[.ca] Paul Butterfield Blues Band//East West

Excellent but very expensive:
You're not getting anything not on the original CD releases, so there is really no good reason to pay thirty-some-odd bucks for this two-in-one package. If you don't have any of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's first two albums, you can get this one a lot cheaper at Amazon.co.uk :-) But both albums are excellent. Paul Butterfield's 1965 debut album, recorded with Howlin' Wolf's former drummer Sam Lay and guitarists Mike Bloomfield (slide and no slide) and Elvin Bishop (no slide), is a thoroughly authentic blues album, one that avoids the pitfalls that many aspiring white blues combos didn't. It is really hard, in fact, to overestimate the importance of Paul Butterfield's efforts. Before him, white musicians in Britain and the US alike treated the blues with cautious respect, afraid of coming off as inauthentic (and with very good reason). But Paul Butterfield cleared the way for white musicians to build upon the blues tradition (instead of merely replicating it), and on the first of these two album he and the star-studded band power through a number of tight, muscular blues covers which include Elmore James' "Look On Yonder Wall", Little Walter's "Last Night" and "Blues With A Feeling", Little Junior Parker's "Mystery Train", and Muddy Waters' "I Got My Mojo Working" (which features a great, raw lead vocal from drummer Sam Lay). Bloomfield's and Butterfield's playing is sublime, and there are a few of fine original songs here as well, the soulful, Elmore James-like "Our Love Is Drifting" and Chicago guitarist Nick Gravenite's excellent "Born In Chicago" in particular. "East-West", the band's second album from 1966, relied more on originals and was more experimental, paving the way for the elaborate blues-rock style of the Allman Brothers and Cream. It opens with a fine take on "Walkin' Blues" (which is credited to Robert Johnson, who in fact learned it from Son House), and other highlights include "All These Blues", Allen Toussaint's funky "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", and the driving (no pun intended) "Two Trains Running". Guitarist Elvin Bishop, slide slinger Mike Bloomfield, and pianist/organ player Mark Naftalin are superb...Naftalin's piano solo on "Get Out Of My Life, Woman" completely takes over the track, and Mike Bloomfield lays down some smouldering lead guitar lines on the slow burner "I've Got A Mind To Give Up Living". The Paul Butterfield Blues Band didn't knock Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf off the blues throne, but their brand of blues were much more muscular and more authentic sounding than almost all of their contemporaries, and a little more palatable for inexperiences blues listeners than the real deal. Not a substitute for Muddy or Elmore or the Wolf, but a fine supplement. Two albums of great material, played with energy and conviction.

• Born in Chicago
• Shake Your Money-Maker
• Blues with a Feeling
• Thank You Mr. Poobah
• I Got My Mojo Working - Butterfield Blues Band, Paul Butterfield, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sam Lay
• Mellow Down Easy
• Screamin'
• Our Love Is Drifting
• Mystery Train
• Last Night
• Look Over Yonders Wall
• Walkin' Blues
• Get out of My Life Woman
• I Got a Mind to Give Up Living
• All These Blues
• Work Song
• Mary Mary
• Two Trains Running
• Never Say No
• East-West