I am a huge blues fan. About a year or two ago I was working in the basement had "Saturday Blues" playin on an app on my phone, WNIJ Joliet IL. This long weird tune comes on and I am like what the hell is this..? My son says it sound like Sonny Sharrock and I replied sorta but I don't think it's him. Given that he was 15 or so I was impressed at the guess. Turned out to be Paul Butterfield BB with Mike Bloomfield. I think it was the song East West. 2 weeks ago I was in the Salvation Army and scored a near mint vinyl copy of "Golden Butter" which is a double lp. Prior to listening to it I got the cd of the first album which is musically awesome but sonically meh at least in my car. The record, which has not been cleaned has a lot of surface noise but sounds great. East West I listened to twice tonight, I am blown away. The rest of the vinyl lp sounds better too, songs that overlap. I was born in Chicago < sorry I had to say it. I really went head deep into the blues resurgence thing saw SRV numerous times actually met him. Buddy Guy too and Albert King walking right in front of me. I saw Albert Collins, BB, Bobby blue Bland. Yet with all that background all of sudden it's OMG what is this. That the cool thing about being into music My comments on the vinyl vs cd are just that. If you dont have a record player, just buy the Cd. the music is worth it.
I discovered them last year. the first two albums are blues gold. however, once bloomfield left it wasnt the same for me. So I only own 2 albums from them. As for bloomfield, same... without paul butterfield I didn't like how he left the blues. Some people like his stuff but not me(as of today)
I heard the East-West album playing at a frat party in Omaha in 1968, got the S/T debut album shortly that. I favor the first three, S/T, East-West and The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw.
Bloomfield killed. Absolutely fearless on guitar and largely responsible (along with Peter Green) for popularizing the 59 Les Paul. Check out his side of Super Session with Al Kooper. 'Stop' will floor you.
Don't miss this one! The Original Lost Elektra Sessions (1995, recorded 1964) is a vault release featuring Bloomfield/Bishop band.
(L-R, back row) Billy Davenport, Paul Butterfield, (middle row) Mark Naftalin, Elvin Bishop and Jerome Arnold, (front) Mike Bloomfield at the Living End in Detroit, Michigan 1966 (Photo by Wilson Lindsay/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) ➡Paul Butterfield
Jim McCarty of the Yardbirds told me the only American band they respected (meaning their contemporaries, not influences) was Butterfield and company...
Great band. Michael Bloomfield is God but I think Elvin Bishop is unfortunately forgotten these days.
Elvin Bishop just cracks me up with his solos on 'Pigboy Crabshaw'. He breaks so many norms, goes for the unexpected, and succeeds each time. And this is from a Bloomfield devotee.
The Bloomfield/Butterfield alliance was never going to last as Bloomfield was a constant unsettled mover. Butterfield moved in a direction more in line with his hero Little Junior Parker. Bloomfield interestingly moved into a similar horn heavy/soul/blues bag. The horn players his introduction to frequent heroin use. Bloomfields position as one of the early guitar heroes overshadowed by the British guys who mined a similar field but not quite as authentic (early Peter Green & John Mayall era Eric Clapton excepted) Truth be known the real pioneer guitar heroes preceeded them all.
I know All these guys are whiteboy blues. But i feel like These guys took the blues in its raw form from black artists and took it to another level. I can't say the same for jazz, rap or reggae/dub.
Paul Butterfield’s Better Days band with the incredible Amos Garrett on guitar and Geoff Muldaur sharing vocals are also pretty great and worth searching for. “There are only three white blues singers, Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them“, Richard Thompson
I'm a big fan of blues. My introduction to blues was through the whiteboys. I still like whiteboy blues. I also like the real deal. . The whiteboys did take it to another level although I contend that another place may be a better word than level because where they took it is not "better" Neither is "better" than the other. Just different. Blues & Blues/Rock are not the same thing. Now a days there are many white blues players that play the real deal with the reverence & restraint that it requires. Mostly they go unheard & unrecognised whilst the whiteboy blues gets all the attention (for a variety of reasons) I don't know enough about jazz to comment & have no interest in knowing anything about rap or reggae.
I'm suggesting that Richard Thompson knows very little about white blues singers. Amos Garrett is pretty incredible on guitar (as is Richard Thompson)
I don't think they were doing anything that African American artists like B.B. King, Bobby Bland, etc, hadn't already done, i.e., a slicker, more "uptown" (better-produced) horn-enhanced sound. Plus, the African American performers were always much better singers of the blues, regardless of the style . . . IMHO.
I think that was true at that time (60's 70's) I don't think that hold true these days. Though the really great contemporay white blues singers will still say that they don't hold a candle to originals.
