After launching the careers of countless guitaristsincluding Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, John Mayall is turning toothers for help as he soldiers on through winter.
The 85-year-old former head of the Bluesbreakers isjoined by Joe Bonamassa, Larry McCray, Todd Rundgren, Rush’s Alex Lifeson, EStreet’s Steven Van Zandt and Carolyn Wonderland on the 10 tracks that makeup Nobody Told Me. Mayall deemed their contributions importantenough each is listed on the cover.
While most guest-filled, late-career LPs fall flat,Mayall’s struts confidently on traditional blues structures - brass-fueledrockers, slow-burning laments, ballsy boasts - and lyrics about devils and deepseas, full moons, all-night lovin’, jail, tears, the Delta and the WindyCity.
You got me starin’ out the window and I’mwonderin’ what the hell went wrong, he sings on the elegiac titletrack that closes the record.
Each of the individual guitarists brings his or herown character - Bonamassa’s unbridled power, Rundgren’s surprisingly authenticblues, Wonderland’s slide - to rub against Mayall’s voice, which sounds morelike Boz Scaggs’ with each passing year.
If nobody told you Mayall was halfway through hisninth decade, you’d never know it from listening to Nobody ToldMe - a solid album from a blues artist of any age.l
