John Mayall - Wake Up Call (CD 1993)

In my experience, the majority of blues albums get pretty tedious pretty quickly. This album doesn’t. In fact, it is sufficiently varied that it would make a really enjoyable live set. It’s slick, well produced and the musicianship is well above average. What I like about it: (a) John Mayall has a great and unique voice (a lot of “name” blues artists are guitarists whose forte isn’t necessarily singing), (b) this is fast, driving blues rock for the most part, not slow, melancholic, predictable, self-indulgent 12 bar blues with sparse lyrics repeated over and over, and (c) the guitar playing is lively and interesting. Coco Montoya who plays lead on most of the tracks is well worth copying if you are a guitarist. The guest guitarists also include Mick Taylor, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins. I particularly enjoyed the title track which kicks off with an answering machine message from Mick Taylor to John, “Maydell”, “Undercover Agent for the Blues” and “Nature’s Disappearing”.