John Mayall: The Blues Crusader

I already have Mayall’s autobiography (or should I say part 1 of it) plus the brilliant Strange Brew, which is an unbeatable account of the Bluesbreakers until 1970.This book by Dinu Logoz is an enjoyable read, and I rattled through it in 3 days. The Mayall aficionado will not necessarily learn anything new about him, but nevertheless I still consider it a worthwhile purchase. The odd spelling mistake or grammatical error is not a problem - in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that doesn’t contain one or more of each. However, for me the book flowed well, and provided some nice little snippets about Mayall of which I was either unaware, or had forgotten. All in all, I would certainly recommend it.

A book on the career so far of British blues legend John Mayall is long overdue, but wait no this is a highly enjoyable and informative look at him , his life and his music. With a listing of every band line up he's had over fifty plus years, the albums he's made and the guest appearances on others recordings. A few years ago I was involved in a book about John Mayall's guitarists, but here we get the story of the man from Macclesfield who came to London, met the likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, John McVie, Keef Hartley, Chris Mercer, Hughey Flint and a whole host more of great musicians and basically put British blues on the map worldwide, Still touring the world, still making great albums, and finding even more musicians since his move to the USA many years ago now, but still the British blues legend. This is an enjoyable read that will have you looking back through those old albums, enjoying the never ones, but more of all getting a little more aquainted with the man behind it all John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers. Some nice photos also. Good overall book by Dinu Logoz, published in Switzerland !

Ok, as pointed out with too much emphasis by some reviewers it has faults, but these are more than made up for by being the first detailed account of Mayall's career up to 2015 and the outstanding appendices which list all his band members and give information about all the guitars and keyboards he has used during his long blues crusade. There are several spelling errors, excusable seeing as it was written by someone whose first language is not English, and the photos are random both in their choice and their presentation. Clearly the book could have been better edited. But if you are a fan of Mayall or of the blues don't be put off by these relatively minor failings, it's a well researched labour of love by Dinu Logoz.

I have been a John Mayall fan since I discovered the album "True the years" in my parents' vinyl collection. I am not even in the middle of the book and enjoy it very much. It is not really a biography because the author may know Mayall but there is not too much of personal information disclsed by Mayall himself. It is more of a very thorough description of his music career which is fascinating enough to be told, particularly because there is not so much information available on Mayall in this type of book form. In my opinion, Dinu Logoz has done a brillant job to describe meticously the different set-ups, changes of styles and musicians, Mayall had in his bands. I am puzzled how Dinu could gather all these information. It has been time that someone writes a book about this outstanding British blues musician or Godfather of the British Blues, who is still going strong with 83 years of age!

I have been a fan of John Mayall's music since the nineteen sixties, having recently met him after one of his shows on the 2017 UK tour I felt I needed to know more about the man and his music. This book has not disappointed me! Along with my cd's I have been able to track times dates and musicians, plus reasons for changes in musical directions. If you want to know about his personal life then this is not the book for you, being very sparse on these details, but if you want a chronology of the music, look no further, I would thoroughly recommend this book.

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As a long time Mayall fanatic from 1965 to this day, Seen him more times than I can remember and met him so many times too, I was very disappointed in this book, It really did'nt tell me much i did'nt know already, Most of the information has been taken from what is already on the internet,from album notes,quotes from Mayall interviews etc etc, However I do appreciate the work it has taken to write it all but some facts are not right, there are many mispelt words and it is certainly not worth the full price, If you are a follower and just wanted to get some general background to John Mayall's life and times then it does give you a good grounding.For the purist Mayall fan, Do not waste your money.The Photo's are nothing new they are all over the Internet so for me it didn't warrant the price.

Purchased as a present for brother in law,long term fine,he was very pleased.