The Butterfield Blues Band - Live [Bonus Disc] (CD)

All Music Guide

It's difficult to know where to begin with a release like this there's no much here that's new and worthwhile, that it virtually blows the original vinyl release, good as that was, off the map. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band didn't go quietly into the night, as this doubleCD set reminds us. Originally a twoLP set, Live was their penultimate release on Elektra Records, recorded at the L.A. Troubador and released in 1971, and it was over 70 minutes of some of the loudest, boldest blues of its time. Oddly enough, the released concert contained some of the more straightforward and less complex material in the band's book this could have been a much bolder and more challenging release at the time. One discovers listening to the second disc in this set, 66 minutes of much more ambitious arrangements opening with "Gene's Tune", an onthespot improvisation on a tune that saxman Gene Dinwiddie delivered just before the group took the stage, and offering an ample showcase not just for the reed...s but for Butterfield's harmonica (which is the lead instrument and heard in its full glory for much of the first half of this 12minute jam) but also for Ralph Walsh's guitar and Ted Harris's keyboards. Similar extended excursions are built around the more raw, more purely bluesy "Losing Hand", and the band's oneoff hit, "Love March". Those are juxtaposed with more traditionally structured Chicagostyle blues numbers, including "You've Got To Love Her With A Feeling", and funky jazz in bassist Rod Hicks's "All In A Day". The band comes off as a killer hybrid ensemble, somewhere midway between, say, the Count Basie band of the late 1940's and a largescale Chicago blues band of early in the next decade, and Booker T. The M.G.'s paired with the MarKeys, all bound up in a lean, sleek package resembling the second version of Blood, Sweat Tears at their best moments. Based on what's here, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band probably deserved a hearing as much as the latter group got, if not the same sales (Butterfield was a good singer, but lacked David ClaytonThomas's MOR appeal) but musically, they could have blown all competitors off the stage in their sheer eclecticism. The Rhino Handmade edition released in 2004 was limited to 2500 copies, so anyone interested shouldn't spend too much time deciding whether they really want it or not. The vinyl set could easily run 30 or more if it can be found, and it has only has half of what's on the CD, and not necessarily the better half. - Bruce Eder, All Music Guide Read more Less