2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Dies Ahead of Ceremony: John Mayall Was 90

John Mayall, the British musician known as the “godfather of British blues” who was recently selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class, has died. Mayall passed away at his home in California on Monday, July 22, according to a statement shared to his Instagram page Tuesday night. He was 90.

Mayall’s cause of death was not disclosed, but the statement said “health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors.” It added that the rocker “gave us ninety years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire and entertain,” and his “raw honesty, connection, community and playing of his will continue to affect the music and culture we experience today, and for generations to come.”

Considered to be “the godfather of British blues,” Mayall is credited with helping develop the English take on Chicago-style rhythm and blues. Born in the town of Macclesfield in Cheshire in November 1933, Mayall was drawn to the sound of the blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta at an early age. He told The Guardian in 2014, “[It has] always been about that raw honesty with which [it expresses] our experiences in life, something which all comes together in this music, in the words as well. Something that is connected to us, common to our experiences. To be honest, I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what it is. I just can’t stop playing it.”

After completing a George Formby Teach Yourself Ukulele course and teaching himself to play piano as a teen, per the BBC, Mayall formed the Powerhouse Four in 1956, later going on to join a band called Blues Syndicate in 1962. The band was heavily influenced by Alexis Korner, who eventually persuaded Mayall to move to London, where he founded the Bluesbreakers in 1963. Over the years, the Bluesbreakers’ members included Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jack Bruce, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Aynsley Dunbar, and future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, according to Deadline. The Bluesbreakers was not only a commercial force in the Swinging ’60s UK, with five Top 10 LPs from 1966-70, but also a success in the U.S., where the group charted nearly 20 albums from 1968-75, including The Turning Point (1969), which went gold and peaked at No. 32.

In 1969, Mayall relocated to the U.S., where he continued to front bands, eventually recruiting Taylor and McVie to reform the Bluesbreakers in 1982. In 2008, he announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.

The musician released dozens of albums and scored two Grammy nominations – Best Contemporary Blues Album in 1993 for Wake Up Call, and Best Traditional Blues Album in 2022 for The Sun Is Shining Down. He was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 and inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2016. He was recently announced as a 2024 inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which said, “continually expanding the reach of the blues without ever watering them down, John Mayall has had a major influence on rock music. He is the Godfather of British Blues.”