1970, among others
- 28
unreleased BBC tracks, featuring Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor
- An
autographed photo
- 168
page coffee table book including rare photos, posters, and memorabilia, written
by Neil Slaven
- 128
page hard cover book of newsletters, interviews, band member biographies, tour
updates and all kinds of fascinating details from The Official John Mayall Fan
Club, including images of letters sent out by its first secretary, Doreen
Pettifer
- Two
replica posters: Ten Years Are Gone and the official poster from the 1968 tour
-
Replica press pack for John Mayall Plays John Mayall
The First Generation Box Set will be released on January 29th,
2021 on the Madfish label through Snapper Music.
Order the Box Set here: https://JohnMayallMusic.lnk.to/TheFirstGeneration
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