John Mayall Collection

As It All Began: The Best of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers 1964-1968 is an excellent 20-track retrospective, capturing Mayall's band at their peak. The Bluesbreakers went through several different lineups during those four years, with musicians the caliber of Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Paul Butterfield, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Peter Green floating through the group. Hardcore fans of any of those musicians, or of British blues, will naturally want to familiarize themselves with the original albums, but As It All Began is a fine sampler for the casual fan, featuring such staples as "Lonely Years," "Bernard Jenkins," "All Your Love," "Parchman Farm," "Double Trouble," "The Death of J.B. Lenoir," and "Miss James." Even at 20 tracks, there are a number of fine moments missing from this collection, but As It All Began remains the best available single-disc overview of the Bluesbreakers' prime period.

70th Birthday Concert is a live electric blues video recording of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers to celebrate Mayall's 70th Birthday. Recorded in Liverpool, England on July 19 2003, the concert was notable as it featured Eric Clapton as a guest, so marked the first time he and Mayall had performed together in almost 40 years. The set also features Mick Taylor and Chris Barber.

This two-hour-plus compilation of the first five years of the history of John Mayall and his band the Bluesbreakers in their many permutations covers all the expected bases and then some. Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor are all represented, but so are Bernie Watson and Roger Dean, both of whom preceded Clapton in the guitarist's spot in the band. What's more, they're not bad; they may not have been the assertive soloist that Clapton came to embody, but Dean plays a pretty hot solo on "Crocodile Walk," which was good enough to make the A-side of a single in 1965. Moreover, there was more to any of the Mayall bands than their guitarists, and Mayall's blues harmonica is showcased throughout, on tracks such as "Crawling Up a Hill" and "Blues City Shakedown."

By the time John Mayall recorded this album in Los Angeles mid-1980, the core lineup of his band had played hundreds of shows together over the previous year and were a tight and well-oiled electric blues machine. This album encompasses the absolute contemporary experience, complete with airtight rhythm section, piercing guitar licks and Mayall s fierce harmonica. Big Man Blues is a more than worthy addition to any blues fans collection.

The majority of Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' best material from the early '70s is collected on this 29-track, double-disc set. Although Clapton appears on a couple of songs, the playing on Room to Move isn't as universally breathtaking as it is on London Blues, but the collection is thoroughly listenable, and it does feature many fine musicians.

Reasonably interesting collection of non-LP singles from 1964 to 1968, featuring almost all of the notable musicians that passed through the Bluesbreakers throughout the decade. "Sitting in the Rain" (with Peter Green) showcases fine fingerpicking, the haunting "Jenny" is one of Mayall's best originals, and "Stormy Monday" is one of the few cuts from 1966 that briefly featured both Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. The rest is largely passably pleasant…