Thanks Bucksnort.
Yes that is a great album and one I haven't heard in a long time ( I'll have to work on getting that one back).
As for Clapton's playing on the album, I've heard that that is the first time a Strat was paired with a Marshall for a studio recording (at least in the Rock idiom).
This could explain some of what you're hearing.
I remember when MTV was doing their "Rockumentary" series. The first one they ever did was with Clapton and as part of the interview (and I think this "stunt" permeated with all artists being interviewed through the life of the series) he was given a stack of albums featuring himself and was asked to comment on each one.
That John Mayall album was one of them and as soon as he saw it, he got a wry smile on his face and said "ah yes, the beano album ".
As for his playing, he literally "shrugged" it off as not being anything special and said he only spent about 20 minutes in the studio, to record all of his lead parts for the whole album.
The jist of what I remember about those comments was that he was actually in the middle of several projects, so he'd dash in, play a bit on one, then go somewhere else and play on that one.
This was just one of those stops and he was genuinely surprised by all the hoopla that the album garnered, due to his playing on it.
...btw, I found several of the songs from this album on youtube a couple of years ago. I think "Hideaway" was one of them.
Elvis