John McVie

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are a pioneering English blues band, led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall, OBE.... Mayall used the band name between 1963 and 1967, but then dropped it for some fifteen years. However, in 1982 a 'Return of the Bluesbreakers' was announced and the name has been kept since then. The name has become generic without a clear distinction which recordings are to be credited just to the leader or to leader and his band. The Bluesbreakers have included luminaries such as: The band that would evolve to the Bluesbreakers in 1965 was formed in January 1963 and became an ever-evolving lineup of more than 100 different combinations of musicians performing under that name. Eric Clapton joined in April 1965 just a few months after the release of their first album. Clapton brought guitar-led blues influences to the forefront of the group; he had left The Yardbirds in order to concentrate on the blues. The first single released by John Mayall and his band, in May 1964, was the song "Crawling Up a Hill" with "Mr. James" as the b-side, the band on the single were Peter Ward, John McVie on bass, Bernie Watson on guitar, and Martin Hart on drums.
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Blue Horizon was a British blues record label founded by Mike Vernon in the mid 1960s. Its roots lay in Vernon's mail order label Purdah Records, which released just four 7" singles; including "Flapjacks" by Stone's Masonry ; and another by John Mayall and Eric Clapton "Bernard Jenkins", and... "Lonely Years". Only 99 copies of each are thought to have been pressed - limited originally to avoid purchase tax - although it has also been said that the number was as high as 500. After briefly forming the Outasite label, Vernon switched to Blue Horizon in 1966, issuing singles and a small number of now-unobtainable albums by U.S. blues artists, including Doctor Ross. A licensing and distribution deal with CBS heralded the glory years of the label. Starting with two 7" singles with combined CBS/Blue Horizon stamps featuring Fleetwood Mac and Aynsley Dunbar there followed a string of singles and albums by both British and U.S. blues artists, both licenced and newly recorded. Some releases featured Mike Vernon-produced recordings of U.S.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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