John Mayall & The Blues Breakers

Picture a dark, raining, and cold November night and I am heading off to see John Mayall and the Blues Breakers (this time around with Buddy Wittington on Guitar) in Cambridge, UK. The Corn Exchange is the biggest venue in Cambridge, with a capacity of around 1500-2000, and is not the best for sound being a very tall wooden roofed building - which results often in a lot of muffled tone.

As I arrived John was arranging his latest display of cash bargains: DVD's, CD's, Bookmarks, and assorted paraphernalia. A chance to catch a word with the man himself I thought... I decided to grab a pint first, and then go and have a chat, but as I was at the bar I guessed from the crowds cheers that Stan Webb with Chicken Shack were walking on stage. I hadn't seen this lot before, so I decided to leave John and his merchandise table (not to mention a queue of eager bearded fans, all poised with pen and paper waiting for an autograph from the great man) and go and check out Mr Webb. Initial impressions are good: I was pleased to see Stan holding a Gold Top Les Paul and standing in front of a vintage Marshall Half Stack. And when he broke into the first solo… the tone filled the building and resonated down my spine with the cry from his guitar, it was weeping with pain. Stan and his gang broke into to the second number with even more blistering lick's. This was dirty, hurting, raw blues at it's best. The songs were simple, Stan's vocals were great - and the guitar sounded like heaven calling. On a couple of occasions Stan would grab his Glass slide and play over the neck, producing tubular waves of screaming guitar and then add some wah for even more effect. The band were tight as the proverbial, watching Stan's every move and ensuring that everything was real tight and together. Between songs Stan had time to wet his palette and talk to us with humours tales of his broken marriages and his feelings of what blues meant him. Stan recounted "Well, this next song, is about, a ex misses of mine, I wrote it after she left me; it's a bit like the last one really, but what else is there to write; woman leaves bloke, bloke writes song, bloke leaves woman, bloke writes song, woman rubs salt in the wound, bloke gets pissed off and writes a great song. That's just the Blues really hope you like it". I suppose you could say that's a bit of a cliche, but with Stan we all felt that this was the real deal. Raw, proper blues played from the heart. At the break I headed off to the bar, and John was still tending to his eagerly awaiting customers. However, within minutes music was coming from the stage once more. Buddy Wittington was on stage with the Blues Breakers and he was playing a custom Tele type guitar with a P90 pick up, through a Dr Zee amp. This had a clean, pure and rich tone -you could hear every note, technically brilliant. They played a couple of numbers before introducing John onto stage, and the crowd went wild – or, as wild as you can expect a crowd with an average age of approaching 60 to get! The atmosphere built as the band started playing, and then John was playing his keyboards, singing, grabbing his blues harp and papa-dee-papping down the mic - what a unique style he has! The set was nicely up-beat and the band were very tight. The whole effect was of clean, polished professionalism old troopers at the top of their game.  John would break into a solo on his keyboard - the crowd would cheer - then he would indicate to us that Buddy was about to break into a solo - the crowd would cheer some more, and Buddy would play his solo, note perfect, with great speed and when adding in some signature licks of Clapton or Page the crowd would cheer louder still. Musically pretty faultless, and they made it look easy. But, there's the rub: as I stood there I thought of another cliche: sometimes, less is more. I actually wanted them to miss a note, perhaps let the strings ring a little, let the guitar loose - show me that they were really taking it to the edge, and in that way actually get a bit of that raw edge and excitement into the show. It was all a little too polished, if you know what I mean? Anyway, John and crew played on through into the night, and, after the usual encores, the sheer enthusiasm of the audience showed that, my nitpicking aside - a great night was had by all. So, as I drained my last pint and braved the blustery night, I concluded that we had witnessed some great musicians, some great blues and, for this writer, a great introduction to Stan Webb and Chicken Shack!