"I want to say thank you for rescuing me from oblivion": Eric Clapton pays tribute to John Mayall

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Eric Clapton has paid emotional tribute to British blues legend John Mayall, whose death at the age of 90 was announced yesterday.

“I want to say a few words about my friend John," says a clearly emotional Clapton, in a video posted to social media. "I want to say thank you chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion, and god knows what when I was a young man around the age of 18 or 19, when I decided I was going to quit music."

“He found me and took me into his home and asked me to join his band, and I stayed with him and I learned all that I really have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play. I did all my research in his home in his record collection, the Chicago blues that he was such an expert on.

“I played with his band for a couple of years, with Hughie [Flint, drums] and John [McVie, bass], and it was a fantastic experience, and he taught me that it was OK to just play the music you wanted to play without dressing it up or making anybody else like it, whether they liked it or not. To listen to myself, to my inner motivations.

“He was my mentor, and, as a surrogate father, he taught me all I really know, and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear, without limit. And all I gave him in return was how much fun it was to drink and womanize when he was already a family man. I wished to make amends for that, and I did that while he was alive. I have since learned that that is not the best way to carry on.

“I shall miss him, but I hope to see him on the other side. Thank you John, I love you, I’ll see you soon, but not yet. Not yet. As they say in the Gladiator movie."

Clapton joined Mayall's Bluesbreakers April 1965 and left in July 1966, having played on just one album, the iconic Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, a.k.a. The Beano Album. Clapton also played with Mayall on the latter's Back To The Roots album, released in 1971.

Fleetwood Mac's Mick Fleetwood has also paid tribute, saying, "The news of John Mayall’s passing, in many ways, hit me as losing a musical father. John Mayall was a guiding light to so many of us young English players. To have spent time as part of his band the Blueshreakers led the three of us – Peter Green, John McVie, and myself – to form Fleetwood Mac back in 1967. He is owed much gratitude from so many in the musical world."