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Back to the Roots | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | March 1971 | |||
Recorded | 15–25 November 1970 | |||
Studio | Larrabee Sound Studios; IBC Studios, London | |||
Genre | Blues | |||
Label | Polydor | |||
Producer | John Mayall | |||
John Mayall chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings | [2] |
Back to the Roots is a 1971 double album by John Mayall released on Polydor. [3] Recording sessions took place both in California and London where Mayall invited some former members of his band, notably guitarists Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor. At the end of the 1980s Mayall remixed some tracks and issued them along with some of the older material as Archives to Eighties. An expanded two-CD version of Back to the Roots now includes both the original and later remixed versions of the tracks.
Besides Mayall, who sang and played piano, harmonica and guitar, the musicians who recorded the original tracks were:
For Archives to Eighties Mayall recorded new bass and drums tracks played by Bobby Haynes and Joe Yuele.
All tracks written by John Mayall.
Tracks 10, 11, 12 & 13 on each CD are the Archives to Eighties overdubbed versions
All track listings taken from the album's liner notes and sleeves
Chart (1971) | Peak position |
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Australia (Kent Music Report) [4] | 44 |
United Kingdom (Official Charts Company) [5] | 31 |
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are an English blues rock band led by multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter John Mayall. The band has been influential as an incubator for British rock and blues musicians. Many of the best known bands to come out of Britain in the 1960s and 1970s had members that came through the Bluesbreakers at one time, forming the foundation of British blues music that is still played heavily on classic rock radio. Among those with a tenure in the Bluesbreakers are Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie, Mick Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Tony Reeves, and numerous others.
John Mayall is an English blues and rock singer and musician whose career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.
Michael Kevin Taylor is an English guitarist, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1967–1969) and the Rolling Stones (1969–1974). As a member of the Stones, he appeared on: Let It Bleed (1969), Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert (1970), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main St. (1972), Goats Head Soup (1973) and It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974).
70th Birthday Concert is a live electric blues video recording of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers to celebrate Mayall's 70th Birthday. Recorded in Liverpool, England on 19 July 2003, the concert was notable as it featured Eric Clapton as a guest, so marked the first time he and Mayall had performed together in almost 40 years, if one discounts Clapton guesting on Mayall's Back to the Roots. The set also features Mick Taylor and Chris Barber.
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Road Dogs is a studio album by British Bluesman John Mayall with the Bluesbreakers. Recorded between 10 January and 10 February 2005 in Calabasas, California.
Thru the Years is a compilation album of music by John Mayall released in October 1971 by Decca Records in the U.K. and London Records in the U.S.A. The album was the second compilation to be issued by Decca/London with Mayall's blessing, although his contract with them had ceased. It features a mixture of previously unissued songs or non-album tracks that had only been released as singles.