Eric Clapton has shared an emotional tribute to the late John Mayall.
The news of the pioneering British blues and rock musician’s death was shared today (July 24). Mayall passed away aged 90, shortly before he was due to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Now, Clapton has taken to social media to share a moving tribute to his “mentor”, who took Clapton under his wing to play in his band the Bluesbreakers in 1965. Clapton, who at that time had left his own band the Yardbirds, would released 1966’s ‘Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton’, and would later depart to form Cream.
“I want to say thank you chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion, and god knows what,” he said in his tribute video. “I was a young man, around the age of 18 or 19, when I decided I was going to quit music,” Clapton said in his video tribute to Mayall.
“He found me and took me into his home and asked me to join his band, and I stayed with him and I learned all that I really have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play. I did all my research in his home, in his record collection.”
— Eric Clapton (@EricClapton) July 24, 2024
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