This box is way too expensive for what you get. Some of the live shows have pretty sketchy sound and no outtakes or previously never released lives shows in great quality. If this was a King Crimson box it would be half the price with ten times more included.
I dont know £250 35 discs so approximately £7 per disc seems pretty good value to me. Vinyl replica sleeves are pretty nice, and massive book that comes with it is great as well chick in John Mayalls signature and I think it represents good value.
Not for long-term fans who already have the material on the first 26 CDs, plus half the BBC stuff. The additional 8 CDs come out at over £31 each.
Just listened to the Thru the Years disc on the box set. Seems they goofed up and instead of "Suspicions, Part One" they put on "Gasoline Blues" instead. Oops!
Yeah, not a good value, comparing it to the early Fleetwood Mac box and the Tom Jones box, 17 cd’s for $55 usd. Meh.....yeah there’s a lot of history there but having to PAY BIG BUCKS to listen to THAT voice, no thank you! Beave
One of the reasons I'm wary of these big box sets... the more material is included, the more likely errors like these are
I just did a check against released tracks, including bonus tracks on other Mayall albums, and I'm surprised at how few tracks are missing here. I thought it would be a lot more. Many of the missing tracks are actually by other artists for whom John Mayall's Bluesbreakers were backing. Here's my list: 6 tracks from Raw Blues: Long Night (Mayall & Steve Angelo) Calcutta Blues (Champion Jack Dupree with Mayall and Clapton) 24 Hours (Champion Jack Dupree with Mayall) Evil Woman Blues (Mayall & Green) Burn Out Your Blind Eyes, Milkman Strut (Mayall alone) 2 tracks from Champion Jack Dupree, From New Orleans to Chicago (with Mayall & Clapton): Shim Sham Shimmy Third Degree 7 tracks from Eddie Boyd and His Blues Band (with Mayall & Green)
I've been a big Mayall fan for something close to 54 years but £275.00 in UD dollars is $381.49 Just too rich for my blood! I'm happy with the 11 LPs and the one CD I have.
Ah. I was going by the track list. Suspicions Part One was at least meant to be included in the set, unlike the others.
Wow I didn't even know about that one. According to discogs this was a single, was on the cassette version of Thru the Years, and has both Dean and Clapton on guitar. Is this accurate? Thanks for the heads up - I'll add it to my spreadsheet of Mayall releases. EDIT - Oh wait, I did have this in my spreadsheet. It was on the 2CD Beano, right? I missed noting this one in my list above. The Beano version is an "unreleased stereo mix" so I guess technically this one-sided single is still unreleased on CD.
I see now it was also on the Blues Anytime sampler series, on both LP and CD. It's odd they didn't add this to the Witchdoctor CD on First Generation. It obviously fits there.
I’ve been a huge Mayall fan since 68 but have to pass on this. I have all the original and remastered CD’s plus all his original vinyl for both the US and Decca. I really wanted this for the book and memorabilia but not at that price. Way too little rare material to make it worthwhile.
I first heard On Top Of The World on this excellent Immediate Sampler in 1969, and have always liked it: It seems to be part of an attempt by Mayall to write more commercial songs in that period, such as this one by Georgie Fame. I think he did a pretty good job in both cases.
Concerning the error on the "Thru The Years" disc, I just sent Madfish an email asking if either they can correct the problem with either sending out replacement discs to those of us who bought the box or issue a download code for a 16 bit Flac file of the missing "Suspicion (Part1)" track. I'll keep this tread up to date if I hear back.
Just took John Fell's advice and bought Mick Taylor's Stranger in this Town CD and downloaded the first self-titled album on iTunes. Taylor is the main takeaway for me of this box set. I've only got three more discs to go and I'll have listened to the whole thing.
Tears in My Eyes from Bromley Technical College 1967 might be one of Peter Green's all-time best guitar solos. Jaw-dropping. P.S. - to continue my post above re: missing tracks, On Top of the World single version also appears on the So Many Roads box set.
I don't have So Many Roads, but on the 2006 deluxe Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton set, On Top Of The World is a processed stereo version rather than the original mono mix.
It's also - in the right sequence - on this rather well put together Jimmy Page sessions compilation from 2000:
For any interested..... My review of John Mayall, The First Generation 1965-1974 box set, today at All About Jazz. What do guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jon Mark, Harvey Mandel and Freddy Robinson, reed/woodwind multi-instrumentalists John Almond, Ray Warleigh, Alan Skidmore, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Red Holloway and Ernie Watts, bassists John McVie, Jack Bruce, Andy Fraser, Tony Reeves, Stephen Thompson and Larry Taylor, drummers Mick Fleetwood, Keef Hartley, Aynsley Dunbar, Jon Hiseman and Collin Allen, trumpeters Henry Lowther and Blue Mitchell, and violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris all share in common? They are but a few of the notable musicians who passed through the revolving door of John Mayall's various groups in a career that now spans nearly six decades. Furthermore, they all participated in the British blues keyboardist, guitarist, vocalist, harmonica player and songwriter's seminal first decade as a bandleader, from 1965 to 1974. Now 87, Mayall is still going strong barring, of course, the impact of the current pandemic on touring. His most recent album, Nobody Told Me (Forty Below), was released in 2019, and he last appeared in Ottawa in 2012, where he delivered a knockout set at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, back when he was still just approaching octogenarian status. Despite continuing to act as a mentor to up-and-coming musicians across a recording career that now spans nearly six decades, Mayall's first ten years as a recording and performing blues artist remain his best-known and, overall, most loved. So many of the musicians who passed through the many incarnations of his Bluesbreakers band and subsequent groups from 1965 through 1974 would go on to even more significant personal artistic achievements and, in some cases, greater fame and fortune. Amongst them, Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce moved on to form the guitar power trio Cream, before splitting up after a mere 29 months, with the guitarist building an even more successful solo career, a true guitar legend to this day. But it was Mayall's ever-shifting, ever-fertile musical turf that provided these and countless other musicians an early home to hone their skills in preparation for future accomplishments. A massive 35-CD box set and much, much more, The First Generation 1965-1974 finally places Mayall's seminal first decade as a bandleader in proper historical context. Containing newly remastered reissues of Mayall's first twelve studio albums, six live recordings and two compilations (including a few double-disc sets), many of them featuring additional bonus material, The First Generation 1965-1974 also includes Mayall's first two singles, and his EP-length collaboration, All My Life EP Decca, 1967), with the already emergent American singer, harmonica master and bandleader, Paul Butterfield. Continue reading here...
Your review is just the one I wanted to read. I should have guessed. One quick correction (I think): While Clapton can be found on Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, on some of the BBC sessions and on Back to the Roots, he's only heard with Jack Bruce on one track, Looking Back's version of the blues classic, "They Call It Stormy Monday." Aren’t the Primal Solos tracks with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce on CD5, or has more information surfaced about them in the set?
