Second Day of Light

 

British blues-rock musician John Mayall died in his California home on Tuesday. He was 90 years old. Impermanence is swift.

I was a fan, although I must admit I kind of forgot about him somewhere along the line. To a degree, that's more a testament to Mayall's integrity than a knock against the quality of his music.  He played British blues rock, and for a period in the 1970s, that style was very popular and he got a lot of airplay on FM radio. But as styles and popular tastes changed, Mayall kept on playing the music he loved - British blues rock. He didn't go disco or punk when they were in vogue and he didn't put out a New Wave or alt rock LP. He stayed true to his original muse, consistently touring and putting out new albums of British blues rock, even though the masses had stopped listening. When the time came, I didn't replace my old vinyl records with Mayall CDs or MP3 files. I had forgotten, and it was only today that I fired up my Spotify account and remembered how good his music was.

I saw Mayall perform live on February 14 (Valentine's Day), 1975 at the old Academy of Music on 14th Street in Manhattan. Following the closing of the Fillmore East in 1971, the 3,400-seat Academy became a major downtown music venue, hosting a great many shows. In the mid-70s, some time after the Mayall show, the name changed to the Palladium, and in the 1980s, the Palladium was converted to a disco/nightclub by Studio 54 creator Steve Rubell and later operated by Limelight impresario Peter Gatien.   

In February 1975, I was living out in the town of Patchogue on Long Island, working as a handyman for an apartment complex. I dropped some acid the night of the show, but by that point in my life I was an experienced-enough tripper to easily navigate the Long Island Railroad and New York subway systems on acid and get to the Academy with a bunch of friends. One night in my life, I ran into Sun Ra on the subway, still dressed in full outer-space regalia, but I can't remember if it was the same night as the Mayall show or not. 

February 1975 was a transitional period in Mayall's career. The prior year, he released the album The Latest Edition, his first album to miss the U.S. charts since 1967 and his last for Polydor Records. Later that year, he released New Year, New Band, New Company on ABC, an unfortunate and uncharacteristic side excursion into funky, honky-tonk blues.     

I don't remember the setlist from the Academy show, although I do recall that he covered some, but not all, of my favorite songs of his. Nor do I remember who his side musicians were, although given the year, he was probably touring with the Latest Edition lineup, including Larry Taylor on bass, guitarists Hightide Harris and Randy Resnick, and Red Holloway on reeds. Even though the show was almost 50 years ago, I do remember that most songs included long instrumental solos, with the featured soloist often breaking down into minimalist passages, as if they were trying to produce as little sound as possible without actually stopping altogether. "Is the song over?," I kept wondering. "Should I be clapping now?" I also remember how people cheering "Mayall!" sounded to me like that were saying, "Mayo!"     

No telling who the opening act was. (Update: the internet's an amazing thing! I just found an archive of the NY Times from 2/14/75, including a listing for Mayall at the Academy. Also appearing on the bill were Keef Hartley, who played on several Mayall albums and whose Keef Hartley Band had played the original Woodstock, Hartley's side project, Dog Soldier, and the long-running Canadian hard-rock band, April Wine, none of whom I even remotely remember.)  

Anyway, considering that most people still alive today don't remember Mayall in his heyday, here's a link to a Spotify playlist of some of his best work: