British singer and musician John Mayall, a pioneer of English blues in the 1960s and an influential figure in the rock scene, has died at the age of 90, his family announced on his official Facebook page on Tuesday.
He died the day before at his home in California, the statement said, without mentioning the precise cause of his death.
“The health concerns that forced John to end his ‘career’ have finally brought one of the world’s greatest travelers to rest in peace,” the text notes.
This singer, harmonica player, keyboard player and guitarist was one of the main players in the “blues boom”, a wave that swept over England in the mid-sixties.
John Mayall was “a great pioneer of British blues,” Mick Jagger said.
“He had a wonderful eye for talented young musicians, including Mick Taylor, whom he recommended to me (…), paving the way for a new era for the Stones,” the British singer of the Rolling Stones wrote on the social network X.
Briton Mick Taylor was a guitarist with the Stones for a few years from 1969.
In 1963, John Mayall, already 30 years old, arrived in London from the north of England. A graduate of the Beaux Arts, he decided to abandon his job as a graphic designer to embrace the career of a blues musician, a style born in black America.
At the head of his Bluesbreakers, he will develop a sophisticated blues.
Several young guitarists, who would later become very famous, would reveal themselves there, first and foremost Eric Clapton, but also Peter Green, guitarist and co-founder of the famous British group Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor.
John Mayall emigrated to California in 1968, where he continued to refine his progressive blues.
“Livin’ & Lovin’ the blues”: this slogan on his tour posters illustrates the state of mind that animated this servant of the blues.
When he started playing blues in the 1960s, “this music was a novelty for white England,” he told AFP in 1997. Arriving in the United States, he launched an American tour in 1972 with a group composed almost exclusively of black musicians.
Easily recognizable by his legendary goatee and ponytail when he was younger, John Mayall cut some seminal records, John Mayall Plays with Eric Clapton And Blues from Laurel Canyon notably.
Born near Manchester in 1933, he leaves behind six children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, according to the statement on his Facebook page.