Sgt Pepper
established the concept album as a construct in rock music; the first concepts
coming out of the 50s with loosely strewn ideas that established an LP’s mood: Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning and Come Fly With Me come to
mind. By 1967 and Sgt. P, the construct had been tested with LPs like Days of
Future Passed and would meld into albums like Tommy,
Ziggy Stardust and Zappa's Joe's Garage. In that artsy context,
British bluesman John Mayall seemed an unlikely candidate, and yet in late '67
after disbanding The Bluesbreakers (a revolving-door of upcoming artists
that included Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, John
McVie and Jack Bruce),
Mayall took a three week vacation in L.A., you know, swimmin’ pools, movie stars; the
land of the Byrds and Zappa, Captain
Beefheart, Canned Heat, perfect weather, young women (young was very much Mayall's
thing) and marijuana – a vacation that would inevitably last ten years. Those
first three weeks, though, staying with friend Bob "The Bear" Hite of Canned
Heat, would translate into Blues From Laurel Canyon.
The LP recounts
Mayall's trip from London ("Ten hours in plane, England left behind")
and relates his "Walking on Sunset," encountering the likes of Zappa and
Canned Heat ("2401" and "The
Bear") and his return to England.
Mayall was much older than his musical cohorts (he was 35
and his former guitarist Clapton was still only 23) and so he wasn't easily swayed
by the psychedelic scene, it's laid back, somewhat lethargic style; indeed he
recorded Blues in just three days, in a time when Brian Wilson would spend six
months perfecting "Good Vibrations."
In 1967, my mother, brother and I lived in
the Valley where my brother and I shared a bedroom and my mother slept on a
pull-out in the living room. My brother would borrow the car, a 1961 Ford
Falcon, and head down to Hollywood. When my mother was "out," I'd sometimes get
to go along (I was six or seven). We'd head down to Hollywood to Wallach’s
Music City, grab a handful of records and sit all night in a listening
booth. When I wasn't along, my brother
would frequent the clubs: "I used to take the car from Van Nuys over Laurel Canyon to Sunset and go to the Whiskey or The Trip or The Sea Witch. I saw
Fleetwood Mac pre-Buckingham-Nicks, Flying Burrito Brothers, The Doors and John
Mayall. He wore a Mexican belt with like 20 harmonicas in place of ammo. It's
why I relate so strongly to many of the songs, from the opening Mick Taylor
guitar solo to 'Walking on Sunset' and "Medicine Man" and "The First Time Alone". AM's always going on and on
about Laurel Canyon. Can't believe they're only just getting around to Blues
From Laurel Canyon."
When Graham Nash sings about "Our House" we get a glimpse
of Laurel Canyon. Despite the depth of the artists who shared the enclave,
Laurel Canyon was simple and homey.
Still, the Laurel Canyon crowd never created a pastiche of the real L.A.
the way that Mayall does on Blues; one might think he was walking down Sunset
over the weekend. I listen and I can see my father painting one of the Sunset
billboards.
