John Mayall, the godfather of British blues, died in July 2024 at 90, leaving behind a legacy that reads like the family tree of rock and roll. This episode looks at how a self-taught graphic designer from Northern England, who did not commit to music full time until he was 30, built the band that launched the most acclaimed eras of Cream, Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones. We start with his father Murray Mayall’s rare collection of American blues and jazz records in Cheshire, a first electric guitar bought on leave in Japan during national service in Korea, art school in Manchester, and the 1963 move to London at the urging of Alexis Korner.

From the Marquee Club and a 1964 tour backing John Lee Hooker, we follow the Bluesbreakers through the arrival of Eric Clapton in April 1965, his sudden detour to Greece with a band called The Glands, and the 1966 Beano album that reached number six in the UK. We examine why Mayall ran his band like a strict finishing school, how he replaced departing stars with Peter Green and an 18-year-old Mick Taylor, and why he abandoned drums and volume at the peak of the hard rock explosion for The Turning Point. The story closes with Laurel Canyon, a devastating 1979 brush fire, decades of relentless touring, and his 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

• Why starting at 30 gave Mayall the discipline and lack of ego that volatile young players needed
• The Beano album, Clapton’s exit to form Cream, and how Mayall learned about it from the music press
• Peter Green leaving with John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor joining the Stones, and Andy Fraser leaving at 15 for Free
• The drummer-less acoustic pivot with Jon Mark and Johnny Almond and the move to Los Angeles and Jazz Blues Fusion
• Losing 25 years of diaries and 2,000 hours of footage in the Laurel Canyon fire, then an OBE, the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock Hall