''Blues from Laurel Canyon'' is a 1968 album by

John Mayall John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, musician and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among it ...

, featuring British

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

music. It was his first album after the breakup of his band the Bluesbreakers in May 1968,Christopher Hjort, ''Strange Brew : Eric Clapton & the British Blues Boom, 1965-1970'', Jawbone Press, 2007, 352 pp. though others claim it was on 14 July 1968. It was also his last album with

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...

before moving to

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

Background

John Mayall sings and plays harmonica, organ and guitar on the album. The other band members are a young

Mick Taylor Michael Kevin Taylor (born 17 January 1949) is an English guitarist, best known as a former member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1967–1969) and the Rolling Stones (1969–1974). As a member of the Stones, h ...

(guitar),

Colin Allen Colin Eric Allen (born 9 May 1938) is an English blues drummer and songwriter. Career Allen spent the first ten years of his adult life working in aircraft engineering. He became interested in jazz at the age of 16 and two years later started ...

(drums) and Stephen Thompson (bass). The guitarist Peter Green is featured on the track "First Time Alone". The engineer was Derek Varnals. All the songs on the album were written by Mayall. The title of the album derives from Laurel Canyon,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States (in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

area) where John Mayall subsequently lived from 1969 to 1979. It forms a record of his visit there before moving to the US on a more permanent basis. The area was favoured by many musicians at the time. It was recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

between 26 and 28 August 1968, and was released on the Decca label. The album peaked at number 33 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

. A remastered and expanded version of this album was released in the UK in August 2007.

Track listing

All songs written by

— timings and keys also included.

Original tracks

# "Vacation" – 2:47 # "Walking on Sunset" – 2:50 # "Laurel Canyon Home" – 4:33 # "2401" – 3:42 # "Ready to Ride" – 3:32 # "Medicine Man" – 2:43 # "Somebody's Acting Like a Child" – 3:27 # "The Bear" – 4:40 # "Miss James" – 2:30 # "First Time Alone" – 4:49 # "Long Gone Midnight" – 3:27 # "Fly Tomorrow" – 8:59

Bonus tracks

"2401" – 3:56 A (Single version) # "Wish You Were Mine" – 8:36 (Live '68, previously on ''Primal Solos'')

Personnel

* John Mayall –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

, artwork, design *

– guitar,

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

* Steve Thompson –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

* Peter Green – guitar on "First Time Alone" ;Technical *Derek Varnals - engineer *Adrian Martins - assistant engineer *Dominique Tarlé, Stephen C. LaVere, Rob Bosboom - photography

References

External links

Austin Chronicle groupie book article
{{Authority control 1968 albums John Mayall albums Decca Records albums Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles London Records albums Albums produced by John Mayall Albums produced by Mike Vernon (record producer)