John Mayall – A Banquet In Blues

This one’s an oddity in my collection – not by any means for the artist or the genre, but for the way I came by it. Nearly everything I’ve collected has either been from a record store (or, in the earliest days, garage sales and thrift stops), with some occasional direct orders from labels. I mostly like the hunt, and the randomness of a good find. Now, I will order new releases that I really want from my local shop. But occasionally, there’s something I just have to have, and for that, there’s nothing like Discogs.

But this record wasn’t a “have to have,” either. There was a gift for one of my kids, the 10″ Black Market Clash, which they very much wanted last Christmas (2024) – and for something like that, Discogs is the only rational choice. So after finding the version I wanted from a seller I trusted, it turned out they offered a flat shipping rate – so if I bought another record or two, it cost the same shipping as one. So I dug through their offerings and there was a sealed copy of Mayall’s 1976 “A Banquet In Blues.” By then I was in my “if it’s Mayall, don’t ask questions” phase, so added that to my cart and was very pleased with its condition when it arrived.

This is a return to very full band, and it’s rollicking, fairly straight-ahead (though still jazz-inflected) blues, with a lot of horns. The back cover shows 24 artists (including Mayall) who were featured on the tracks, and it just rocks start to finish. The last track, “Fantasyland,” is a bit of an odyssey, but not an unwelcome one.