For John Mayall, playing the blues was a hobby, never a living. Then something clicked and here he is – still playing at 80, reports CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

JOHN Mayall, the Godfather of British blues, is on his 80th anniversary world tour.

The Macclesfield-born blues singer, guitarist, organist and songwriter turned 80 on November 29 last year, but please don't go on about his age.

"Age really has nothing to do with it," he says. "As long as you have the ability to put on a good, energetic show, that's all that matters.

"We usually do a full-on UK tour every two years, and this year we're again doing 130 shows all over the world; there's so much to play, there's a different repertoire every night, covering the new album and various albums from my career going back to the Sixties."

Among those concerts will be York Barbican on October 29, three years since his last appearance there. Already he has toured the United States, Canada and Europe this year with Texan guitarist Rocky Athas and the Chicago rhythm section of bassist Greg Rzab and drummer Jay Davenport, and they join him again for 34 British dates to showcase A Special Life, Mayall's first studio album in five years.

No two shows will be the same.

"We don't rehearse at all; it's all improvisation, and I make up the set list at each gig," says Mayall, who could not imagine sticking to the same running order night after night. "I don't know how people do that, but it seems most groups do play the same set again and again. That would drive me crazy. I like to keep the energy up and the fun; I always think of it as a party that everyone's joining in."

A Special Life takes John Mayall back to his blues roots, but with diversions into rock and Americana too, and he has been delighted by the public response.

"It seems to be doing very well," he says. "It's an album on which I wanted to pay homage to lesser-known blues artists but also do a complete blues album with different shades of blue. It's made with my regular band – we've been together over five years now, doing 130 shows a year – and the material took care of itself. I picked songs that were distinctive from each other, so it builds like a set of singles.

"What's important is that each song must have its own character and have something to say that the previous track didn't. It might be the instrumentation, the lyric or the mood; as long as it's an honest piece of work, that's what matters, and if you do someone else's song you have to do it justice. If you have fun with it, and it feels good and stimulates your senses, that's the only way to judge it."

Mayall put together the first of his bands, The Bluesbreakers, in 1963, since when he has released 60 albums.

The Bluesbreakers acted as a finishing school for guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor in the mid-1960s, who honed their skills before going on to join Cream, Fleetwood Mac and The Rolling Stones respectively. John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Jack Bruce all played and recorded with Mayall, too.

And it was always the blues, that American musical form, for Englishman John. "Why the blues? I've been asked that a lot, but I grew up in a house with jazz and blues always playing in my childhood and I found I identified with it and then pursued it as my musical career," he says.

"Eventually people find the thing they're destined to do. For me, it was a hobby, never anything that I thought I could make a living from, but when I got to be 30 years on, it was like a green light being switched on.

"This was what I'd always wanted to happen, though I kept my day job going for a year, working as an art director in an advertising firm," he says.

Mayall's stellar list of band members through the years is testament to his skill as a leader. "It's probably a by-product of how I work; I've always played my own way and it's always been rewarding that there have been enough followers to keep it going," he says. "A band leader chooses musicians to play his ideas and develop their own talent within that that framework."

Mayall has a knack for putting musicians together. "It hasn't happened yet that my musicians haven't got on with each other," he says.

To add to his enjoyment on October 29, Mayall has family connections with the north. "My sister and brother-in-law are up there, so it'll be lovely to be playing in York," he says.

John Mayall 80th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, October 29, 7.30pm. Tickets: £27.50 to £29.50 on 0844 854 2757 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk

His special guests at York Barbican will be Alan Nimmo's Glasgow four-piece, King King, twice winners of the Best Blues Band Award at the British Blues Awards.