THE BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND: EAST-WEST (1966)
1) Walkin' Blues; 2) Get Out
Of My Life, Woman; 3) I Got A Mind To Give Up Living; 4) All These Blues; 5)
Work Song; 6) Mary, Mary; 7) Two Trains Running; 8) Never Say No; 9) East West.
Butterfield's second album is often regarded as
the band's high point — not just because it would be Bloomfield's last as a
band member, but because, due to his instigation, this is as close as the BBB come
to breaking the generic blues-rock mold. Just like Cream, already mentioned in
the previous review, started out with the aspiration of doing a «pure blues»
thing (at least, Clapton had that intention — maybe Bruce wanted them to do a
«pure jazz» thing), but almost immediately got caught up in the winds of time
and drifted towards heavy rock and psychedelia, so it was almost inevitable,
with the BBB's pool of talent, that they wouldn't be settling cozily in their
status of «Muddy/Elmore cover band». At least, not in 1966 they wouldn't.
There is
still plenty of pure blues here, of course, but even here they are
experimenting, no longer content with merely covering the songs the way they
were, but trying to reinvent them in a different idiom. The results aren't
particularly awesome — more like «curious», like when they do Robert Johnson's
ʽWalkin' Bluesʼ as some sort of blues tango, or when they take Muddy's formerly
slow, threatening ʽTwo Trains Runningʼ and transform it into a boogie:
unfortunately, they did not have the idea to conduct a sparring guitar match
between Bloomfield and Bishop, which would have fit right in with the song
title. In the end, my favorite «pure blues» song on here emerges as ʽI Got A
Mind To Give Up Livingʼ, Butterfield's first attempt at generating a deep soul
atmosphere, with Bloomfield playing straight from the heart, making the guitar
choke with tears of rage rather than just go all fussy and crazy. Sharp,
poignant, convincingly tragic, this is America's answer to The Animals and in
this case, it might even be better, since Butterfield, unlike Burdon, never
comes across as a theatrical poseur (sorry Eric — you are more interesting and gifted as a singer, but not as a haunted
human being).
A brief mention must be made of such an oddity
here as ʽMary, Maryʼ, which most of us usually know from the Monkees' second
album — indeed, Mike Nesmith originally gave the song away to Butterfield
before making use of it for his own band. It would be curious to know what the
demo looked like, because the Butterfields present it as a swampy blues jam,
all ragged and torn, whereas the Monkees naturally made it into a tight, jaunty
pop number; the respective cherry-on-top is a shrieking, frenetic Bloomfield
solo in Butterfield's version, and Davy Jones' smooth vocal harmonies in the
Monkees' version. Neither of the two is greatness incarnate, but I like both,
and I'm not altogether sure if I'd even want to make a preference.
Still, that's just the potatoes: the meat of
the album, as any critic will tell you, are the two extended, jazz-influenced
instrumental jams. Wait a minute, influenced?
ʽWork Songʼ is jazz — a stretched
cover of Nat Adderley's most famous composition — and ʽEast-Westʼ, following in
the footsteps of the Byrds' ʽEight Miles Highʼ, is rock's attempt to
incorporate free-form soloing and modal jazz elements into its very soul. Mike
Bloomfield may have made his reputation as a flaming guitar punk in Bob
Dylan's 1965 entourage, but he had an intellectual drive as well, and ʽEast-Westʼ
is as intellectual as you ever get with these guys. And considering how
repetitive, drone-heavy, free-flying, and energetic ʽEast-Westʼ is, it is
arguably the most closest predecessor to the Velvet Underground and their
jamming feats a year later.
What is even more interesting, though, is that
ʽEast-Westʼ actually has a cool, well thought out structure — over its thirteen
minutes, it gradually moves from swampy blues into a decidedly Eastern raga
section, then into something more close to country-western, and ultimately
culminates in a set of pop-rock riffs, starting with a variation on ʽMemphis
Tennesseeʼ. This means that they took the name seriously, and consciously tried
to integrate Eastern and Western traditions, to the best of their abilities,
within the same composition. I have no intention of overrating ʽEast-Westʼ like
so many American critics desperately hunting for proof that American bands were
just as rigorously pushing boundaries in 1966 as their British counterparts,
but this is a major milestone, and
for what it's worth, as a lengthy jam, it makes a stronger point than Cream's
jams, since its scope is wider and its ambitions are higher from the start.
Unfortunately, the happiness did not last long
— apparently, this new direction and its conflict with the old one created too
much tension in the band and finally split apart the Butterfield / Bloomfield
partnership for good. In fact, it probably couldn't have been any other way —
one more record like this and Bloomfield would be taking Butterfield's band
away from him, despite not knowing how to sing or play harmonica. In a world
that was less and less interested in retro Chicago blues, I guess, the only way
you could still play retro Chicago
blues would be to alienate yourself from fellow players who were only too happy
to mix Chicago blues with Indian ragas. As it turned out, though, Bloomfield
wouldn't be able to get too far on his own — all his attempts to create bands
for himself (such as Electric Flag) failed, proving that he was far better off
as a masterful sideman than a clumsy leader. Fortunately, East-West still proudly stands as a small, but exciting testament
to one of the finest talent pools in America and simply one of the best
non-standard blues-rock albums of its era, so a thumbs up is inevitable.
I don't have to ask why anyone should listen to the East-West jam. It rules.
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