Phew!
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This book is an amazing piece of work. I've been reading it for several weeks now and I am amazed by the information Mr. Hjort has compiled and stored in this book. It made me want to got out and check out CD's of the various acts that are described in the book. Hats off!
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British Blues Guitar Heaven!
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This is a goldmine of information about the work of Messrs. Clapton, Green and Taylor. I thought I was pretty genned up on them, but there are a great deal of facts and figures new to me. The book also features some pictures I have never seen before, and lots of reprints of adverts for gigs all over the country (interesting to see the various spellings of "Mayall", and one for The Bluesbreakers featuring ex-Yardbirds "singer" Eric Clapton!). This must have been a huge labour of love, and anyone interested in British blues, and in particular these 3 guitar heroes, should buy it without hesitation.
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British blues blockbuster
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The highest praise I can give this extraordinary book is that it's like a Pete Frame rock family tree come to life. A huge tome (350+ pages, nearly A4 in size), it is endlessly fascinating. It traces the interlocking careers of John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor in the form of a week-by-week, often day-by-day, chronicle of the years 1965-1970, taking in gigs, recording sessions, record releases, radio and television appearances and much more. The author has assembled a wealth of material including contemporary interviews and reviews and (particularly interesting) eye-witness accounts of gigs. What prevents all this information becoming a drudge to read is the author's style: lively and lucid throughout, it welds the huge amount of material into a compelling and readable narrative. The book is also enlivened by many humorous anecdotes (including Mayall, following a spat with Hughie Flint, leaving the drummer by the side of the road after a gig to find his own way home - plus drumkit), and lots of photographs many of which I hadn't seen before: a strangely poignant one of Clapton crouching, dwarfed by a bank of Marshall speakers, and one of a nearly unrecognisable pre-Bluesbreakers Peter Green playing bass (presumably with the Muskrats).
The book concludes with sections summarising the post-1970 careers of the key figures, an incredibly comprehensive concert location index and an equally detailed list of recording sessions, plus an informative account of the equipment used by Mayall, Clapton, Green and Taylor.
I was pleased to see that the book gives proper respect to John Mayall. Notwithstanding his I-live-in-a-tree-and-make-my-own-clothes-and-guitars eccentricity, he emerges as a generous bandleader and serious musician capable of rousing audiences by his own playing and singing, whoever happened to be playing with him at the time. There's an unescapable sense of melancholy as the book draws towards the end of 1970: Peter Green is entering his sad period of mental illness, Mick Taylor is becoming dissatisfied with the shortage of live Stones gigs and lack of writing credits, and Clapton is getting heavily into drugs. For all this, it's a book that will appeal to anyone interested in the so-called British blues boom. To those I rubbed shoulders with at the Black Prince, the Marquee, the Bromley Court Hotel and elsewhere, and those who turned up at countless pubs and small halls up and down the country to enjoy this music, I say this: if this book doesn't make you hunt out and listen again to your copies of the Beano album, A Hard Road and Fresh Cream, I'll eat my Les Paul (copy).
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