Original Album Series: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (2009) [5CD Box Set, Rhino 8122 79834 0]

Original Album Series: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (2009) [5CD Box Set, Rhino 8122 79834 0]
Blues/Blues Rock/Chicago Blues/Electric Blues | EAC Rip | Flac(Image) + Cue + Log | Mp3 CBR 320Kbps
Rhino | 8122 79834 0 | 1568 + 732 mb | FSonic, FServe, Uploaded
Scans Included | Box Art -> 38 mb

Harmonica virtuoso and vocalist Butterfield spent seven years with Elektra from1964-71, releasing six studio albums and one live recording with his various band line-ups. This slipcased collection features the first five: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, East-West, The Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw, In My Own Dream and Keep On Moving.

Rhino have taken a leaf out of Sony's book with this Original Album Series. While the gatefolds are, unfortunately, not reproduced, the five single card sleeves feature the front and rear US LP artworks for each. The sound appears to reflect earlier individual remastering, and the resulting set is excellent value for the ¡ê15 or so your favourite record emporium will demand.

What you don't get is a context - but suffice to say that the first two releases at least were hugely significant in the R&B world. 1966's East-West was particularly as revered in the US as Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton had been in Britain, and may even have suggested a few directions to Cream. Mercurial guitarist Mike Bloomfield's departure after that album resulted in a gradual fall-off in quality, but these albums remain a substantial and significant achievement - evidence that white men could indeed play the blues.




The Paul Butterfield Blues Band:

Paul Butterfield was the first white harmonica player to develop a style original and powerful enough to place him in the pantheon of true blues greats. It's impossible to overestimate the importance of the doors Butterfield opened: before he came to prominence, white American musicians treated the blues with cautious respect, afraid of coming off as inauthentic. Not only did Butterfield clear the way for white musicians to build upon blues tradition (instead of merely replicating it), but his storming sound was a major catalyst in bringing electric Chicago blues to white audiences who'd previously considered acoustic Delta blues the only really genuine article. His initial recordings from the mid-'60s -- featuring the legendary, racially integrated first edition of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band -- were eclectic, groundbreaking offerings that fused electric blues with rock & roll, psychedelia, jazz, and even (on the classic East-West) Indian classical music. As members of that band -- which included Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop -- drifted away, the overall impact of Butterfield's music lessened, even if his amplified harp playing was still beyond reproach. He had largely faded from the scene by the mid-'70s, and fell prey to health problems and drug addiction that sadly claimed his life prematurely. Even so, the enormity of Butterfield's initial impact ensured that his legacy was already secure.

Butterfield was born December 17, 1942, in Chicago and grew up in Hyde Park, a liberal, integrated area on the city's South Side. His father, a lawyer, and mother, a painter, encouraged Butterfield's musical studies from a young age, and he took flute lessons up through high school, with the first-chair flutist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra serving as his private tutor for a time. By this time, however, Butterfield was growing interested in the blues music that permeated the South Side; he and college-age friend Nick Gravenites (a future singer, guitarist, and songwriter in his own right) began hitting the area blues clubs in 1957. Butterfield was inspired to take up guitar and harmonica, and he and Gravenites began playing together on college campuses around the Midwest. After being forced to turn down a track scholarship to Brown University because of a knee injury, Butterfield entered the University of Chicago, where he met a fellow white blues fan in guitarist Elvin Bishop. Butterfield was evolving into a decent singer, and not long after meeting Bishop, he focused all his musical energy on the harmonica, developing his technique (mostly on diatonic harp, not chromatic) and tone; he soon dropped out of college to pursue music full-time.

After some intense woodshedding, Butterfield and Bishop began making the rounds of the South Side's blues clubs, sitting in whenever they could. They were often the only whites present, but were quickly accepted because of their enthusiasm and skill. In 1963, the North Side club Big John's offered Butterfield's band a residency; he'd already recruited Howlin' Wolf's rhythm section -- bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay -- by offering more money, and replaced original guitarist Smokey Smothers with his friend Bishop. The new quartet made an instant splash with their hard-driving versions of Chicago blues standards. In late 1964, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was discovered by producer Paul Rothchild, and after adding lead guitarist Michael Bloomfield, they signed to Elektra and recorded several sessions for a debut album, the results of which were later scrapped.

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