The new issue of The Blues Magazine onsale now

In the new issue of The Blues Magazine we mark the half century of The Beano album. Yes, it was 50 years ago this month that John Mayall and Eric Clapton conceived the most important white electric blues album of all time. Clapton biographer Harry Shapiro enlists John Mayall and producer Mike Vernon, plus a bunch of famous fans, to tell the story of the album’s birth and explain its enduring legacy.

In the Best of ‘66 we celebrate the year of the Beano when Clapton was the cat who got the Cream, Hendrix first set foot in London, the Small Faces got kicked out of their Pimlico pad and The Stones, The Animals, Yardbirds, Dylan, Otis Redding and others released landmark albums. Apparently, there was a football match too…

Plus: legendary Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden gives us his personal take on the history of the guitar that made the ‘66 blues boom, the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard.

The Bluesbreakers line up for our final cover...

Plus: Wilko Johnson, the machine-gunning, Telecaster beating hero of Dr Feelgood reveals the pivotal influence that Chess Records and its alumni like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Chuck Berry and others had on his career.

Interviewed: Dan Patlansky, the man many are calling the next blues rock superstar; Linda Gail Lewis,‘The Killer’ Jerry Lee Lewis’ sister on life in the shadow of her infamous hell-raising sibling; Stax icon Booker T Jones chooses his favourite moments from his own back catalogue with pit stops from Albert King to Neil Young; plus interviews with rising British star Ben Poole, No Sinners vocal powerhouse Colleen Rennison, The Kentucky Headhunters, Laurence Jones, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, former James Brown backing singer Martha High and Black Stone Cherry’s Chris Robinson lists the blues records that changed his life.

Plus: Kinda Blue, your exclusive 12-track CD featuring a newly-released early demo from Warren Haynes and his band Gov’t Mule plus fresh cuts from Laurence Jones, Walter Trout, No Sinner, Vargas Blues Band, Malaya Blue, Gary Hoey, The Apocalypse Blues Revue and more…

The Blues Magazine is available to order at: http://bit.ly/297s3up

Artists

Ed Mitchell was the Editor of The Blues Magazine from 2012-16, and a contributor to Classic Rock and Louder. He died in October 2022, aged 52. A one-time Reviews Editor on Total Guitar magazine from 2003, his guitar-modding column, Ed’s Shed, appeared in print on both sides of the Atlantic (in both Total Guitar and Guitar World magazines), and he wrote stories for Classic Rock and Guitarist. Between them, the websites Louder, MusicRadar and Guitar World host over 400 of his articles – among them interviews with Billy Gibbons, Paul Weller, Brian Setzer, profiles on Roy Buchanan, Duane Allman and Peter Green, a joint interview with Jimmy Page and Jack White, and dozens of guitar reviews – and that’s just the ones that made it online.