JOHN MAYALL, the “Godfather of the British Blues,” eased up on touring last year on doctor’s orders.

Now fit and healthy, Mayall has recently announced another tour and new album.

This comes as no surprise to his many fans. He always had drive and a singular vision and he was always recording, touring and looking for new line-ups for his bands.

This memoir follows his eventful life. Born in 1933 and raised in the Manchester suburb of Cheadle Hulme, his love of blues came via his father, who owned a collection of 78s including discs by Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly and boogie pianists Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson.

In his teens, he built a tree house kitted out with all mod cons. Aged 14, he went to art school, worked in a Manchester store’s art department and learned guitar, piano and harmonica while building his blues record collection.

During national service, he was posted to Korea and began playing at dances, fitting in blues and jazz numbers when he could.

On being demobbed, he decided to become a full-time musician, decamping to London in 1962 to join the burgeoning R&B scene lead by Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Georgie Fame and the Rolling Stones.

Putting together his first bands, he won a record deal with Decca, cutting a live set at Klooks Kleek in West Hampstead, and he backed visiting US bluesmen John Lee Hooker, Eddie Boyd and Sonny Boy Williamson.

His breakthrough came with the iconic LP the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, aka “The Beano” album because its cover had a photo of the band with Slowhand reading the comic.

The Bluesbreakers contained the cream of UK guitarists — Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, drummers Keef Hartley, Jon Hiseman and Aynsley Dunbar plus US sidemen such as Sugarcane Harris, Larry Taylor, Blue Mitchell and Red Holloway.

By 1970 he had released 10 albums, culminating in Turning Point, a storming, semi-acoustic set recorded at New York’s Fillmore East in 1969.

Moving to Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s, he lived the rock-star life, with many female companions. He built a home bar — the Brain Damage Club — and, jumping off a balcony and missing the swimming pool, smashed his ankle and knee. Sadly, he lost much of his archive and record collection in a house fire.

Mayall’s current discography boasts 66 albums — not including “best ofs” and compilations — and 2020 will see a major box set reissue of classic albums plus plenty of live and unissued material.

Blues from Laurel Canyon is an open and honest warts-and-all account of one of the real giants of British blues and rock music.

Published by Omnibus Press, £20.