by William RuhlmannHaving gone Back to the Roots, John Mayall returned to his forward-looking musical explorations with 1971's Memories, the true follow-up to USA Union, on which he retained bassist Larry Taylor, replaced Harvey Mandel with guitarist Jerry McGee of The Ventures, and dropped Sugarcane Harris, for an unusually small trio session. Actually, he was still looking back on a set of autobiographical lyrics about growing up, starting with the title track, and including "Grandad," and "Back from Korea." (Forced to compete with the simultaneous release of the London Records compilation Thru the Years, Memories managed to reach only Number 179 in the U.S. charts.)