FREE FOR ALL

JAZZ/FUSION GREAT JOHN McLAUGHLIN on his liberating new album, his recent run-in with the law and his spiritual connection to pretty much everything and everyone

- BRAD ANGLE

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC has brought with it countless forms of hardship: from catastrophic to tedious and everything in between. It’s affected the health, finances and emotional well-being of hundreds of millions of people across the globe. It’s forced many of us to fundamentally change the way we worked, cared for families, shopped for food, went to school, socialized, created music and so much more. For John McLaughlin, pandemic-packed 2020 was also the year he got busted… for riding his bicycle.

The British guitar virtuoso weathered that year’s turbulence in Monaco, where the 80-year-old has lived with his family for decades. When the jazz-fusion great wasn’t practicing guitar, McLaughlin would combat his cabin fever by taking a spin on his bike. It was on one of these stress-reducing treks that he found himself on the wrong side of the law.

“During the first lockdown, you were allowed to go 1 kilometer from where you lived, and [stay] out for one hour,” he says. “I was on my bike, and I ended up in France, because France surrounds Monaco. I was about 500 meters [over the limit] and I got fined. I had to pay 135 euros for 500 meters! [Laughs] That’s terrible. So I tried to stay clean after that.”

It’s mid 2021 when McLaughlin recounts this story to Guitar World. He can laugh about it now, and he’s also quick to acknowledge that a traffic ticket pales in comparison to the many tragedies people have experienced throughout the ongoing Covid pandemic. But that day when he got pulled over, he was irate — a feeling that only continued to grow as the stay-at-home orders dragged on and restrictions tightened throughout 2020.