| The Paul Butterfield Blues Band — In My Own Dream |
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band — In My Own Dream
Birth name: Paul Vaughn Butterfield
Born: December 17, 1942, Chicago
Died: May 4, 1987, North Hollywood, California
Instruments: Harmonica, vocals, guitar, keyboards, flute
Notable instruments: Hohner Marine Band harmonica
Album release: 1968
Record Label: Elektra
Duration: 36:29
Tracks:
01 Last Hope's Gone (Paul Butterfield, Jim Haynie, David Sanborn) 4:52
02 Mine to Love (Bugsy Maugh) 4:21
03 Get Yourself Together (Bugsy Maugh) 4:10
04 Just to Be With You (Bernard Roth) 6:12
05 Morning Blues (Bugsy Maugh) 4:58
06 Drunk Again (Elvin Bishop / Champion Jack Dupree) 6:08
07 In My Own Dream (Paul Butterfield) 5:48
CREDITS:
Ξ Alfred G. Aronowitz Liner Notes
Ξ Elvin Bishop Composer, Guest Artist, Guitar, Vocals
Ξ Paul Butterfield Composer, Harmonica, Primary Artist, Vocals
Ξ John Court Producer
Ξ Brother Gene Dinwiddie Flute, Mandolin, Sax (Tenor), Saxophone, Tambourine, Vocals
Ξ Champion Jack Dupree Composer
Ξ Keith Johnson Trumpet
Ξ Al Kooper Guest Artist, Organ
Ξ Naffy Markham Keyboards
Ξ Bugsy Maugh Bass, Composer, Vocals
Ξ Mark Naftalin Keyboards
Ξ Bernard Roth Composer
Ξ David Sanborn Guest Artist, Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone), Sax (Soprano), Saxophone
Ξ Phillip Wilson Drums, Vocals
© Photo credit: Barry Fein
Review by Bruce Eder; Score: ***½
Ξ 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.
© Paul Butterfield & Rick Danko
Awards: Billboard Albums
1968 In My Own Dream The Billboard 200 #79
Harmonica style:
Ξ As with many Chicago blues-harp players, Paul Butterfield approached the instrument like a horn, preferring single notes to chords, and used it for soloing. His style has been described as "always intense, understated, concise, and serious" and he is "known for purity and intensity of his tone, his sustained breath control, and his unique ability to bend notes to his will". Although his choice of notes has been compared to Big Walter Horton's, he was never seen as an imitator of any particular harp player. Rather, he developed "a style original and powerful enough to place him in the pantheon of true blues greats".
Ξ Butterfield played Hohner harmonicas, and later endorsed them, and preferred the diatonic ten-hole Marine Band model. Although not published until 1997, Butterfield authored a harmonica instruction book, Paul Butterfield Teaches Blues Harmonica Master Class a few years before his death. In it, he explains various techniques, demonstrated on an accompanying CD. Butterfield played mainly in the cross harp or second position, although he occasionally used a chromatic harmonica. Reportedly left-handed, he held the harmonica opposite to a right-handed player, i.e., in his right hand upside-down (with the low notes to the right), using his left hand for muting effects.
Also similar to other electric Chicago-blues harp players, Butterfield frequently used amplification to achieve his sound. Producer Rothchild noted that Butterfield favored an Altec harp microphone run through an early model Fender tweed amplifier. Beginning with The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw album, he began using an acoustic-harmonica style, following his shift to a more R&B-based approach.
© Monterey 1967
Studio albums:
Ξ The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (1965)
Ξ East-West (1966)
Ξ The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967)
Ξ In My Own Dream (1968)
Ξ Keep On Moving (1969)
Ξ Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin' (1971)
Ξ Better Days — Paul Butterfield's Better Days (1973)
Ξ It All Comes Back — Paul Butterfield's Better Days (1973)
Ξ Put It in Your Ear — Paul Butterfield (1976)
Ξ North-South — Paul Butterfield (1981)
Ξ The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again — Paul Butterfield (1986)
Ξ The Original Lost Elektra Sessions (1995, recorded 1964)
_______________________________________________________________
Ξ "I am smarter than the people that are trying to reform me." — Paul Butterfield, seen under Paul's photo in his senior high school year book.
Ξ A white kid growing up in Chicago in the early 60's, Paul Butterfield audaciously stepped outside of the comfort of his middle class roots and walked right into a world heretofore only known by poor black musicians. These blues musicians were tough men and women, playing in the smokey basement bars along the streets of south side Chicago. They deserved to play the Blues because they lived the Blues. Muddy Waters. Ξ Howling Wolf. Little Walter Horton. No white kid in his right mind would walk into that world. But along came Butterfield. He blew life into a fading musical genre by introducing it to white audiences craving the real thing.
Ξ Paul Butterfield was the first of his kind. His music electrified and forever changed the landscape of The Blues and Rock & Roll. With his soulful voice and powerful sounds made with his Hohner harmonica (harp), Butterfield erupted upon the scene like a shooting star.
Ξ Scratch that: he blasted onto the scene like a soulful alley cat that bellowed to the moon. Everyone stopped to listen. Then, all too soon, Paul Butterfield was gone at 44.
Ξ The real story of Paul Butterfield — which is the REAL story of Chicago Blues — has never been told. The only one who can tell that story is his eldest son, Gabriel Butterfield. Together with producer Thom Pollard, the two are producing the ultimate authorized film on the life and music of the late, great bluesman himself.
Ξ The thread of the documentary will follow Gabriel on his quest of discovery to find out more about the complex and sometimes mysterious man that was his father. Gabriel will travel to and meet those who knew Paul best, those who created and played music with him, those who saw him at his finest, as well as his worst.
Ξ At the age of fourteen Paul hung out at the feet of the great bluesmen, pestering them until they'd let him get on stage to play. White kids knew better than to walk into the street-tough bars like Big John's or the Blue Flame Lounge. But these places felt like home to Butterfield. And, on that fateful evening when Muddy Waters finally let Butterfield get beside him to play, the entire world of The Blues changed forever.
Ξ Butterfield created the first integrated blues band when he convinced Howlin' Wolf bass player Jerome Arnold and drummer and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sam Lay to join his band. Butterfield treated his band mates as equals, paying them all an equal split from the evening's take. Unheard of at the time. When Sam Lay realized he would go from making $7.25 a night for a gig with Wolf to more than twice that "the case was closed". Sam joined Butterfield's band on the spot.
Ξ Only a few years later in 1965 Butterfield literally electrified the world by becoming the first band ever to play an electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. Bob Dylan was so impressed by the performance that he borrowed Paul's band and himself went electric in the timeless and iconic set that turned the folk world on its end forever.
Ξ Time lapse forward twenty years. Muddy Waters. BB King. Little Walter. All have become household names in the world of music and The Blues. BB King said it himself that if it weren't for Butterfield he "wouldn't be here today."
Ξ Gabriel Butterfield and Thom Pollard have initiated this Indiegogo campaign to raise the necessary funds to complete PHASE ONE of the biographical documentary on the life and music of Paul Butterfield. Phase One will document the early years of Butterfield's life: his early years and emergence in Chicago, then onward toward his years in Woodstock, NY. Albums that came out during that time, which we have rights to use in the production of the film, are The Butterfield Blues Band, the seminal East-West, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, In My Own Dream, Paul Butterfield Blues Band Live, and onward to his Woodstock, NY based band Better Days.
Ξ We're looking to raise a modest amount in order to travel to and film in Chicago and the old haunts that Paul frequented, spend time with the musicians (some of them world famous and in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), and meet Paul's childhood friends and family. We've also planned to film a key interview in Ohio, another in New York, and film some key scenes for the film at this summer's Philadelphia Folk Festival, where Gabriel's band — The Butterfielf Blues Band Revisited with Jimmy Vivino — will be playing a set on the 50th anniversary of Gabriel's father having appeared there. (http://www.indiegogo.com/)
_______________________________________________________________
| The Paul Butterfield Blues Band — In My Own Dream |
Birth name: Paul Vaughn Butterfield
Born: December 17, 1942, Chicago
Died: May 4, 1987, North Hollywood, California
Instruments: Harmonica, vocals, guitar, keyboards, flute
Notable instruments: Hohner Marine Band harmonica
Album release: 1968
Record Label: Elektra
Duration: 36:29
Tracks:
01 Last Hope's Gone (Paul Butterfield, Jim Haynie, David Sanborn) 4:52
02 Mine to Love (Bugsy Maugh) 4:21
03 Get Yourself Together (Bugsy Maugh) 4:10
04 Just to Be With You (Bernard Roth) 6:12
05 Morning Blues (Bugsy Maugh) 4:58
06 Drunk Again (Elvin Bishop / Champion Jack Dupree) 6:08
07 In My Own Dream (Paul Butterfield) 5:48
CREDITS:
Ξ Alfred G. Aronowitz Liner Notes
Ξ Elvin Bishop Composer, Guest Artist, Guitar, Vocals
Ξ Paul Butterfield Composer, Harmonica, Primary Artist, Vocals
Ξ John Court Producer
Ξ Brother Gene Dinwiddie Flute, Mandolin, Sax (Tenor), Saxophone, Tambourine, Vocals
Ξ Champion Jack Dupree Composer
Ξ Keith Johnson Trumpet
Ξ Al Kooper Guest Artist, Organ
Ξ Naffy Markham Keyboards
Ξ Bugsy Maugh Bass, Composer, Vocals
Ξ Mark Naftalin Keyboards
Ξ Bernard Roth Composer
Ξ David Sanborn Guest Artist, Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone), Sax (Soprano), Saxophone
Ξ Phillip Wilson Drums, Vocals
Review by Bruce Eder; Score: ***½
Ξ 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.
Awards: Billboard Albums
1968 In My Own Dream The Billboard 200 #79
Harmonica style:
Ξ As with many Chicago blues-harp players, Paul Butterfield approached the instrument like a horn, preferring single notes to chords, and used it for soloing. His style has been described as "always intense, understated, concise, and serious" and he is "known for purity and intensity of his tone, his sustained breath control, and his unique ability to bend notes to his will". Although his choice of notes has been compared to Big Walter Horton's, he was never seen as an imitator of any particular harp player. Rather, he developed "a style original and powerful enough to place him in the pantheon of true blues greats".
Ξ Butterfield played Hohner harmonicas, and later endorsed them, and preferred the diatonic ten-hole Marine Band model. Although not published until 1997, Butterfield authored a harmonica instruction book, Paul Butterfield Teaches Blues Harmonica Master Class a few years before his death. In it, he explains various techniques, demonstrated on an accompanying CD. Butterfield played mainly in the cross harp or second position, although he occasionally used a chromatic harmonica. Reportedly left-handed, he held the harmonica opposite to a right-handed player, i.e., in his right hand upside-down (with the low notes to the right), using his left hand for muting effects.
Also similar to other electric Chicago-blues harp players, Butterfield frequently used amplification to achieve his sound. Producer Rothchild noted that Butterfield favored an Altec harp microphone run through an early model Fender tweed amplifier. Beginning with The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw album, he began using an acoustic-harmonica style, following his shift to a more R&B-based approach.
Studio albums:
Ξ The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (1965)
Ξ East-West (1966)
Ξ The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967)
Ξ In My Own Dream (1968)
Ξ Keep On Moving (1969)
Ξ Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin' (1971)
Ξ Better Days — Paul Butterfield's Better Days (1973)
Ξ It All Comes Back — Paul Butterfield's Better Days (1973)
Ξ Put It in Your Ear — Paul Butterfield (1976)
Ξ North-South — Paul Butterfield (1981)
Ξ The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again — Paul Butterfield (1986)
Ξ The Original Lost Elektra Sessions (1995, recorded 1964)
_______________________________________________________________
Ξ "I am smarter than the people that are trying to reform me." — Paul Butterfield, seen under Paul's photo in his senior high school year book.
Ξ A white kid growing up in Chicago in the early 60's, Paul Butterfield audaciously stepped outside of the comfort of his middle class roots and walked right into a world heretofore only known by poor black musicians. These blues musicians were tough men and women, playing in the smokey basement bars along the streets of south side Chicago. They deserved to play the Blues because they lived the Blues. Muddy Waters. Ξ Howling Wolf. Little Walter Horton. No white kid in his right mind would walk into that world. But along came Butterfield. He blew life into a fading musical genre by introducing it to white audiences craving the real thing.
Ξ Paul Butterfield was the first of his kind. His music electrified and forever changed the landscape of The Blues and Rock & Roll. With his soulful voice and powerful sounds made with his Hohner harmonica (harp), Butterfield erupted upon the scene like a shooting star.
Ξ Scratch that: he blasted onto the scene like a soulful alley cat that bellowed to the moon. Everyone stopped to listen. Then, all too soon, Paul Butterfield was gone at 44.
Ξ The real story of Paul Butterfield — which is the REAL story of Chicago Blues — has never been told. The only one who can tell that story is his eldest son, Gabriel Butterfield. Together with producer Thom Pollard, the two are producing the ultimate authorized film on the life and music of the late, great bluesman himself.
Ξ The thread of the documentary will follow Gabriel on his quest of discovery to find out more about the complex and sometimes mysterious man that was his father. Gabriel will travel to and meet those who knew Paul best, those who created and played music with him, those who saw him at his finest, as well as his worst.
Ξ At the age of fourteen Paul hung out at the feet of the great bluesmen, pestering them until they'd let him get on stage to play. White kids knew better than to walk into the street-tough bars like Big John's or the Blue Flame Lounge. But these places felt like home to Butterfield. And, on that fateful evening when Muddy Waters finally let Butterfield get beside him to play, the entire world of The Blues changed forever.
Ξ Butterfield created the first integrated blues band when he convinced Howlin' Wolf bass player Jerome Arnold and drummer and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sam Lay to join his band. Butterfield treated his band mates as equals, paying them all an equal split from the evening's take. Unheard of at the time. When Sam Lay realized he would go from making $7.25 a night for a gig with Wolf to more than twice that "the case was closed". Sam joined Butterfield's band on the spot.
Ξ Only a few years later in 1965 Butterfield literally electrified the world by becoming the first band ever to play an electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. Bob Dylan was so impressed by the performance that he borrowed Paul's band and himself went electric in the timeless and iconic set that turned the folk world on its end forever.
Ξ Time lapse forward twenty years. Muddy Waters. BB King. Little Walter. All have become household names in the world of music and The Blues. BB King said it himself that if it weren't for Butterfield he "wouldn't be here today."
Ξ Gabriel Butterfield and Thom Pollard have initiated this Indiegogo campaign to raise the necessary funds to complete PHASE ONE of the biographical documentary on the life and music of Paul Butterfield. Phase One will document the early years of Butterfield's life: his early years and emergence in Chicago, then onward toward his years in Woodstock, NY. Albums that came out during that time, which we have rights to use in the production of the film, are The Butterfield Blues Band, the seminal East-West, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, In My Own Dream, Paul Butterfield Blues Band Live, and onward to his Woodstock, NY based band Better Days.
Ξ We're looking to raise a modest amount in order to travel to and film in Chicago and the old haunts that Paul frequented, spend time with the musicians (some of them world famous and in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), and meet Paul's childhood friends and family. We've also planned to film a key interview in Ohio, another in New York, and film some key scenes for the film at this summer's Philadelphia Folk Festival, where Gabriel's band — The Butterfielf Blues Band Revisited with Jimmy Vivino — will be playing a set on the 50th anniversary of Gabriel's father having appeared there. (http://www.indiegogo.com/)
_______________________________________________________________