East-West

The Butterfield Blues Band started out as a straight-ahead Chicago electric blues ensemble. If you're a blues purist, you will prefer their first album. But on East West, the band has clearly come under the influence of, ahem, mind-expanding substances. There are several traditional electric blues numbers here, but there are also several tracks that stretch the boundaries of the blues genre.

The band was remarkable for the work of two great soloists. Paul Butterfield was an outstanding harmonica player (as well as a decent vocalist), and Michael Bloomfield was an awesome guitarist. On this album, both get a chance to display soulful originality as well as technical chops. Unlike a lot of 1960s blues rock musicians, Butterfield and Bloomfield still sound fresh and unique today. In particular, Bloomfield's solos on "I've Got A Mind to Give Up Living", "Work Song", and "East West" have a modal quality totally unlike any of the other blues rock guitar gods of his era. The contrast between Bloomfield's complex droning runs and second guitarist Elvin Bishop's more traditonal lick-based solos are stunning.

Paradoxically, the most revolutionary song on this album--the extended Indian raga-like instrumental jam "East West"--is perhaps the most dated cut. But if you can somehow remember what the musical context was way back in 1966, you will appreciate this album for what it is--a brilliant precursor to the psychedelic blues rock sound that would emerge as the dominant rock music of the late 1960s.


Instrumental Masterpieces of the late 60's   April 11, 2004
There were only a few. Jeff Beck on Rice Pudding. Apricot Brandy by the Rhinoceros. In Memory of Elizabeth Reid by the Allman Brothers. Samba Pa Ti by Santana. And East West by the Butterfield Blues Band was the best.
And of course Booker T. & the MG's. And King Curtis. But the rock tracks were always special because there were so few.
If you don't know this track, I envy you because you have it to look forward to hearing for the first time.


East-West is a guitar Mecca   February 21, 2004
Timothy D. SHELFER (Arlington, Tx)
By now it seems like everything in music has been tried and done - or overdone - and most of it badly. But back in 1966 when this album debuted, it was nothing less than astonishing. A mixed-race band? A white guy singing blues like nobody's business? A Jewish kid and a southern farmboy sounding like Robert Johnson on guitars? None of us had heard anything quite like it and it gave me, a 15-year-old rock&roll wannabee guitar player, something to focus on.

Right out of the chute, this is a strong album. Opening with "Walking Blues", the BBB struts their stuff with strong vocals, soulful harmonica, and wicked guitar. "I've Got a Mind to Give up Living" was most people's first taste of what Michael Bloomfield could do - simply a stunning blues solo to cap off a great twelve-bar blues.

The album highlight, in my opinion, is their rendition of "The Work Song". Always a great jam song, they carried it to new heights. Bloomfield plays a dizzying guitar solo for 4 verses; Butterfield smokes 2 verses on his harp; Mark Naftalin follows with an understated organ solo; Elvin Bishop gets down & dirty for 4 verses. Then it really gets good; trading off every 2 bars, the musicians rotate for a few verses, each time upping the ante on each other as the song intensifies before resolving into a final melody verse. Whatta song!!!

Noteworthy on side 2 is Elvin Bishop's singing and playing on the sultry "Never Say No". Who knew he could sing?

Finally, the album culminates with the title song "East-West", one of those 60's long-songs which were oftentimes wretched excess, but this one keeps your interest. For 5 minutes or so, guitar and harmonica imitate an Indian raga in a slowly building crescendo. Sudden break, and the music becomes western, muted, and diatonic scale until once again transitioning to the final east-west blend. Hard to describe -- by the CD and hear it yourself.

While "East West" wasn't on the top-10 decade list for sales, it represented a watershed for pop music -- more maturity, better musicianship, more exploration, more successful blending of other genres.

If you're a blues fan, an Alan Lomax enthusiast, or a student of the 60s progression, this album is a must. Enjoy.


East/West Is Ground Breaking   September 27, 2003
Gavin B. (St. Louis MO)
Few white blues players have been able to transcend the traditional notion that blues is a music that is based on the shared experiences of African Americans. Authenticity equals credibility in the minds of most blues enthusiasts. It's a powerful argument; and few white performers have been able perform the blues without inviting comparisons to the original African American blues masters. Paul Butterfield never invited comparisions because he demanded that listeners accept him on his own terms as an artist, and even the old blues masters could not deny Butterfield's prodigious talents and his inspired performances. The Butterfield Blues Band was one of those rare performing ensembles that could literally send chills down your spine on the sheer force of charisma. Butterfield was "authentic" because he refused to accept the stereotypes of white blues performers and his passion and magnetism changed the rules about who can, and cannot play, authentic blues. When Butterfield played his turbo-charged version of "Walking Blues", it was pointless to debate the merits the Robert Johnson original, because the Butterfield treatment of "Walking Blues" is so electrifying, that the racial identity of the singer is a moot point.

It was almost serendipity that Michael Bloomfield ended up in the same band with Butterfield. There really wasn't room enough in the same band two performers with such monumental talents and unshakable opinions of music. Bloomfield was a Columbia records studio musician and a budding guitar prodigy, when it was suggested that Bloomfield be added to the band, to deepen the band's recording sound. Butterfield reluctantly accepted and it began a turbulent partnership in which the two musical wunderkinds circled each other like caged lions. It was the musical rivalry between Butterfield and Bloomfield that was precisely the strength of the Butterfield Blues Band. These twin towers of talent each pushing the musical envelope to outplay the other. Bloomfield signature tension and release guitar technique: slow knotty phrases building into an almost unbearable tension which was finally realeased in a blazing cascade of notes, with a climax usually consisting of single long feedback sustained note. Bloomfield's playing was such a stylized pastiche of jazz, blues, and world music that only a musical scholar could discern Bloomfield's almost endless array of source material for his technique. Bloomfield's mastery of guitar was so all-encompassing, he began exprimenting with entirely different musical modalities which flew in the face of the rigid three chord structure of blues.

Late in 1965, Bloomfield presented a piece to the band that he had been working on for well over a year which he titled "East-West". There was no precedent for the composition. It was a jazz peice, in the sense that constructed themes were jump-off points for long improvisational solos by members of the Butterfield Blues Band. What was unprecedented about East-West was the dizzying array of musical styles it embraced from blues themes, to jazz to samba. The center piece of tension was usually a slow segue from a blues theme into an eastern scale Indian raga where Bloomfield manipulated his guitar sound using feedback to sound like a sitar. He is complimented with a harmonica sound by Butterfield that almost sounds as if Butterfield is attempting get a bluesy bagpipe effect. The piece built into an explosive climax, which created new musical space in areas folks never dream it exsisited. At that time no one in the United States had ever heard of a sitar or Ravi Shankar, so a lot of jaws dropped when this blues band launced their performance finale piece. For the first time in musical history, "psychedelic" became the only appropriate term to describe a musical composition. It's ironic that a self-defined blues band created psychedelica, but when the Paul Butterfield Band played the Fillmore in San Francisco in the summer of 1966, the ripple effect of "East-West" created dozens of San Francisco bands who followed Butterfield and Bloomfield's improvisational style to create the psychedelic sound of Haight Ashbury. Without "East/West" there would probably have not been a Grateful Dead (as we know them), a Quicksilver Messenger Service or an entire genre of "jam band" music.


No Lying   August 12, 2003
When you're a bit under the weather (if you know what i mean), a little bit above the surface of our blue planet earth (winks all around, chaps), then this CD is for you. It puts you on the moon. I mean that, it really does it for me. Far out...