Just dug this one out: Blues Breakers by John Mayall with Eric Clapton

Back in the early 80s I started hanging around with Ian and I have to acknowledge a debt to him. Ian was a blues afficianado, and I'm faily certain that some of the great (and memorable) gigs I went to in the early 80s where down to him. I saw John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Peter Green (during his mad long-fingernails obscurity), Alvin Lee and plenty more because Ian suggested them. He was also responsible for bits of my record collection from that period... and Blues Breakers was undoubtedly bought at his urging.

Ian was, above everything else, a HUGE Clapton fan, we used to go to crappy Surrey pubs in the hopes that Clapton would make an appearance... I'm fairly certain he never did. I have a problem with Clapton, always have even back then. Sure I liked Cream and The Yardbirds well enough (thanks to Ian) but pretty much all he's done since has made these toes curl, he pretty close to ruined bits of All Things Must Pass and he is the proud owner of the song I hate more than any others). But I took a chance on this because it was the most highly regarded album of the British blues (played by white folk) boom.

I haven't listened to this for over 25 years... possibly nearer to 30, however I did expect it to be familiar, and half-expected to actually quite like it. It wasn't, and I didn't. It was mostly awful, a couple of tolerable tracks but otherwise tedious. Midway through I resorted to using the skip button more than I'd have liked... but by then I just needed to get through it and get something I wanted to hear into my ears.

So Ian, if you do ever read this, thanks for a lot of what you gave me... but not for this.