As far as the recordings go, you can reduce the early Mayall albums to an almost essential handful by omitting the pre-Clapton live John Mayall Plays John Mayall, the solo in the studio The Blues Alone (both of which appear to be available on CD and iTunes) and the two live official bootleg before the category was invented volumes called Diary of a Band, which still managed to sneak into the British album charts despite sound quality that was on the ordinary side of ordinary.
I had the last three on vinyl back in 1968, and while those copies, bought from a radio DJ who didn't see any point in holding on to sample records that he didn't like, and long gone in the course of relocations through a dozen residential addresses. The Blues Alone seemed reasonably good at the time, interesting as an exercise in working through some material using the wonders of multitrack recording, and while the playing on Diary of a Band was fairly good, the sound quality was such that they don't seem to have turned up on CD, which probably says it all…
Diary of a Band did, however, provide the version of God Save the Queen played on parade at Townsville's Pimlico High School on the last day of Year Twelve in 1968…
Which leaves five albums from the Decca albums credited to the classic Bluesbreakers line-ups. There's also a Decca/Deram compilation called Looking Back which shows all the signs of a vault-clearing exercise as Mayall vaulted across to Polydor.
Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton's probably the obvious starting point, and $10.99 on iTunes for a twenty-four track version might seem reasonable until you look at the track list doubling up mono and stereo versions of the twelve track album, which probably explains why Hughesy hasn't caught up with this one yet. There's a forty-three track version of the same thing, padded out with BBC radio sessions, live tracks and alternative mixes that'll end up in my iTunes eventually. If I notice they've dropped the price I'll be there like a shot…
I also had fairly extensive exposure to the albums from the end of the Mick Taylor era (Bare Wires and Blues from Laurel Canyon) back in the day, but I'm not at the point where I'm inclined to shell out $11.99 for the original album plus a bonus track or two. Again, notice a drop in price and I'm there, but in the meantime…
So we're left with these two reissues.