Saturday Night Fish Fry

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John Mayall twin spin twin spin twin spin DOINNNGGG!!!



Marginalia wrote from across the deep blue sea to give us a few more details about Mayall's 1960s British R&B laboratory, the Bluesbreakers, which served as a training ground for British pop music royalty, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mick Fleetwood, and many others. With hindsight it seems sorta weird to me that Mayall wasn't much bigger in the United States, at least in the late 1960s. Don't think I ever heard a peep about him from the Beatles, either---also strange considering their own reverence for American "roots" music and Mayall's role as a champion of it.

This cut is the opening track on The Turning Point; the YouTuber clipped off a portion of the band introductions, but the song is intact. It's a standard 12-bar blues construction, but that easily cliched form doesn't jump right out at me because the arrangement is so interesting. It's a good example of how the band uses their instruments so effectively to make percussion unnecessary. The harp is sharp as razors, the bass bubbles and pops along, and the tenor works as a rhythm instrument while infusing the sound with the jazzy warmth that is so important to this quartet's sound. There's also a bit of mouth percussion on the track, which is the central feature on "Room To Move," another track you can find on YouTube.

To my ears, Mayall on this album sounds like a graduate of the Dudley Do-Right School of Voice. I don't mean that in a mean spirit at all, but that association baked itself into my skull upon first listening. And I call this a "school of voice" because I've heard it in a number of other places; the one that comes immediately to mind is J.W. Hodgkinson, who was lead vocalist for a unique-sounding UK band called If. I have to wonder if they're emulating the style of an American blues hero I'm not aware of.

One other distinguishing aspect of this cut is the lyrics. It's an unusual protest song that invokes the memory of American free-speech hero Lenny Bruce, who fought obscenity charges in the courts for the better part of two decades. He was also a pot smoker and a junkie. Mayall makes the case that weed should be legal, but since it's not then you shouldn't blame cops if you get busted for possession---you should respond with political activism, instead. I remember thinking the lyrics were somewhat "square," but not really objectionable. Looking back, I think Mayall's presentation was remarkable during an era when the terms "police" and "pigs" were synonymous with many, many youth in the United States.

Acknowledgment: I thank my old friend Gurlitzer, known to some people in southwest Cook County as Janet, for scraping up the catalog information.

The Laws Must Change, John Mayall (1969, "The Turning Point," Polydor Stereo 24-4004), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.