Rich Men's Blues

I love Eric Clapton's guitar playing. He is likely to be the greatest guitarist ever to pass through here... But tickets have just gone on sale for his Albert Hall concerts in May 2017. And the cheapest are £100 each, with a £12 booking fee per ticket.

The £12 booking fee per ticket actually seems more out of order than the £100 for a cheap seat.

So to echo my comments about Buddy Guy recently, I'm sorry but I'm not prepared to pay that much. And how many young blues fans who should see Eric before he goes are going to be able to pay that amount?

I confess I paid over £300 a ticket (from criminal touts) to see Cream's reunion at the Albert Hall (although a lot less to see their first farewell there in 1968). But that was to see Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker as well as Eric.

With Bruce dead and Baker in a bad way, Clapton raking in yet more money seems to stick in the craw – even though he richly deserves to be rich.

Let's not forget that Cream (i.e. Bruce and Baker) made him much bigger than John Mayall's Bluesbreakers ever did. A benefit night for Mr Baker might haver persuaded me to part with £112.

But as it is, I hope all those rich old men enjoy their outing to the Albert Hall.

A Long Road

By chance, I heard that unmistakeable piano intro to A Hard Road by John Mayall last night and got the proverbial shivers. Although his previous album, Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton is the one everybody talks about, it was this one, with Peter Green replacing Clapton, that really was the manifesto for Mayall's blues.

The idea of a young white singer openly dedicating and committing his life to the blues may have sounded preposterous in 1967, but Mayall did just that and is still touring, aged 78.

And many of us whom Mayall, Clapton and Green inspired are also still playing. Something we never could have forecast. If Mayall can go to the end of the road, maybe we can too.