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John Mayall, pioneering figure of British blues, dies aged 90

Influential musician, whose band the Bluesbreakers played leading role in 60s blues revival, dies at home in California

Singing as well as playing guitar and keys, Mayall recruited musicians including John McVie (who would go on to form Fleetwood Mac) for the earliest incarnation of his ever-evolving band the Bluesbreakers. To surprise in the blues-rock scene, he shifted away from the driving and noisy music he’d been making in the UK, and towards recordings without a drummer and with acoustic instrumentation such as woodwind, saxophone and fingerpicked guitar – though he revisited his louder, raunchier style on 1971 double album Back to the Roots, with Clapton and Taylor guesting. In 1979, their Laurel Canyon house burned down and was later rebuilt, with Maggie later writing: “We escaped with our lives and nothing but the clothes on our backs … John dropped the garden hose and we ran like hell, driving through flames in our friend’s Chevy Suburban.”

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