"The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (October 1965)

Dad's Take:

The mid-sixties is when the white boys learned to play the blues, and this band was among the best. In fact, when Dylan shocked the crowd by going electric at Newport, he was backed by members of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, only without Butterfield himself.

It was bands like this who set the stage for much of the blues-based music of the late sixties and seventies, influencing CCR, Led Zeppelin, the Yardbirds, the Doors, and the rest. It's hard to believe this album was made in 1965. I would guess '68 or '69 by the style and the sound.

The Paul Butterfield Band's highly electrified version of Chicago blues led this album to place (although barely) on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums. It's also #11 on Down Beat Magazine's list of the fifty best blues albums.

It's an excellent album, full of rocking tunes from beginning to end. Standout tracks, for me, include "I Got My Mojo Working," the ironically titled "Mellow Down Easy," "Our Love Is Drifting," and "Mystery Train," but the other tracks are just as good.

With this album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band takes rock and roll back to its roots but with a very modern feel, at a time when the studio was taking over popular music. The Beatles and Brian Wilson and Phil Spector were creating shiny, ever-more-elaborate productions with a somewhat corporate feel. This album returns to the crunchy jams of an earlier age, with the electrified sound of the sixties.

It works for me.

Brad's Take:


I think Paul Butterfield forgot his birth year during the recording of this album. In the opening song "Born In Chicago," he sing "I was born in Chicago in 1941," but apparently he was actually born in 1942, when I was reading about the man and his blues band. Maybe he just wished he was older for some reason. Aside from that small technicality, I enjoyed the album.

It has fast paced energy that James Brown could have danced to, and it has cool guitar solos that would have gotten a thumbs up from Jimi Hendrix. Apparently this album was recorded 3 different times before their record label, Elektra Records, was finally happy with it. I'm glad this version of the album was approved because it's a good, solid blues rock record.

Like my dad stated, it sounds like this album should have been released a couple years later., but maybe they decided to change the release date to make it seem older too, wink wink!