Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton was a rising star when he recorded this potent and scruffy album with British blues singer/songwriter John Mayall in 1966. Mayall’s tunes, including the brass-fortified “Key to Love,” the slow-burning “Double Crossing Time,” and barroom rave-up “Little Girl,” lift on Clapton’s fluid, gritty licks. The band channels some Beatles on Ray Charles’ R&B standard “What’d I Say,” before tackling with noisy accuracy Mose Allison and Bukka White’s gnarly prison anthem “Parchman Farm.” Meanwhile, Clapton makes his lead-vocal debut on a languorous rendition of Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ on My Mind.”