East West Revisited

I got a treat from my discophile friend up the street recently in the form a mint condition copy of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's 1966 breakthrough record "East West" on Electra, probably the fourth album I actually spent money on. I escaped from prep school with a friend from Boston just to see Butterfield live in Cambridge that same year, so I figure that the music was embedded on my impressionable teenage brain. Listening to the record again makes me angry; angry that Mike Bloomfield was found in a parked car dead from a heroin overdose in 1981; angry that Paul Butterfield passed away in 1987 from a combination of drugs and alcohol.

Butterfield's signature harmonica settles into a march- like cadence for the opening cut, an urban version of the classic "Walkin' Blues", underscored by the penetrating riffs of legendary lead guitarist Bloomfield, the broken, bluesy picking of Elvin Bishop, the dependable rock bottom
rt hymn from bassist Jerome Arnold and Billy Davenport on drums. Mark Nataflin's robust keyboard playing highlights "Get Out Of My Life Woman", his choppy but melodic runs evenly matched by Butterfield's shouted vocals and Bloomfield's backing riffs. "Got a Mind To Give Up Living" is riddled with spine-straightening guitar solos that Bloomfield seems to rip out of his Fender, Butterfield's lament of lost love equally matched by the razor-sharp chords. The harmonica forms the key to "All These Blues" , a showcase for the seamless "tonguing" technique Butterfield uses to isolate the notes like all great harpmasters, but he takes it one step further in the way he bends and broadens the sound. Sometimes it suggests a saxophone, sometimes an organ, always darting in between the other instruments. Side One finishes off with the jazz influenced "Work Song", contrasting Bishop's stinging riffs with Bloomfield's more fluid caressing of the strings, as well as Nataflin's extended organ solos.

"Mary, Mary" leads off Side Two, Butterfield's pleading vocal combined with his rhythmic harp to lead the blend of guitar and piano into another series of stinging Chicago blues riffs. Bloomfield's funky, energetic picking on "Two Trains Running" gives the song the bounce of rock and roll. Elvin Bishop's laconic vocal dominates "Never Say No", his resigned, world-weary tone exuding the sarcasm that shows up in later recordings like "Drunk Again" and "No More Lonely Nights".

Elvin has the first solo in the nearly 14 minute title jam that finishes out the record, his angry urban notes slowly bending and building into a mini-climax that sounds vaguely San Francisco-ish before Paul Butterfield's harp cuts in and takes over. The harmonica soars up and down the scales, this time linking up with Bishop to build the next minor crescendo.

At this point, in Cambridge, in front of my 16 year old eyes, Butterfield and Bishop left the stage, so all I could see below was the lanky, hunched over form of Bloomfield, his fingers racing up and down the guitar neck as Arnold and Davenport maintained the hypnotic beat. Bloomfield turns the instrument into a sitar, evoking the sound of the classic raga, the rt hymn talking back to the melody, simply reeling off endless cascades of Indian-influenced sound, climbing again to a third crescendo that then slips into a psychedelic interlude. When Butterfield and Bishop rejoin the tune, the song rises to a jazz-influenced finish that trails off in one last raga motif.

Unfortunately, Bloomfield left the band in a year after clashing with Butterfield, going on to fame with Al Kooper in "Super Session." Instead of the beginning of a series of finely-crafted workingman's blues records, "East West" was just a one time thing, a monumental collaboration that shows how pivotal the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was in pushing Chicago blues into the mainstream of rock and roll.