John Mayall - The Turning Point (1969)

Steve:

While in my teens, I fell under the spell of Cream. They quickly took their place among my elite late 60s British bands along with the Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and Led Zeppelin. As I read about all these bands, the name John Mayall kept popping up, like he was some sort of godfather to this scene. Before hearing his music, my impression was that his bands were mainly a "school of blues" from which major talents would graduate and go on to blow peoples' minds with their own post-blues achievements. Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, and other individuals all earned their wings in Mayall's group, and all became more famous than their former boss. I wondered what Mayall himself ever did to further the progress of blues rock music.

For many, the answer lies in The Turning Point. The title itself indicates that Mayall himself understood that he meant this album to be an inflection point, an event wherein the history of the Blues would thereafter be cleaved into the Then and the Now, with this album at the center. I'm being a bit facetious, as Mayall himself was never prone to pretense or self-importance - he just lived for the music and let it guide him. By this time, Cream's grand experiment had already run its course, and Mayall was astute enough to reason that if Cream and Hendrix had already taken the blues to its super-amplified heights, then the next radical course of action would have to be in the opposite direction - apply the same cathartic energy of the blues to the acoustic mode.  

Unlike many of the albums reviewed on this blog thus far, I did not know of this album until my early twenties (the early 1990s), in the CD age. The timing was good, however, as I had a bit more of a taste for mellow groovin' jam band music at the time, compared to my louder-is-better teenage years. I recall that I put "The Laws Must Change" on a mix tape I called "Revolution!" filled with fist pumping 60s "stick it to the man" anthems, which I found very pleasant to jog to. Its chugging acoustic drive provided a nice respite after the blowout "The Time Has Come Today".  

So this is a pretty chill album, but one that has a quiet intensity bubbling throughout, whether the songs are fast ("Laws", "Room to Move") or slow ("California", "Saw Mill Gulch Road"). The album was wisely released as a live performance (from the Fillmore East), fully capturing the interplay between Mayall (acoustic guitar, vocals), Jon Mark (acoustic guitar), Johnny Almond (sax, flute), and Steve Thompson (bass), with the ambience of the performance space very noticeable. The songs are all blues based, but the band interplay and oft-elongated songs approach the improvisational fire of jazz. Mayall sings and directs the band with quiet authority, delivering his emotional lyrics for maximum impact.

Dan:

I was surprised to find this album in Steve's collection recently. I probably bought the LP in 1970 or 1971, based on another Down Beat review. The jazz magazine was intrigued by the instrumentation: acoustic "fingerstyle" guitar (as Mayall names it while introducing the band), saxophone and flute, acoustic bass, and Mayall's harmonica. After decades of not hearing it, it was like finding an old friend. (I have no idea where the LP went, although I do cull my collection occasionally). Of course, I recognized all the tunes and even all of the notes and lyrics. The CD has three bonus tracks at the end from the same performance. I only wish the whole gig was presented in the order of performance. 

Regarding the emotional lyrics that Steve mentions, hearing "The Laws Must Change" in 2023 renews the relevance of its message. Mayall voices a need for respect of law enforcement and urges patience among people who seem bent on violent revolution. Sound familiar? Mayall tells us (then and now) that we should listen to each other instead of simply saying we are right and they are wrong. 

"The laws must change one day, but it's goin' to take some time."