Blue Magic

DURING THE MID-SIXTIES, most white blues bands couldn't perform as well as Muddy Waters on a bad night. The other bands absorbed so much of their respective black idol's life-style that they'd ravage themselves physically and emotionally so they'd wind up sounding like Muddy Waters on a bad night. They also didn't swing. One group, however, that had fallen into none of these snares was a high-powered blues band that first appeared on the scene during that mid-sixties revivification of electrified blues. Led by a Chicago boy well-versed in the music distinctive to his home town, this band played the blues joyously. Their arrangements were fresh and they performed well not only on blues standards but also on their own compositions. Most members of the Blues Society would agree, I'm sure, that there were few groups playing at that time which could swing harder than the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

At that time, Butterfield had surrounded himself with brilliant musicians in the form of guitarists Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield and organist Mark Naftalin. The result of which was a modern band that ventured into the confines of jazz and swing while still maintaining its identity in the blues. In the fall of 1971, right at the time when he seemed close to achieving the synthesis of jazz, swing, and blues that possessed him during the latter part of the group's history, Butterfield dissolved the band and departed from the musical world to drive stakes in the green pastures of Woodstock, N.Y.

During this lengthy period of inactivity, Butterfield developed further as an artist, all the while leaving himself susceptible to sundry criticisms from those who were comfortable only with the band's previous identity. Nevertheless, Butterfield returned to the recording studios, deviated from his jazz-blues mold, and unfolded a new-fledged band with an equally novel sound. The new Butterfield ensemble, Better Days, seems far from the explosive sound with which they were previously identified, but still uses the blues as a truly personal form of expression.

Geoff Muldaur, who co-founded the Kweskin Jug Band and was with them up until it disintegrated in 1969, is one of the main reasons Better Days is so different from Butterfield's previous band. Muldaur is an adept slide guitarist who carries several blues styles with him. He also contributes betwixt-and-between vocals (which are even better in live performance) and comes up with enjoyable arrangements. The drummer, Christopher Parker, is perfect in his blues discipline, delivering a steady, unadorned beat. He and bassist Billy Rich make up a solid, healthy rhythm section. Then we come to Butterfield himself, still belting out those sonatized harp solos, remaining one of the few white musician-singers around today doing a capable job with the blues.

Better Days's extensive versatility may be exhibited on the first track, an update of Robert Johnson's "Walkin' Blues." The band performs this number with personality and style, a most welcome change from the intentional mimicking of black music by many white blues bands. This cut features Butterfield on vocals, playing electric piano and all the while wailing away on mean harp. This Delta blues classic exhibits a tasteful modern interpretation somewhere in between the traditional and contemporary blues settings. "Broke My Baby's Heart" features organist Ronnie Barron on vocals and is one of the two tracks featuring a horn section reminiscent of early Butterfield. Here Barron conveys a feeling of strength and emotional intensity which falls somewhere between Fred McDowell and Lightnin' Hopkins.

Conceivably, the best thing on the album is Better Days's version of Big Joe Williams's "Baby Please Don't Go." The tune is very well mixed, so if you listen through headphones you can hear Muldaur's glassy slide guitar on the left channel and Amos Garrett's lead guitar on the right, both in conversation with Paul's biting harp way up in the mix. Muldaur and Butterfield grind out the vocals una voce and, in the company of Maria Muldaur's (Geoff's wife) restrained fiddle, the band displays one of the best personal interpretations of Delta blues that has come out in a long time.

The rest of the album is equally good, containing a wide variety of material. Included are a new rendition of "Buried Alive in the Blues," by Nick Gravenites (an old Chicago schoolmate of Butterfield's) and a piece by Nina Simone and Eric von Schmidt. Enclosed within the album are biographies of each of the five members of the band printed on the flip side of a giant harmonica blow-up. In his personal biography, Butterfield contends that when he played with Michael Bloomfield, the two of them had a magic that they could reach. Real magic! That's what Butterfield is always looking for. Bluesophiles need not look any further for the magic than Better Days.