After 25 Years, John Mayall Remains a Do-It-Yourselfer

Another bandleader with John Mayall’s resume might be tempted to put on airs.

After all, Mayall long ago earned a secure niche in rock history as a cultivator of superstar talent. Two-thirds of Cream, three-fourths of the original Fleetwood Mac and a future Rolling Stone all did their early woodshedding in Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

But, more than 25 years after forming the first of many editions of the Bluesbreakers, Mayall’s down-to-earth approach is so confirmed that it becomes evident before he and his band even play a note. When it’s time to haul drum kits and amplifiers and other gear into place before a show, Mayall and the Bluesbreakers still do it themselves.

“We have just the five of us when we’re on the road,” Mayall, 55, said recently from his home in Los Angeles. “We do our own setting up, rather than someone else doing the dirty work.”

In Mayall’s view, such luxuries as road managers and road crews “just blind you to what it’s all about.”

The current version of Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, which plays Wednesday night at the Coach House, is the longest-lasting lineup Mayall has ever had. Guitarists Coco Montoya and Walter Trout (a Huntington Beach resident) and the drums and bass team of Joe Yuele and Bobby Haynes have been Bluesbreakers behind Mayall since 1984. That’s a far cry from the 1960s, when Mayall routinely had to replace such departing talents as Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce (who formed Cream), Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (who became Fleetwood Mac) and Mick Taylor, who left to join the Rolling Stones.

Mayall said all that turnover never bothered him: “It’s not worth keeping someone whose heart isn’t in it. As long as I’m getting stimulation out of the music, it didn’t matter if (the lineup) changed every week or kept together for 4 years.”

But Mayall does think the time his current band has spent together proved to be an asset in recording his new album, “Chicago Line.” It is Mayall’s first studio album in about 8 years and his first major-label release in a decade.

“In retrospect, it’s a very good thing that it has taken this long to get a record on a major label,” Mayall said. “It’s taken this long to get a band this hot. It has led to a maturity of playing, a familiarity with each other and all the other ingredients that make for an exciting record.”

The ’88 Bluesbreakers sound features Mayall soloing on harmonica and singing in his customary high, throaty voice, while Trout and Montoya provide blues-rock guitar fireworks with their contrasting but complementary styles. The album is divided between upbeat, humorous numbers and infusions of blues realism.

“Life in the Jungle,” written by Trout, is based on a real-life Huntington Beach murder case. Mayall’s anti-war song, “One Life to Live,” stems from his own experience serving in the British Army during the Korean War.

The album’s most personal song is “Gimme One More Day,” in which Mayall sings about his own slide into alcoholism and his subsequent recovery.

Of course, the blues always has been performed in bars, before audiences interested in drowning sorrows or cutting loose.

“It may seem like a contradiction to be playing a song (saying) ‘don’t drink’ when your gig depends to a large extent on how much (business) they do at the bar, and we do a great bar business,” Mayall said.

“It’s up to each individual. The point of putting something like this on the record is to make them think about it.”

John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers play tonight at 8 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano in San Juan Capistrano. Tickets cost $15. Information: (714) 496-8930.