The Turning Point (album)

The Turning Point is a live album by John Mayall, featuring British blues music recorded at a concert at Bill Graham's Fillmore East on 11–12 July 1969.

John Mayall sings and plays harmonica, slide guitar, Telecaster guitar, tambourine and mouth percussion on the album. Other musicians include Jon Mark (acoustic finger-style guitar), Stephen Thompson (credited as "Steve" on the album cover, but referred to by Mayall as "Steven" or "Stephen" in the intro to the first song) (bass guitar) and Johnny Almond (tenor and alto saxophones, flutes, mouth percussion). All the songs on the album were written or co-written by John Mayall. Thompson co-wrote California, Thoughts About Roxanne and Don't Waste My Time. The third track is about the American blues guitarist J. B. Lenoir who died in 1967. The lack of a drummer gave the album a very distinctive style that was different from previous albums by Mayall.

The engineer was Eddie Kramer and the album was released on the Polydor label with a sleeve designed by John Mayall. In Germany the album was released under the title White Blues King. (At the end of the 1980s, a reissue, part of a series, appeared under the generic name Nightrider.)

In 2001, a remastered CD reissue included three additional tracks from the same performance. Earlier recordings of the same material in England from June 1969 appear on the first CD The Masters (the second disc contains mostly interviews). A concert at the Marquee on June 30, 1969 has been issued with a similar playslist. The music from the two cds of The Masters and the performance at the Marquee were issued in 2004 on a 2CD entitled The Turning Point Soundtrack credited to John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. These earlier rehearsals and performances have been filmed and released as a 25-minute black and white documentary the Turning Point (and issued on a DVD with the 70th Birthday concert as Godfather of the Blues/The Turning Point)

[edit] Track listing

Room To Move (4:57)
Thoughts About Roxanne (8:21)
California (9:30)
So Hard To Share (6:56)
I'm Gonna Fight For You J.B. (5:24)
Saw Mill Gulch Road (4:48)
The Laws Must Change (7:21)

Bonus tracks on CD:

Sleeping By Her Side (5.10)
Don't Wast My Time (4.54)
Can't Sleep This Night (6.19)

Other recordings of the same material:

Live at The Marquee '69 = tracks 8, 4, 9, 3, 1, 5, 5.
The Masters= tracks 9, 8, 7, 2, 10, 6, 3,3 (CD1); 2, 5, 9, 6, Parchman farm (CD2)
The Turning Point Soundtrack=The Masters+Live at The Marquee '69