looking at a john mayall concert with with eric clapton and mick taylor I noticed john tugging @ his lips whilst blowin harp and also noticed peter green,another blues breaker doing the same(he was and still ismore known for being a fabolous blues guitarist) why the lip tugging? is there something there that our british cousins know that we do not?
Hey Groyster - I've found lots of footage from the 70th birthday concert on Youtube. I've been going through them, but I haven't seen him tugging his lip on any of the 8 or so clips I've watched so far. It doesn't seem to be a regular part of his technique.
Maybe he's freeing a caught moustache hair or something???
tugging lips? or cheek? i see a few players do this occasionally, i think because 1) it looks cool and 2) adds a sort of tremolo effect. i have net yet been won over to its usefulness.
maybe they were tugging at cheeks after all and yes MP beer does suck over here I buy old speckled hen and abbot ale in pub draught cans and pour them and pretend I am in a london pub
@verylong will watch the concert dvd again and see where mayall is doing it he must be doing something right after all these years can do vocals,guitar,harp does he also play drums? he seemed to really like jb lenoir and wrote a song about him when he was killed in a car accident
@groyster Try and find a copy (vinyl) of an album John did in the 1960's called 'The Blues Alone' on which he plays all the instruments.
There is a great track in tribute to JB Lenoir
Also one of my faves is 1968 album 'Bare Wires' (re-issue cd on Deram) where he diverges with some jazz influence using horns and the exceptional drumming of Jon Hiseman who later formed the awesome band 'Colloseum'
Truly, the John Mayall band family tree over the years is huge.
hello very long I plugged the dvd and he does the cheek tugging right off the bat on the first # southside story he is cheek tugging and not lip tugging as previously thought I had observed just trying to learn tricks of the trade maybe Ill try it myself and see what happens
Hmmm... that was one of the clips I watched. Here it is:
To be honest I don't think he's tugging his cheek. He just has an odd way of holding the harp and mic. If you mean what happens around 4:45 I'm pretty sure he's just wobbling the harp for a vibrato.
