The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Original Album Series (2009)

This is a collection of the five first albums of the Paul Butterfield' group. The first two albums are classic and influenced rock music. The first album gives an electric atmosphere to blues, and was one of the influences to Bob Dylan's music to became electric. They are bringing also a clear message to white musicians covering blues songs, do it yourself, play your blues music. The second album is another classic going deep to psychedelia and having real treasures as songs. After these two albums the style has changed and the quality never equalized this of their previous work. This collection is not re-mastered. ~Amazon




Even after his death, Paul Butterfield's music didn't receive the accolades that were so deserved. Outputting styles adopted from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters among other blues greats, Butterfield became one of the first white singers to rekindle blues music through the course of the mid-'60s. His debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, saw him teaming up with guitarists Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield, with Jerome Arnold on bass, Sam Lay on drums, and Mark Naftalin playing organ. The result was a wonderfully messy and boisterous display of American-styled blues, with intensity and pure passion derived from every bent note. In front of all these instruments is Butterfield's harmonica, beautifully dictating a mood and a genuine feel that is no longer existent, even in today's blues music. Each song captures the essence of Chicago blues in a different way, from the back-alley feel of "Born in Chicago" to the melting ease of Willie Dixon's "Mellow Down Easy" to the authentic devotion that emanates from Bishop and Butterfield's "Our Love Is Drifting." "Shake Your Money Maker," "Blues With a Feeling," and "I Got My Mojo Working" (with Lay on vocals) are all equally moving pieces performed with a raw adoration for blues music. Best of all, the music that pours from this album is unfiltered…blared, clamored, and let loose, like blues music is supposed to be released. A year later, 1966's East West carried on with the same type of brash blues sound partnered with a jazzier feel, giving greater to attention to Bishop's and Bloomfield's instrumental talents. ~Allmusic

Track listing
01. Born In Chicago (3:09)
02. Shake Your Money-Maker (2:28)
03. Blues With A Feeling (4:24)
04. Thank You Mr. Poobah (4:07)
05. I Got My Mojo Working (3:35)
06. Mellow Down Easy (2:51)
07. Screamin' (4:37)
08. Our Love Is Drifting (3:34)
09. Mystery Train (2:36)
10. Last Night (4:19)
11. Look Over Yonders Wall (2:27)
~ (38:08)






The second Butterfield album had an even greater effect on music history, paving the way for experimentation that is still being explored today. This came in the form of an extended blues-rock solo (some 13 minutes) – a real fusion of jazz and blues inspired by the Indian raga. This groundbreaking instrumental was the first of its kind and marks the root from which the acid rock tradition emerged.

Track listing
01. Walkin' Blues (3:19)
02. Get Out Of My Life, Woman (3:16)
03. I Got A Mind To Give Up Living (5:00)
04. All These Blues (2:24)
05. Work Song (7:56)
06. Mary, Mary (2:53)
07. Two Trains Running (3:55)
08. Never Say No (2:59)
09. East-West (13:13)
~ (44:55)






This CD is a real conundrum for blues fans in general and fans of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in particular. On the one hand, the first of its two discs is The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, the last of what are usually regarded as the classic albums by the band, and a glorious moment in the career of guitarist Elvin Bishop (aka "Pigboy Crabshaw"), and it's remastered in far better, closer, crisper sound than the extant domestic Elektra Records CD of the same album, which was transferred digitally more than a decade ago; and it's also got their next album, In My Own Dream, which generally doesn't appeal to the same listenership, with its more horn-oriented and jazz-influenced sound; and that album is otherwise available domestically through Wounded Bird Records (who do such a good job with it that it would be a shame to take any business away from them). Also working against this double-CD is its price – it's more than twice as expensive at retail as the domestic "Pigboy Crabshaw" album. On the other hand, the sound is really good – but that's also true of the Wounded Bird release of In My Own Dream. So the fans should sort it out for themselves, but suffice to say that the sound on this double-disc set won't disappoint, and the annotation by Peter Doggett (with help from Elvin Bishop) is very thorough and enlightening about this tumultuous period in the group's history.

Track listing
01. One More Heartache (3:41)
02. Driftin' And Driftin' (9:11)
03. Pity The Fool (6:08)
04. Born Under A Bad Sign (4:12)
05. Run Out Of Time (3:04)
06. Double Trouble (5:43)
07. Drivin' Wheel (6:00)
08. Droppin' Out (2:22)
09. Tollin' Bells (5:25)
~ (45:45)






Sometimes, one has to wonder whether the youth of the 1960s were really as open to new ideas and new sounds as their press would make you believe. Take the album at hand, In My Own Dream by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band – their fourth official release (though two others have since gone into their discography at earlier points), it marked the point where the band really began to lose its audience, and all for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of their music. They'd gotten past the loss of Michael Bloomfield in early 1967, over which they'd surrendered some of their audience of guitar idolaters, with the engagingly titled (and guitar-focused) Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw. In My Own Dream had its great guitar moments, especially on "Just to Be With You," but throughout the album, Elvin Bishop's electric guitar shared the spotlight with the horn section of Gene Dinwiddle, David Sanborn, and Keith Johnson, who had signed on with the prior album and who were more out in front than ever. More to the point, this album represented a new version of the band being born, with shared lead vocals, with the leader himself only taking three of the seven songs, and bassist Bugsy Maugh singing lead on two songs, Bishop on one, and drummer Phillip Wilson taking one song. What's more, there was a widely shared spotlight for the players, and more of a jazz influence on this record than had ever been heard before from the group. This was a band that could jam quietly for five minutes on "Drunk Again," building ever-so-slowly to a bluesy crescendo where Bishop's guitar and Mark Naftalin's organ surged; and follow it with the title track, a totally surprising acoustic guitar-driven piece featuring Sanborn, Dinwiddle, and Johnson. The playing was impressive, especially for a record aimed at a collegiate audience, but the record had the bad fortune to appear at a point when jazz was culturally suspect among the young, an elitist and not easily accessible brand of music that seemed almost as remote as classical music (i.e. "old people's" music). "Get Yourself Together" was almost too good a piece of Chicago-style blues, a faux Chess Records-style track that might even have been too "black" for the remnants of Butterfield's old audience. It also anticipated the group's final change of direction, its blossoming into a multi-genre blues/jazz/R&B/soul outfit, equally devoted to all four genres and myriad permutations of each. It might not be essential listening for dedicated fans of the original band, but for those who hung on to its glorious end – the double-live LP (a double-live CD and twice as long, as of late 2004) – this is the missing link, how they got there.

Track listing
01. Last Hope's Gone (4:53)
02. Mine To Love (4:22)
03. Get Yourself Together (4:11)
04. Just To Be With You (6:15)
05. Morning Blues (4:59)
06. Drunk Again (6:11)
07. In My Own Dream (5:50)
~ (36:42)






Released in 1969, Keep on Moving was the fifth Elektra release by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. During a four-year span the group's namesake and leader was the only original member left from their first album in 1965. Morphing in a similar direction as Michael Bloomfield's Electric Flag, this edition of the Butterfield Blues Band prominently fronted the horn section of David Sanborn on alto sax, Gene Dinwiddie on tenor, and Keith Johnson on trumpet. The band's direction was full tilt, horn-dominated soul music, first explored on The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, which took them farther away from the highly regarded gritty blues experimentation of East-West and the duel guitar attack of Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. This album also signaled the final appearance of AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago drummer Phillip Wilson, whose Butterfield swan song was the collaboration with Dinwiddie on the hippie gospel track "Love March," of which an appropriately disjointed live version appeared on the Woodstock soundtrack album. The difference between Butterfield's 1965 street survival ode "Born in Chicago" ("My father told me 'son you'd better get a gun") and "Love March" ("Sing a glad song, sing all the time") left fans wondering if the band had become a bit too democratic. However, on cuts like "Losing Hand," some of the band's original fervor remains. Butterfield's harp intertwining with the horn section sounds like a lost Junior Parker outtake and the Jimmy Rogers' penned "Walking by Myself," is the closest this band comes to the gutsy Windy City blues of its heyday. The remaining tracks aren't horrible, but tend to run out of ideas quickly, unfortunately making what may have been decent material (with a little more effort) sound premature. Butterfield would make a few more personnel changes, release one final disc on Elektra, Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin', and then dump the band altogether to embark on a solo career. In 2006, Sundazed released a High-Definition Vinyl LP version of Keep on Moving.

Track listing
01. Love March (2:58)
02. No Amount of Loving (3:14)
03. Moring sunrise (2:41)
04. Losing Hand (3:36)
05. Walking By Myself (4:31)
06. Except You (3:53)
07. Love Disease (3:30)
08. Where Did My Baby Go (4:24)
09. All In A Day (2:29)
10. So Far So Good (2:29)
11. Buddy's Advice (3:21)
12. Keep On Moving (5:03)
~ (42:09)




Thx to ALLexxess