Paul Butterfield retrospective, part 3, with Tom Ellis

Tom Ellis joins me on episode 132 for another look into the life and career of the legendary Paul Butterfield. 

Butter gained access to the Chicago blues scene at a young age when his lawyer father carried out pro bono work for some of the musicians there. The black blues musicians took a paternal interest in Paul’s musical development, none more so than Muddy Waters who knew Butter from around the age of sixteen. Butter later returned the favour after having made his own name. He gave something back to Muddy by recording the Fathers and Sons album with him in 1969, followed by a second album with Muddy, The Woodstock album in 1975.

Tom then goes on to tell us about how Butter changed his sound during the middle part of his career with the release of the two Better Days albums in 1973, producing possibly the first Americana albums, and seeing Butter having developed into a more nuanced harmonica player.

Links:

Tom article on Substack platform: https://ellist.substack.com/p/down-by-the-river

Article on the Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree concert (Father and Sons): https://bobsblog73.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/super-cosmic-joy-scout-jamboree-april-1969/

Fathers and Sons album blog by David Hawkins: https://paulbutterfield.blogspot.com/2014/03/37-fathers-and-sons.html

Butter on the Woodstock album blog by David Hawkins: https://paulbutterfield.blogspot.com/2016/10/61-muddy-waters-woodstock-album.html

Videos:

Mannish Boy in Last Waltz concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGG-oBrmzbQ

Butter on Midnight Special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZhfIOuiPe4

Bonnie Raitt live with Butter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZOdeROUz2U

Playing Why Are People Like That on David Letterman show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDvdTabtRN0

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
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Chapters

• 2:01 Tom joins the podcast for a third episode on the life and career of Paul Butterfield
• 2:20 Tom has been continuing his relentless research into Butter
• 2:38 Been looking into the way Butter changed his sound from the Better Days period and then again on the Fathers and Sons album
• 3:50 Relationship with Muddy Waters after first hearing him in the Chicago Blues clubs
• 4:31 Butter’s ex-wife Kathryn told Tom that Butter’s family lived in a modest home in a racially diverse neighbourhood
• 5:04 Butter’s lawyer father did a lot of pro bono work for the black blues musicians, which gave the young Butter access to the black blues clubs
• 5:47 Butter may have started attending the Chicago blues clubs from age 16 and was looked after by the musicians because of the work his father did for them
• 6:41 The Chicago blues musicians, especially Muddy, really nurtured Butter and he would regularly sit in with them on stage
• 7:31 Visit to the Chicago Symphony where he heard one of the violins out of tune, highlighting his musical abilities at a young age
• 8:26 Tom wrote an article on his Substack site about seeing Butter playing flute in the 1960s
• 8:51 Would play classical music with his big band in Woodstock
• 9:42 Flute lessons added some musical knowledge, and his brother’s record collection exposed him to jazz
• 10:09 Met Nick Gravenites who also had links into the black blues community
• 11:02 Butter and Bloomfield helped promote the Chicago musicians which had been such an influence on them
• 11:18 Live Better Days album intro points to how Butter helped in spread the blues around the US
• 12:43 Once Butter had established his band he was able to give back some of the help Muddy had given him when younger
• 13:11 Fathers and Sons album with Muddy Waters was released in 1969
• 14:01 Mike Bloomfield initially raised the idea of the Fathers and Sons album with Marshall Chess
• 14:11 Lot of planning went into the Fathers and Sons album, including the songs to include and the musicians
• 14:42 Couldn’t rehearse the Fathers and Sons album quite as much as Butter would have liked
• 15:09 The studio part of the album has some of Muddy’s slightly lesser known songs
• 16:14 Fathers and Sons album was Muddy’s most commercially successful album, reaching number 70 in the Billboard charts
• 17:38 Butter was never going to join The Muddy Waters Band
• 18:13 Butter’s approach to the Muddy Waters songs on the Fathers and Sons album is modern and unlike anyone else
• 20:18 Second part of the Fathers and Sons double album, was a live recording from Chicago
• 22:42 The live recording was around the same time as the studio recordings
• 22:55 The audience at the live concert were probably more there for Butter and Bloomfield than for Muddy
• 23:52 The Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree festival was mainstream, not a blues festival
• 24:56 Fathers and Sons was produced by Mike Bloomfield’s close friend, Norman Dayron
• 25:42 Second album Butter recorded with Muddy was The Woodstock Album in 1975, produced by Henry Glover, who was a pivotal figure in American music
• 27:45 Muddy was well looked after in Woodstock and the album won the only Grammy Muddy was ever awarded: for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1976
• 28:35 The Woodstock Album was the last Muddy album recorded on Chess records
• 28:40 Muddy’s two most successful albums is when he was playing with Butter
• 29:02 Tried to recreate the ‘live in the studio’ sound on The Woodstock album, and did Butter use a Green Bullet mic on some of the recordings?
• 29:31 Butter did change his sound on the The Woodstock Album
• 30:47 Butter’s characteristic sound of a Shure 545 into a Fender Twin amp and the ability of him to shape his sound over that provided by a Green Bullet mic
• 30:56 Performed at The Last Waltz concert with Muddy on Mannish Boy
• 32:15 Muddy was comfortable with Butter on stage with him as he had known him since he was a teenager
• 32:35 Some of the (quite rare) video of Butter performing
• 34:36 Butter performed Why Do People Act Like That on the David Letterman show
• 35:53 Tom got to hold Butter’s mic
• 36:25 The first mic Butter played was a Shure PE54, not a 545
• 37:20 Played the 545 up until the end
• 38:32 Probably didn’t stay so close to Muddy in his later years
• 39:51 Better Days band was real first Americana band and the band members which made it up
• 43:03 The second Better Days album: It All Comes Back
• 44:25 Harmonica playing on the two Better Days albums isn’t so forceful as earlier output, but more subtle and brought the harmonica to a mainstream audience
• 45:37 Didn’t want to call the band Paul Butterfield’s Better Days as a testament to the great musicians in the band, but the record label insisted
• 47:08 The environment at Woodstock was critical to the sound of the Better Days band
• 47:33 Importance of Bobby Charles to Better Days: writing lots of the songs
• 48:24 The Better Days band decline, partly down to tiring of touring
• 49:44 Butter released three solo albums after Better Days disbanded, were a downward spiral
• 50:54 Last album of Butter: The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again
• 51:33 The two Better Days albums, and The Woodstock albums were his last great albums
• 52:31 Still played and toured until the end
• 52:44 Tom continues to study Butter and has recently written some articles on him (and others) on his Substack platform
• 53:30 Tom might just write a book about Butter, and the source material he already has

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Tom Ellis joins me on episode 132 for another look into the life and career of the legendary Paul Butterfield. Butter gained access to the Chicago blues scene at a young age when his lawyer father carried out pro bono work for some of the musicians there. The black blues musicians took a paternal interest in Paul's musical development, none more so than Muddy Waters, who knew Butter from around the age of 16. Butter later returned the favour, after having made his own name. He gave something back to Muddy by recording the Fathers and Sons album with him in 1969, followed by his second album with Muddy, the Woodstock album, in 1975. Tom then goes on to tell us about how Butter changed his sound during the middle part of his career with the release of the two Better Days albums in 1973. producing possibly the first Americana albums and seeing Butter having developed into a more nuanced harmonica player. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

UNKNOWN: 1:12

Seidel Harmonicas¶¶

SPEAKER_01: 1:55

Hello, Tom Ellis, and welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 1:58

Hello, Neil, and it's great to be back. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:01

So you're here to talk to us again about the great Paul Butterfield. So we've done two previous episodes on Paul Butterfield. One was episode 62 back in May 2022, and then episode 90 in July 2023. So we're overdue the third episode on Butter.

SPEAKER_02: 2:17

It looks that way. We missed a year in there.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

But in the meantime, you've been continuing your research into the great man. So you've got more to tell us all about him, yeah?

SPEAKER_02: 2:28

Yeah, and I think, you know, I said to someone the other day, I still am surprised that, you know, for the last 35 years of my life, Paul Butterfield's been intertwined in so many different ways. But one of the things that, you know, that I've kind of taken a long look at the last year in particular has been the way he changed up his sound, I think, as the recording move through chronologically you know when you get to the better days point there's a real change in his sound and there's also a distinctively different sound to the way he approached the music on the fathers and

SPEAKER_05: 3:19

sons

SPEAKER_02: 3:38

so it seemed like this mid to late career Butterfield seemed like a good topic to talk to you about

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

yeah no definitely evolved his sound got a lot more sophisticated we talk about that and then certainly on the last episode we did so you mentioned fathers and sons with the album he did with Muddy Waters so we're going to start talking about his relationship with Muddy Waters so I think that that goes back to his to his sort of early days and you know when he I understand he first heard Muddy Waters at 18 years old you know so he was influenced by him way back then,

SPEAKER_02: 4:10

yeah. Yeah, and that whole... Butterfield upbringing, I think, has been mythologized a little bit. I've read people who have made mention of the fact that his father was a lawyer and the family was fairly well off and his mother had a really significant teaching job there at the University of Chicago, which was true. But I had a long conversation with Paul's ex-wife, Catherine, a couple weeks ago and asked her specifically about that. She said, you know, she said, that's just not true. She said they lived, the Butterfield family, Paul, his brother, and the parents lived in a very modest apartment on the south side of Chicago in a very racially diverse neighborhood. He was in fact a lawyer, but he was not a corporate lawyer. He was the kind of lawyer who ended up working at a title company here in the United States in his later years. But one of the things that he did do that was of great interest to me was he provided a a lot of pro bono work for many of the blues musicians that were down on the south side.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Oh, wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:17

As a result of that, there was an incredible pathway cleared for Paul to go into these clubs and to become familiar with so many of the musical icons we know about in blues today because he was known as Jesse's son down there, and he would walk into a club, And he would be treated with a high level of respect because his father had done so many things pro bono for so many different people on the South Side. It's funny, what you said is right. He did start going to blues clubs certainly by 18, but he might have been going to clubs earlier than that. He might have been going to these clubs when he was 16 because he would walk in, as Catherine told me, he would walk into these clubs and he would immediately be kind of looked after from a kind of a fatherly perspective by the musicians in the club because they knew his dad. And this made life very different for him as compared to, say, Charlie Musselwhite, who had no ties to the community when he went up to Chicago and kind of had to build his own bridge to many of the musicians that he became very familiar with.

SPEAKER_01: 6:29

Yeah, I didn't know that about his father, that he helped out some of the musicians with that. So, yeah, really, he dug into that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02: 6:37

Well, yeah, and one of the things that Catherine said that, I mean, it makes perfect sense when you think about it now, she said, you know, these musicians, Muddy in particular, really nurtured Paul, and they nurtured him by making him become a part of the scene, which was at that time highly competitive, you know, for gigs, for musicians in your band, for airtime on the local radio, for attention from Chess Records. I mean, Muddy dragged Paul into it, and as Catherine said, he would be called up on stage, and it was almost a, well, let's see what you got now. Are you fully prepared to handle the situation we're going to throw you into? So he was tested, I think, in a very paternal type of way, but tested very, very much early on when he started to go to the Southside Club. So

SPEAKER_01: 7:32

as we know, he played flute and he sort of had some level of classical training, maybe not a lot. So was he doing this at the same time? He certainly did this before he got into blues, did

SPEAKER_02: 7:42

he? That was an interesting story that Catherine told me too, that this was a brand new one on me. Apparently his parents, like all parents, trying to expose him to the arts and he was taken to the Chicago Symphony to hear them play and said to his father during the performance, I think that one of the violin players is out of tune. And it was the second chair violinist in the symphony who was in fact out of tune. And here was the teenager picking this up just with his ear. So he was gifted with some musical abilities that were very unusual for most blues musicians who you think of as coming up kind of on their own and learning on their own or just learning from other people. Yes, he was taking flute and playing flute. And in fact, I wrote a little piece on Substack a couple of months ago about my experience seeing Paul with his flute and Gene Dinwiddie with his mandolin playing in pickup situations at the Miami Pop Festival back in the 1960s. We found out about him because we heard somebody playing flute, and that was such an unusual thing to hear at a rock and roll festival. So yeah, he was a serious musician, and of course there are the famous stories of when he had the big band together and they were in Woodstock, they would get together, the horn section would get together, and they would play classical music off charts. So just a different level of musicality that you just don't think of when you think of his most pop musicians of any genre of pop, actually.

SPEAKER_01: 9:34

So he had flute lessons when he was younger and then he got into the blues. Tell us more about how he got into the blues scene.

SPEAKER_02: 9:42

I think there's another piece to that and that was he took flute lessons and that exposed him to music and the different levels of sophistication of music. But I also think you've got to throw in the impact his brother had on him because his brother was listening to a lot of jazz and certainly training as a musician and being able to learn how to read music and understand theory, that helps open the jazz door considerably too. So he was listening to jazz at home and then he met Nick Gravonitis And they started hanging around together. I think Elvin joined that duo not long after Gravenitis and Butterfield hooked up. And Gravenitis was, he was, yeah, he was a person who went down there and respected these people. So he was taking Paul in to these clubs as well. And Gravenitis knew most of these musicians himself. So it was a very similar situation to the one he was able to take advantage of because of his father's relationship with the Southside musical community.

SPEAKER_01: 10:39

And so we talk about, obviously he was taken on the wings of the Southside Clubs and the musicians. And his relationship with Muddy Waters became very important. So he did the album Fathers and Sons. That was in 1969. So obviously some way into his career there. So before then, what was his relationship with Muddy Waters like? Was he in regular contact with him?

SPEAKER_02: 11:02

Well, I think you can never undervalue the impact of that Butterfield and Bloomfield had in proselytizing and singing the praises of all the blues musicians, but specifically the ones on the south side. You know, if you've ever listened to the live Better Days album, which is a spectacular listen.

SPEAKER_03: 11:37

Bill

SPEAKER_02: 11:44

Graham introduces the band at the outset of the CD and he says something to the effect I don't think many of us would be here today if it wasn't for Paul and what he was saying in effect was Paul was the one who pulled so many musicians out of Chicago and a variety of places and got them involved in places like the Fillmore and all the different ballrooms and was very important in taking those people beyond the city limits of Chicago or St. Louis or wherever they happened to live and getting them out into the public, which of course was good for people like Bill Graham, who was a promoter. Bloomfield, in particular, introduced Graham to B.B. King and people at that level, and Butterfield, Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, those guys, and those people would have never, ever gotten outside of Chicago without Butterfield or Bloomfield pushing hard with the promoters to bring them to the West Coast. Let me back up. So to your question, I don't know if I answered your question, but there was a different relationship between Paul and Muddy once Paul had his bands together and he was an adult he was now being able to help Muddy and give back to Muddy some of the things that Muddy had given to him when he was younger

SPEAKER_01: 12:56

yeah so like I say he got him up on stage when he when he was younger and he played with him several times he used to sit in with him yeah so so he released the Paul Butterfield blues band album in in 65 and that was his sort of big break he did do the uh the Electra sessions before then. But then, so Fathers and Sons was only four years after that in 1969. So a lot happened in between though, yeah, between those albums in Butter's career, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:22

Yeah, yeah, a lot. I mean, you know, the band was so well received everywhere, depending on what, all iterations of the band were well received. Certainly by the time Fathers and Sons came around, the big band approach that Butterfield had with the horn sections, that was present and was continuously evolving with different players and set lists, etc. So I think Bloomfield and Butterfield wanted to give back. to those guys, to the fathers, and wanted to do it in a particular way. And I think it was actually Bloomfield that raised the issue originally with martial chess to kind of get the ball rolling. And from what Catherine Butterfield told me when we talked, there was a tremendous amount of planning that went on for Fathers and Sons. It was not one of those deals where everybody kind of showed up at the studio and there were some standards and we played some standards and we walked away. There was a lot of conversation about the set list and what the set list would be made of. There was conversation about who some of the key players would be, specifically Duck Dunn. I think having him as the bass player was very different. I remember when I picked the album up, I thought, Wow, Booker T, I wouldn't have put those two together, but it worked perfectly. Probably the only thing that didn't happen in terms of really setting the stage for the recording that it would become was they weren't able to rehearse as much as Butterfield probably would have wanted. He was a notorious rehearser. He was rehearsing all the time, whether the band was out on the road or whether they were home. There were rehearsals every day. He was always working on the sound of the band. He was always working, of course, on his own particular sound on the harmonica as well. But the tunes that they picked, if you look at the Fathers and Sons set list, it's kind of like Muddy's Top 40 stuff is done on the live recordings. But the recordings on the studio CD, it's a double CD I think now, on the studio CD, they are hits that Muddy had, but they were minor hits. I think probably the most recent of all of them dated back like into the 1950s, mid-1950s. So these weren't necessarily songs that, you know, that the average Paul Butterfield fan would have heard if he, you know, occasionally drifted off into some blues recordings and listened to Muddy or listened to Howlin' Wolf or anybody else. These were kind of unusual tunes, most of which, you know, featured some key players in Muddy's history, Little Walter Ramone.

SPEAKER_05: 15:58

I don't love you Muddy Waters, don't make You said for me to lie But oh yeah Someday I'm gonna catch you soon

SPEAKER_01: 16:14

So you mentioned there that Mike Bloomfield approached the Marshall Chess about making this album and I know Butterfield was involved in that as well so did they have a sense of wanting to you know sort of help Muddy out because he's you know his sort of most popular days were behind him it was 1969 the blues wasn't so popular anymore but and then this album turned into Muddy's sort of biggest mainstream success it got into the billboard charts and you know it you know put him back on the map yeah

SPEAKER_02: 16:41

Yeah, you said it. I mean, I think that it was a complete renaissance for Muddy in his career, certainly reaching an audience he would have never, ever reached had not Butterfield and Bloomfield been involved. So it definitely was an opportunity for them to give back to the fathers. And you kind of see it on the cover art. It's a takeoff on the Michelangelo piece that I think is in the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling. There's a reverence that's implied by that cover art that is part of the relationship between the young guys and the older blues musicians.

SPEAKER_05: 17:33

So,

SPEAKER_01: 17:39

I mean, Butter never was going to be Muddy Waters' harmonica player, right? And that wasn't the intention here. They did this as a one-off album with a different band, as you mentioned, Duck Dunn there. So, you know, it was only ever a one-off. Butterfield was never going to be his harmonica player at any point of the Muddy Waters band.

SPEAKER_02: 17:58

No, I don't think that was ever in the cards. You know, I'm sure there were probably in instances where they would be in the same place and they would end up sitting in with one another or playing together or acknowledging one another or whatever. But no, I think what really stands out to me about Fathers and Sons, well, there are a lot of things that stand out, but one of the things that really stands out is the way Butterfield approached the songs as a harmonica

SPEAKER_05: 18:28

player. Breaking it hard, I don't know when I'm not rich, I'm hard-working

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

There is just nothing I've ever heard in the Muddy discography that sets the stage for the way he approached the harmonica parts on those songs. There's just no precedent to it. You can't listen to Little Walter or anybody that played with Muddy at any time and hear that kind of approach, that kind of fresh, modernistic approach to Muddy's tunes. Now, most people would go in and try and play the thing pretty much rote, recreating what Muddy created originally, and that was never the intent from the Fathers and Sons deal. Those songs that they do, if you go back and listen to the Muddy originals, they're very, very different and there's a very different feel to them. And Butterfield's playing is just, I'm a prejudiced guy, I love Paul Butterfield, he's been a huge influence on my playing style, but I've never heard anybody play those Muddy tunes with that level of inventiveness and ferocity and musicality all kind of combined at one time. It's just a really interesting approach, and I don't think anybody's ever touched it. I don't think there's been anything like it with any covers of anybody's songs. They've come anywhere close to what Butterfield played down as a harp player in that session.

SPEAKER_01: 20:18

You mentioned earlier on that it's kind of a double album. So we have the studio recording for the first half and then there's a live concert, which was from April 24th, 1969, from the Super Cosmic Joy Scout Jamboree, which is a venue in Chicago. So what was the intention always that they were going to do a live concert and release it as a double album?

SPEAKER_02: 20:39

I think that that was almost coincidental. That particular Cosmic Joy Festival, I think that's what it was called, was a freebie. And originally, I think, Quicksilver Messenger Service, there was one other band on there. And then late in the game, the promoters announced that it would be a free performance with Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, and Mike Bloomfield. And then I've heard stories in the past that there was some talk about trying to create a Muddy Waters Day in Chicago around that concert date as well. But I think the opportunity to play live, by coincidence, just came about and everybody was in town. And so they kind of took everything they'd done on the studio or the work they put in on the songs on the studio and they just took it to the stage. It's unfortunate that there aren't more of those recordings bootlegged or someone didn't bootleg those recordings, live recordings from the audience because again there's just some spectacular approaches on some of those songs Otis Bond is just in another world and you know the solo Butterfield plays on the same thing is just incredible incredibly emotional and direct

SPEAKER_05: 21:53

the whole world fighting about that that same thing but

SPEAKER_02: 22:17

yeah but that must have been a real surprise and there's there's a story i found on the web years ago by a guy who was i think he was 12 or 13 when he actually went to that show specifically because bloomfield and butterfield were there and it's just a you know a short one-page kind of recap on what he saw and how impressed he was but but it was it was a happenstance event it wasn't planned out that way

SPEAKER_01: 22:42

so how long was the live concert after the studio recording

SPEAKER_02: 22:46

it was right around the same time

SPEAKER_01: 22:49

So it was all fresh from the recording in the studio, yeah?

SPEAKER_02: 22:52

Yeah, very, very fresh. Very fresh.

SPEAKER_01: 22:55

And you mentioned the audience reaction there. So did most people turn up to see Paul Butterfield when he wasn't so well-known, particularly by 1969? Was it mainly for Butterfield and Bloomfield audience members, you think?

SPEAKER_02: 23:10

I think that they were the drawing card. I mean, no doubt about that. Everybody knew who Paul Butterfield was in Chicago and certainly knew who Mike Bloomfield was. I think they were there at that live show supporting Muddy. There's been stories that there were some electric flag songs that were done. There were a couple of other songs that were done on the set list. Buddy Miles was there, and he sang Texas, which is off the first electric flag album, as well as what he did on the blues tunes that he sang on. But basically, it was all about Butterfield and Bloomfield. I'm sure most people had never heard Muddy Waters live, so this was an ear-opening experience for them, too.

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

So this wasn't a blues festival, was it not? It was... mainstream was it?

SPEAKER_02: 23:58

Yeah it was definitely more mainstream. I'm looking at some of the songs that were also on the set list. They played, they didn't make the recording, Good Morning Little School Girl, Little Milton's Losing Hand, Funky Broadway, you can be sure Buddy Miles sang that. It was not a two-hour performance, it was probably a get-on-and-get-off as part of that three-band offering that the promoter made. I can't remember who the second band was. It was Quicksilver, I just don't remember who it was.

SPEAKER_01: 24:27

Great stuff, and a fantastic album, definitely recommend people to listen to it. Like I say, lots of energy and and the live concerts as well, such a big sounds. at Muddy Waters was very pleased with it

SPEAKER_02: 24:56

yeah and one other thing I might add too is that Norman Dayron who was the producer of that album he was a fairly well known blues music producer in Chicago and had been a very close friend of Michael Bloomfield since I think they were kids together so Dayron being involved you know really put an additional stamp of approval on it from Butterfield and Bloomfield they knew they had someone who was a really top line producer to do it and apparently talked you know Marshall Chess into letting him do the production on the thing and I think the quality of the recordings is in large part due to Dayron and his magic he could pull off in the studio because they are everything's extremely well recorded even the live stuff is really well recorded too.

SPEAKER_01: 25:42

And so then moving on with the Muddy Waters connection they did two albums together Butterfield and Muddy so the next one was in 1975 it was released the Woodstock album so we talked um we talked some last uh in the previous episodes about the woodstock and the sort of more folk side of uh you know the scene there and butterfield so yeah so how did this album come together with money waters

SPEAKER_02: 26:07

well i think again it was probably some of that give back attitude it was certainly was a full a full-on creation by butterfield and which was basically added to in a very significant way by the by the uh the idea of having henry glover produce the set We could spend a couple of podcasts on Henry Glover and how important he was to American music, which is definitely worth looking into if you're into the history of music. I mean, he wrote for everybody from James Brown to the Delmore Brothers. It's a country band who did stuff for Ray Charles. I mean, he wrote a lot of songs that are kind of American songbook almost like. There's such standards. Fever by Little Willie John. That was something that he wrote and produced. Ran King Records. But he was highly respected as a producer. And he was living in Woodstock. He was a very close friend of Levon Helms and was living in Woodstock. And at the time, Albert Grossman, who was the manager for the band in Butterfield and Bloomfield and Janis Joplin and a whole host of other people. He had built a studio in Woodstock and it was called the RCO Studios. I don't know what the acronym stood for. And Henry Glover was one of the house producers, if you can believe that. So I'm sure that Butterfield, that was part of the enticement, come up to Woodstock, you'll be in an environment where everybody loves you. We will have Muddy Waters Day. All the musicians there are fantastic musicians. The studio is fantastic. A producer is fantastic. And you're probably not doing anything in Chicago right now. Muddy was not doing anything in Chicago. So... As Levon said to me one time when I interviewed him years ago, he said, Muddy's idea of a good time and a productive day was probably not coming to rural New York State and playing with a bunch of white guys. Which I thought was kind of funny and kind of on point. Butterfield made Muddy feel like this was going to be a successful deal and you're going to be very well taken care of. And of course he was. The album won a Grammy. I mean, it was the only Grammy Muddy ever earned. So, yeah, it all worked out the way it was probably planned out.

SPEAKER_01: 28:35

And this was the last Muddy album on Chess Record, yeah?

SPEAKER_02: 28:39

It was, that's correct. It's kind of ironic that Muddy's two most successful albums, both from a standpoint of sales and probably a standpoint of critical reception, and then awards, were all when he was playing with Paul. Those two different dates, the Fathers and Sons and the Woodstock album.

SPEAKER_01: 29:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 29:20

I doubt it. I mean, maybe on a cut or two. I haven't had the most experience with microphones as some other people, but I know a lot about microphones, and I don't hear that. What I do hear is I hear Butterfield changing his sound somewhat. His sound is, he's almost creating a a different sound on the instrument i know it's hard to talk about esoteric stuff like this but his sound is a is a lot more focused to me he's much more conservative in the way he positions the harmonica in the songs No, maybe he did. I mean, that would go against the grain from everything I've ever heard about him or when I've heard him or when I've seen pictures of him playing. But, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 30:24

Yeah, it might be one of those myths that come

SPEAKER_02: 30:27

up. There's a particular aspect of that, you know, that sure 545s into a twin. That is a particular sound that is really his sound. And a green bullet into a twin probably would be difficult to match up to begin with. But secondly, a green bullet would be... They have a unique sound that kind of becomes the sound. I think it's one of the reasons Butterfield liked the 545s was he could shape sound a little bit more with the mic than he could with a standard bullet.

SPEAKER_01: 30:56

So another thing he did with Muddy is he played with him in the Last Waltz concert, the famous concert, which was in 1976. So this is a year after the Woodstock album was released. So he was obviously still... Well, it

SPEAKER_02: 31:17

was probably not a hard sell with Muddy. I mean, you have to remember that the last waltz was about the band, and it was their last performance, and all of the guys in the band, I mean, that core of original bluesmen, they were all considered iconic idols, etc., all the superlatives you could think of. throw at them by all of those guys specifically you know Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson and there's the great story about Robbie Robertson and the whole band running into Sonny Boy Williamson in Mississippi I mean they were big time blues devotees and I'm sure when Butterfield said let's get Muddy in the middle of this that was not going to be difficult and Muddy would be comfortable too because again Levon you know he'd already done a recording with Levon Helm and Levon Helm's musicians that he played with in Woodstock. So again, it was a situation where Muddy would be comfortable and be on stage. I just know that Muddy had to be much more comfortable when Butterfield was on stage with him than when he wasn't on stage with him. I mean, he knew Butterfield, you know, he'd known him since he was a teenager. He'd watched him grow up and he'd been part of that whole evolution of his career as a blues musician or as a musician in general.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

On this call I think Manish Boy is the one song that Muddy Waters does during the concert, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:42

It's the one that's on the recording. I think that recording, again, I'm not sure if it's 100% complete. I think it probably is 100% complete. I don't think there were any outtakes or anything else. Yeah, that is the cut

SPEAKER_05: 32:55

with Muddy. So, of

SPEAKER_01: 33:12

course, this is available on video, so you can see Butter playing with Muddy. So I think, I'm not sure there's a lot of other video available of them playing together. I couldn't find much.

SPEAKER_02: 33:22

You know what? It's astounding, isn't it? Today with video of everything, it's so hard to find anything that goes back that far. I was listening to the audio of a performance or a regroup performance of the Butterfield Blues Band that was done out in San Francisco. There's no pictures. There's no audio. There's no video. It's just audio, which of course is wonderful to have. It is surprising there's very little video of of Butterfield in general. There's a bunch of stuff that appeared, Midnight Special, when he was playing with Better Days. And some with Bonnie Raitt, too, when she was on a PBS series called Soundstage here in the States. But very, very minimal amount of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 34:23

It's such an imbalance, isn't it? Like you say, there was hardly any video of that, and now we're completely awash with videos of absolutely everybody with their phones, so it's like it's a complete opposite size, isn't it? It's a real shame.

SPEAKER_02: 34:34

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01: 34:36

But one thing, so one of the songs on the Woodstock album is Why Do People Act Like That, which is a song I really love. I used to perform it in a band that was in. But Buster obviously showed his love for this song. He performed it live on the David Lettman TV show, so that is a video. He's not with Muddy, but he's playing Butters playing that on that TV show, yeah, a song from that album.

SPEAKER_04: 34:58

He

SPEAKER_02: 35:13

was on Letterman a couple of different times, and I don't think all of his Letterman performances are out. I can remember back then, you know, finding out Butterfield was on Staying Up to watch that, you know, be up late. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that song is a Bobby Charles song. And, you know, Bobby Charles is another one of those people that had a huge influence on Butterfield's music while he was still living in Woodstock.

SPEAKER_01: 35:38

So that version playing on the Letterman show is on YouTube. I'll put a link on the podcast page. So I can definitely confirm that he is playing a Shura 545 on that song. So maybe it suggests that he did use that on that song on on the uh money waters album too

SPEAKER_02: 35:53

well years ago years ago when i was you know deep into the writing on paul i spent an afternoon with his ex-wife catherine who i've mentioned earlier at her place in southern california and got to hold his kit and opened up his kit and there was the 545 and it was kind of like having the Holy Grail in your hands. But yeah, that was definitely his mic of choice really from the time he left Chicago, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 36:20

So did he use the same one or did he have a few different versions over the years?

SPEAKER_02: 36:25

Well, a little microphone history. The first microphone that looked like the 545, the famous pistol grip with the on-off switch, wasn't to 545. It was a PE, which stood for Professional Entertainer, a PE54. And when Shure introduced the PE54, they let their reps basically outfit some bands. So the Butterfield band got an entire set of PE54s. This is back in the Bugsy Maw big band era, when Elwood was still with the group. As did bands like Chicago. I'm trying to think, there were a couple of them that got these Ides March and sure just kind of sponsored these bands. So Butterfield's band got it, but the PE-54 preceded the 545. and has a little bit thicker, deeper sound, and that certainly is what he was playing, you know, right up until his death. I have a video of him, a performance he did in Los Angeles about three or four weeks before he passed away with Ronnie Baron and Leo, I can't remember, one of the meters. He had two of the meters in the band, and he's playing a 545 there, but he's not playing through a twin or a super. He's playing through a different amplifier, more of a solid state amplifier.

SPEAKER_04: 37:44

What?

SPEAKER_00: 37:58

Hey, what's happening, y'all? Jason Ritchie from Blue Moon Harmonicas, and I'm here to tell you that Blue Moon Harmonicas are the way. You can customize them yourself, or you can get Tom to do them. The website is a rabbit hole. We're talking about custom combs, custom cover plates, throwbacks, refurbished pre-wars, double reed plates, anything you can imagine, aluminum, ABS, plastic, phenolic resin, wood, any kind of comb you want, anything. Muddy

SPEAKER_01: 38:31

Waters died in 1983. The last Waltz performance was in 76. So did he know him until his death? Were they in touch during that time?

SPEAKER_02: 38:43

You know, the early 80s was a really hard time on blues musicians, I think. Blues was kind of dead. There weren't many great blues stars at that point in time. Certainly that entire genre of players that had come up with Butterfield. These guys are now in their late 40s, early 50s. Rock and roll is a young man's game. I'm sure they were in touch, but I doubt if they had a phone conversation every week or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01: 39:12

But yeah, it sounds like Butter did a lot to help Muddy in that later part of his career. Yeah, I think so. So you mentioned earlier on about that mid to late part, well, the sort of mid to later part of Butter's career when he really changed his sound. So let's get into that a bit and the Better Days Band and dig some more into that time period. So what sort of year are we talking about when he formed the Better Days Band?

SPEAKER_02: 39:41

I think that was in 73, if I'm not mistaken. 1973 was the first Better Days. The two albums came out relatively quickly. The Better Days thing to me is interesting because I really think in some ways the Better Days band was the first really vivid example of what has come to be known as Americana. I mean, you had a mix of players from very different styles of music. I mean, you had Jeff Mulder who was known as a folk blues guy and very much a historian of folk blues who coincidentally, and this is an astounding coincidence to me, was at Newport living listening to the Paul Butterfield Blues Band when they made their historic performance at an afternoon workshop there. And then later that night, some of the musicians played with Dylan. So Jeff was very aware of Butterfield before he actually played with him. But you had him, and then you had Ronnie Barron, who was, along with Dr. John, was really part of that whole New Orleans scene. Billy Rich, who went on to play with Taj Mahal as his bass player for a long period of time. Christopher Parker, who was a young kid, I think he was still a teenager, was a super great drummer, and then would leave that band and play with the Saturday Night Live band for, gosh, I think eight or nine years. Incredible, talented, you know, Amos Garrett, who left when Butterfield up better days you know he went on to become the musical director for maria moldar you had these again incredibly talented musicians playing music from standard blues to more modern blues to new orleans kind of stuff uh to folk stuff i mean more of a folk blues approach they really cover so many bases of american music I think they were the first Americana. I really do. I can't think of anything I've listened to ever during that time period that approaches the kind of comprehensive look at different styles of American music and puts it all in one or two albums the way Better Days did.

SPEAKER_01: 41:59

Yeah, and I'm very familiar with Butter's music, but I was listening to that first Better Days album in preparation for this, and what a fantastic album it is. And like you say, the music sounds so mature, and it is definitely blues-based, but it across his genres. It really is a really superb album, I think, in any genre, isn't

SPEAKER_02: 42:19

it? Yeah. And, you know, I think the first album, I remember when I got it, I listened to it, you know, at first I was a little disappointed because it wasn't like a really aggressive harmonica album. But then the more I listened to it, you know, the subtleness of the harmonica playing and the beauty of it and his acoustic technique, it's you know, that's evident on songs like Small Town Talk. I mean... It's just another side of Butterfield I've never heard before. And then if you listen to the second Better Days album, which I had originally thought of as being a really good album but not as great as the first because it didn't sound to be like the musicians had lived in the songs long enough to really get comfortable with them and really flesh the songs out. But I've listened to that an awful lot over the last six months and it's a spectacular album too. There's just a lot of music going on there that's not what you would expect from from someone who had a band called the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. It's a very, very different

SPEAKER_04: 43:38

world.

SPEAKER_02: 43:52

And I got to hear them. I heard that thing. I heard both of the bands, the big band, and then I heard Better Days when I lived in Houston. It was a really interesting experience because the volume levels were constantly modulating based on the songs. The songs like Small Town Talk, they really were trying to make that very sweet, acoustic-sounding song. They weren't trying to ramp it up, amplify it up, or do anything like that. So, yeah, both great albums. Very underappreciated.

SPEAKER_01: 44:25

Yeah, no, superb albums. And as you say, it's not so kind of brash, in-your-face harmonica playing, but it's much more subtle but beautiful. So as he plays harmonica, I think on pretty much every song, maybe not quite every song, but it's in there in every song.¶¶

SPEAKER_03: 44:51

you

SPEAKER_01: 44:54

know maybe shows in the way that you know he got he was more mainstream he brought the harmonics to a more mainstream audience because of this approach and he was you know he was much more subtly in there and but you know beautiful playing but not quite as you know full-on blues harmonica

SPEAKER_02: 45:07

yeah man he did expand things and he he i don't want to say he challenged his listeners but he certainly put something out there that was not going to be exactly what they expected but it was very much in keeping with what was going on in woodstock and the voice variety of musicians that were living there, that were playing together, jamming together, you know, on a regular basis from jazz to blues to folk to rock to, you know, you name it. It really is a collection, a great collection of different styles of American music.

SPEAKER_01: 45:37

I hear that he wanted to call the band Better Days, but the record company insisted that it was Paul Butterfield's Better Days, obviously because of the name to help sell the record.

SPEAKER_02: 45:48

Yeah, and you know, I think Butterfield, he played with so many great musicians, you know, and there was a great interview, short interview at Downbeat in the 60s where, you know, he said something to the effect that, you know, I've got all these great musicians and I want to hear them play. I want my audience to hear them play. I want to hear them play. I mean, he was obviously highly stimulated by those guys and some of his greatest playing came out of playing with these high level of musicians. You know, Catherine said to me, she said, you know, one of the things you have to remember about Better Days was Paul had learned from Muddy that it had to be real. You didn't get up there and copy somebody. It had to be real. It had to be deep and from the heart. And I think Better Days is so evident of that. The music is just so real and so from the heart. There was a... I don't know if this was in liner notes or if it was a conversation I had with Jeff Mulder, but the story is that the band wanted him to play more. And He wanted to play less. He wanted them to

SPEAKER_05: 46:53

play.

SPEAKER_02: 47:08

I think one of the things to remember about Better Days is the environment that produced it. You had a lot of musicians, very famous musicians, all living in one place, all intermingling with one another musically. And you had people who were great writers, like Bobby Charles, who were living there, who were brought there specifically by Albert Grossman, for example, because he felt like this was an environment that would help nurture Bobby Charles and his work. Bobby Charles was a great songwriter, but very important to the Better Days. Woodstock was an amalgamation of a lot of different musical styles all in one area. It probably would never happen again in our lives. And you hear that in the way those songs were approached and the kind of the reverence that each of the songs is given. You know, like you had said earlier, there's not that real aggressive harmonica style. And it's nice because all the songs, everything seems to work for the benefit of the song. Nothing is working for the benefit of the solos or the instrumentals or anything else. It's all about the song and getting the song over. And there's some beautiful songs on both the first and the second album.

SPEAKER_01: 48:24

And so I think he released the second Better Days album, which was called It All Comes Back, I think in 1973. So after this period, what happened then with his career?

SPEAKER_02: 48:36

Well, you know, I think what happened with the Better Days band was they got tired touring. You know, these are guys who put this band together and they all lived in one place and they all hung out together. And now all of a sudden they're out on the road. They're not home. They're not sleeping in their own bed. The music is drying up at that point in time. You know, the Blues was not popular. Butterfield's name didn't turn heads the way it had 10 years earlier among listeners. I don't think Better Days was able to generate a lot of airplay because that kind of music just wasn't on the radio yet. Today, if it came out today, it'd be all over the radio. I think it was probably some weariness. I know when I saw the band in Houston, they did not have Jeff Mulder. He had left the band. And they had someone in his place, but the person in his place was playing keyboards and Ronnie Baron was still there. Amos was still there, but the bass player was different. I don't remember if it was Rod Hicks, who is on one of the, I think he's on one of the Midnight Special clips on YouTube. I think it was Rod Hicks that played bass. So the band was already starting to, you know, to break apart a little bit because people were tired of touring so much.

SPEAKER_01: 49:44

And so after this, I think Butzer just released three solo albums under his own name.

SPEAKER_02: 49:48

Yeah, yeah. You know, kind of a downhill spiral. I mean, they put it in your ear. Again, that was one of those situations where the idea was, let's get Butterfield with somebody really good to produce it. Again, Henry Glover. And let's let Henry Glover work on the arrangements and work on some of the songs. And there's some great stuff on that album, but it doesn't sound like a Butterfield album. There's not a lot of harmonica on it, which is kind of hard to believe. You know, Chuck Rainey, who is a bass player, very famous jazz bass player here, played on all the great hits by Steely Dan and lots of other bands. He lives here in Dallas, and he told me at a gig one time that those sessions at Butterfield was all about it. I mean, he was a serious pro, and he was very demanding about the way people played. Again, it had to be real. It had to be the real thing. But it wasn't blues. It was something different. There was a lot of big band arranging on it. I don't quite know what they were trying to get, but whatever they were trying to get, it didn't feature Butterfield enough, I think, to give those albums any level of success. Of course, you know the story of the great last album he did, the Paul Butterfield Rides Again album with him in the convertible on the front. That was a deal that was financed by a bunch of guys who loved Butterfield, who were all wealthy financier lawyer types in New York, and they decided What happened to Paul Butterfield? Let's get him out. Let's get him back recorded again. It's just Butterfield's heart's not in it. You can tell his heart's not in it. It's a session gig. He kind of shows up and sings. There was no band to tour. just didn't come off it was a sad sad way for his recording career to end

SPEAKER_01: 51:32

so the better days the two better days albums were probably you know his last great albums yeah and we've also we already talked about his Woodstock album with Muddy in 1975 so yeah you know capturing these last great performances and recordings

SPEAKER_02: 51:46

yeah I think you're right I have friends who saw him when he was on tour with Rick Danko which he those guys went out and toured a lot Blondie Chaplin was a guitar player on that on all those gigs, great guitar player and singer. I'd actually been to the Beach Boys, believe it or not. And there's some stellar playing that you can find if you hunt all over YouTube and the internet of some of those gigs. But you can tell they're playing in small places, small audiences. His name didn't draw like it had. And it was a generational difference. I mean, it was 20 years later all of a sudden. And, you know, the people that were listening to him in the 60s were not the same audience that he was out there in the 80s. So a very different musical environment. But he still played, you know, and toured right up almost until the very end.

SPEAKER_01: 52:34

Yeah, and his legacy is still immense as well. The amount of people I've certainly interviewed on here who point to Paul Butterfield as their big influence of starting playing in that sort of second generation. So you continue to write about Paul Butterfield. You touched on it earlier on your Substack blog post. So you've written a series of articles recently on Paul Butterfield.

SPEAKER_02: 52:56

Well, not so many on Paul. His presence is there. There was one about the Miami Pop Festival and running into him at that thing. I've got a lot more to come. But yeah, Substax is a wonderful deal. And really, it's a lot of experiences that I've had being around music and being involved with music for as many years as I have. So it's been a real labor of love for me. I'm really having a good time with it.

SPEAKER_01: 53:21

Yeah, that's great. So I'll put a link on that so people can find those and, yeah, some great stuff on there. Like you say, not just Paul Butterfield, covering some other topics as well. Oh, yeah. So what else are you planning on doing with your writing or anything more on Paul Butterfield?

SPEAKER_02: 53:35

Well, I've revisited, you know, some stories with people from the past and everybody's, you know, getting all over me again about writing a book about Paul, probably about that time.

SPEAKER_01: 53:47

So a book is in the offing, is it? Is that something you're seriously thinking about putting together?

SPEAKER_02: 53:51

Yes, I'm seriously thinking about it. And I'm probably a little behind the time frame I should have been thinking about it. But yes, I am seriously thinking about it again.

SPEAKER_01: 54:02

Yeah, that'd be great to see. And have you done enough writing that you can start piecing it together now? Or is it you starting from scratch? Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 54:10

Well, the series I did for Blues Access, you know, that was over 10,000 words. So that was a pretty significant thing. But there's so much more I have from the interviews and the meetings and the conversations I had with people. So much more. And it's daunting to get into the hours and hours and hours and hours of tape that I have of interviews with people. But it'll be worth it. Once I get back, once I get into it, I'll get energized and hopefully see it through.

SPEAKER_01: 54:37

Yeah, definitely. A labour of love for you, I can tell, Tom. You'll be enjoying writing that and it'll be great to see. Because I don't think there is any other significant writings about butter, is there?

SPEAKER_02: 54:49

No, you know, the Blues Access series was done back in the 90s. That all happened as a result kind of of my microphone business in some ways because I would talk with players around the country who were looking for vintage microphones and looking for that vintage sound. And there were so few people that I ran into, you know, as customers who had really studied Butterfield. They almost kind of brushed him off as, you know, he doesn't sound like little Walter, so he's not, you know, he's not. not good and the more I listened to his playing you know and being around people who were who understood music and read music and wrote music you know the more I began to realize how incredibly beautiful his playing was and how musical it was And how he was underappreciated to the level he was underappreciated back then just shocked me. So that got me started, and I'm sure there were a lot of other people who felt the same way I did. They just didn't get involved enough to actually sit down and work on writing about it and pulling together the thoughts and ideas of all the people that had interfaced with Butterfield. I read a really interesting story. I'm reading a book right now about two women writers from Los Angeles Joan Didion and Eve Babbitts and I didn't realize this but Eve Babbitts her father was a symphony musician and knew all the great symphonic authors, writers who moved to California rather than go through the Hitler experience and ended up settling in Southern California. One of the first bands that she saw, rock and roll bands that she saw, or non-classical groups that she saw that she really loved, was the Butterfield Blues Band. I was reading this the other night and I was like, whoa! And it turned out that the person that took her to see the Butterfield Blues Band was John Densmore, who was the drummer for The Doors. So they were having this huge impact. This is back in mid-65 in Southern California I didn't even know about this and Butterfield was hanging out at the Troubadour with you know all the guys that turned out to be in the Eagles and all these other Jackson Brown all these other bands he was right in the middle of that scene there but I was completely unaware of it so there's a lot of story to be told I guess that's the summation of what I'm saying here a lot more story to be told than what I've told so far

SPEAKER_01: 57:07

well I don't think there's anybody else who knows more about Paul Butterfield than you Tom so you're the best qualified to write that book so hopefully you can get that down I know it's a lot of work but I'm sure you'll love it yeah

SPEAKER_02: 57:17

well thank you for that appreciate that

SPEAKER_01: 57:19

so thanks so much for joining me again Tom Ellis and sharing your deep knowledge about the great Paul Butterfield

SPEAKER_02: 57:26

Neil it's always a pleasure to be part of what you're doing you know I'm a huge supporter and believer in your effort to document you know all of the great harmonica players and musicians that are associated with the harmonica so you keep up the good work

SPEAKER_01: 57:39

thanks Tom Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks again to Tom for joining me today. It would be wonderful if you can get that book done on Paul Butterfield. And if you haven't heard the first two episodes with Tom about butter, then check out the happyhourharmonica.com website and you can find them in the featured episodes on the front page. I'll sign out now with a song from one of Tom's favourite albums from Butter, live at the Troubadour. The epic Drifting and

SPEAKER_04: 58:16

Drifting.

UNKNOWN: 58:22

Drifting and Drifting

SPEAKER_04: 58:52

music music