March 22, 2025
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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com
02:01 - Tom joins the podcast for a third episode on the life and career of Paul Butterfield
02:20 - Tom has been continuing his relentless research into Butter
02:38 - Been looking into the way Butter changed his sound from the Better Days period and then again on the Fathers and Sons album
03:50 - Relationship with Muddy Waters after first hearing him in the Chicago Blues clubs
04:31 - Butter’s ex-wife Kathryn told Tom that Butter’s family lived in a modest home in a racially diverse neighbourhood
05:04 - 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
05:47 - 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
06:41 - The Chicago blues musicians, especially Muddy, really nurtured Butter and he would regularly sit in with them on stage
07:31 - Visit to the Chicago Symphony where he heard one of the violins out of tune, highlighting his musical abilities at a young age
08:26 - Tom wrote an article on his Substack site about seeing Butter playing flute in the 1960s
08:51 - Would play classical music with his big band in Woodstock
09:42 - 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
WEBVTT
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Tom Ellis joins me on episode 132 for another look into the life and career of the legendary Paul Butterfield.
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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.
00:00:14.564 --> 00:00:24.457
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.
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Butter later returned the favour, after having made his own name.
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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.
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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.
00:00:49.537 --> 00:00:56.228
producing possibly the first Americana albums and seeing Butter having developed into a more nuanced harmonica player.
00:00:56.848 --> 00:00:59.332
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.
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Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.
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Seidel Harmonicas¶¶
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Hello, Tom Ellis, and welcome back to the podcast.
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Hello, Neil, and it's great to be back.
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Thank you for having me.
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So you're here to talk to us again about the great Paul Butterfield.
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So we've done two previous episodes on Paul Butterfield.
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One was episode 62 back in May 2022, and then episode 90 in July 2023.
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So we're overdue the third episode on Butter.
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It looks that way.
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We missed a year in there.
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But in the meantime, you've been continuing your research into the great man.
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So you've got more to tell us all about him, yeah?
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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.
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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
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sons
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so it seemed like this mid to late career Butterfield seemed like a good topic to talk to you about
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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,
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yeah.
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Yeah, and that whole...
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Butterfield upbringing, I think, has been mythologized a little bit.
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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.
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But I had a long conversation with Paul's ex-wife, Catherine, a couple weeks ago and asked her specifically about that.
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She said, you know, she said, that's just not true.
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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.
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He was in fact a lawyer, but he was not a corporate lawyer.
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He was the kind of lawyer who ended up working at a title company here in the United States in his later years.
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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.
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Oh, wow, yeah.
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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.
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It's funny, what you said is right.
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He did start going to blues clubs certainly by 18, but he might have been going to clubs earlier than that.
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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.
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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.
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Yeah, I didn't know that about his father, that he helped out some of the musicians with that.
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So, yeah, really, he dug into that lifestyle.
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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.
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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.
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Are you fully prepared to handle the situation we're going to throw you into?
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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.
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So
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as we know, he played flute and he sort of had some level of classical training, maybe not a lot.
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So was he doing this at the same time?
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He certainly did this before he got into blues, did
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he?
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That was an interesting story that Catherine told me too, that this was a brand new one on me.
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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.
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And it was the second chair violinist in the symphony who was in fact out of tune.
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And here was the teenager picking this up just with his ear.
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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.
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Yes, he was taking flute and playing flute.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So he had flute lessons when he was younger and then he got into the blues.
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Tell us more about how he got into the blues scene.
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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.
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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.
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So he was listening to jazz at home and then he met Nick Gravonitis And they started hanging around together.
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I think Elvin joined that duo not long after Gravenitis and Butterfield hooked up.
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And Gravenitis was, he was, yeah, he was a person who went down there and respected these people.
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So he was taking Paul in to these clubs as well.
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And Gravenitis knew most of these musicians himself.
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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.
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And so we talk about, obviously he was taken on the wings of the Southside Clubs and the musicians.
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And his relationship with Muddy Waters became very important.
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So he did the album Fathers and Sons.
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That was in 1969.
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So obviously some way into his career there.
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So before then, what was his relationship with Muddy Waters like?
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Was he in regular contact with him?
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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.
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You know, if you've ever listened to the live Better Days album, which is a spectacular listen.
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Bill
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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.
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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.
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Bloomfield, in particular, introduced Graham to B.B.
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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.
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Let me back up.
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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
00:12:56.660 --> 00:13:11.528
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.
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But then, so Fathers and Sons was only four years after that in 1969.
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So a lot happened in between though, yeah, between those albums in Butter's career, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, a lot.
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I mean, you know, the band was so well received everywhere, depending on what, all iterations of the band were well received.
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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.
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So I think Bloomfield and Butterfield wanted to give back.
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to those guys, to the fathers, and wanted to do it in a particular way.
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And I think it was actually Bloomfield that raised the issue originally with martial chess to kind of get the ball rolling.
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And from what Catherine Butterfield told me when we talked, there was a tremendous amount of planning that went on for Fathers and Sons.
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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.
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There was a lot of conversation about the set list and what the set list would be made of.
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There was conversation about who some of the key players would be, specifically Duck Dunn.
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I think having him as the bass player was very different.
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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.
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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.
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He was a notorious rehearser.
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He was rehearsing all the time, whether the band was out on the road or whether they were home.
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There were rehearsals every day.
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He was always working on the sound of the band.
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He was always working, of course, on his own particular sound on the harmonica as well.
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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.
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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.
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I think probably the most recent of all of them dated back like into the 1950s, mid-1950s.
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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.
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These were kind of unusual tunes, most of which, you know, featured some key players in Muddy's history, Little Walter Ramone.
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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
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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
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Yeah, you said it.
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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.
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So it definitely was an opportunity for them to give back to the fathers.
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And you kind of see it on the cover art.
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It's a takeoff on the Michelangelo piece that I think is in the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling.
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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.
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So,
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I mean, Butter never was going to be Muddy Waters' harmonica player, right?
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And that wasn't the intention here.
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They did this as a one-off album with a different band, as you mentioned, Duck Dunn there.
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So, you know, it was only ever a one-off.
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Butterfield was never going to be his harmonica player at any point of the Muddy Waters band.
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No, I don't think that was ever in the cards.
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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.
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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
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player.
00:18:30.978 --> 00:18:37.662
Breaking it hard, I don't know when I'm not rich, I'm hard-working
00:18:48.546 --> 00:18:57.913
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.
00:18:58.253 --> 00:18:59.516
There's just no precedent to it.
00:18:59.695 --> 00:19:11.125
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.
00:19:11.226 --> 00:19:20.054
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.
00:19:20.094 --> 00:19:27.683
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.
00:19:27.703 --> 00:19:47.721
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.
00:19:47.840 --> 00:19:51.868
It's just a really interesting approach, and I don't think anybody's ever touched it.
00:19:51.929 --> 00:19:55.517
I don't think there's been anything like it with any covers of anybody's songs.
00:19:55.557 --> 00:20:00.207
They've come anywhere close to what Butterfield played down as a harp player in that session.
00:20:18.753 --> 00:20:21.157
You mentioned earlier on that it's kind of a double album.
00:20:21.178 --> 00:20:33.078
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.
00:20:33.118 --> 00:20:38.868
So what was the intention always that they were going to do a live concert and release it as a double album?
00:20:39.611 --> 00:20:43.837
I think that that was almost coincidental.
00:20:44.001 --> 00:20:49.789
That particular Cosmic Joy Festival, I think that's what it was called, was a freebie.
00:20:50.471 --> 00:20:54.936
And originally, I think, Quicksilver Messenger Service, there was one other band on there.
00:20:54.977 --> 00:21:03.949
And then late in the game, the promoters announced that it would be a free performance with Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, and Mike Bloomfield.
00:21:03.989 --> 00:21:12.800
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.
00:21:13.538 --> 00:21:19.385
But I think the opportunity to play live, by coincidence, just came about and everybody was in town.
00:21:20.247 --> 00:21:28.278
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.
00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:52.513
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
00:21:53.714 --> 00:22:05.904
the whole world fighting about that that same thing but
00:22:17.647 --> 00:22:42.045
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
00:22:42.546 --> 00:22:45.971
so how long was the live concert after the studio recording
00:22:46.713 --> 00:22:48.457
it was right around the same time
00:22:49.281 --> 00:22:52.046
So it was all fresh from the recording in the studio, yeah?
00:22:52.385 --> 00:22:53.728
Yeah, very, very fresh.
00:22:54.308 --> 00:22:54.890
Very fresh.
00:22:55.550 --> 00:22:58.095
And you mentioned the audience reaction there.
00:22:58.134 --> 00:23:04.984
So did most people turn up to see Paul Butterfield when he wasn't so well-known, particularly by 1969?
00:23:05.664 --> 00:23:10.972
Was it mainly for Butterfield and Bloomfield audience members, you think?
00:23:10.992 --> 00:23:14.218
I think that they were the drawing card.
00:23:14.561 --> 00:23:15.766
I mean, no doubt about that.
00:23:16.769 --> 00:23:20.462
Everybody knew who Paul Butterfield was in Chicago and certainly knew who Mike Bloomfield was.
00:23:21.847 --> 00:23:26.444
I think they were there at that live show supporting Muddy.
00:23:27.105 --> 00:23:30.648
There's been stories that there were some electric flag songs that were done.
00:23:30.689 --> 00:23:33.030
There were a couple of other songs that were done on the set list.
00:23:33.250 --> 00:23:42.179
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.
00:23:42.700 --> 00:23:46.222
But basically, it was all about Butterfield and Bloomfield.
00:23:46.303 --> 00:23:52.107
I'm sure most people had never heard Muddy Waters live, so this was an ear-opening experience for them, too.
00:23:52.627 --> 00:23:55.730
So this wasn't a blues festival, was it not?
00:23:55.750 --> 00:23:56.191
It was...
00:23:57.071 --> 00:23:58.038
mainstream was it?
00:23:58.662 --> 00:24:01.318
Yeah it was definitely more mainstream.
00:24:02.082 --> 00:24:04.683
I'm looking at some of the songs that were also on the set list.
00:24:04.723 --> 00:24:13.872
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.
00:24:14.692 --> 00:24:22.118
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.
00:24:22.138 --> 00:24:23.961
I can't remember who the second band was.
00:24:24.500 --> 00:24:26.722
It was Quicksilver, I just don't remember who it was.
00:24:27.163 --> 00:24:30.747
Great stuff, and a fantastic album, definitely recommend people to listen to it.
00:24:30.987 --> 00:24:34.288
Like I say, lots of energy and and the live concerts as well, such a big sounds.
00:24:53.986 --> 00:24:56.107
at Muddy Waters was very pleased with it
00:24:56.307 --> 00:25:42.471
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.
00:25:42.852 --> 00:26:06.557
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
00:26:07.199 --> 00:26:32.696
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.
00:26:32.778 --> 00:26:37.400
I mean, he wrote for everybody from James Brown to the Delmore Brothers.
00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:41.103
It's a country band who did stuff for Ray Charles.
00:26:41.222 --> 00:26:45.446
I mean, he wrote a lot of songs that are kind of American songbook almost like.
00:26:45.487 --> 00:26:46.728
There's such standards.
00:26:47.428 --> 00:26:48.890
Fever by Little Willie John.
00:26:48.970 --> 00:26:50.611
That was something that he wrote and produced.
00:26:51.070 --> 00:26:52.071
Ran King Records.
00:26:52.413 --> 00:26:54.253
But he was highly respected as a producer.
00:26:54.413 --> 00:26:56.016
And he was living in Woodstock.
00:26:56.115 --> 00:27:00.038
He was a very close friend of Levon Helms and was living in Woodstock.
00:27:00.078 --> 00:27:09.317
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.
00:27:09.900 --> 00:27:13.834
He had built a studio in Woodstock and it was called the RCO Studios.
00:27:13.934 --> 00:27:15.420
I don't know what the acronym stood for.
00:27:16.162 --> 00:27:20.208
And Henry Glover was one of the house producers, if you can believe that.
00:27:20.888 --> 00:27:30.723
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.
00:27:30.763 --> 00:27:32.686
We will have Muddy Waters Day.
00:27:32.727 --> 00:27:35.872
All the musicians there are fantastic musicians.
00:27:35.912 --> 00:27:37.574
The studio is fantastic.
00:27:37.654 --> 00:27:39.017
A producer is fantastic.
00:27:39.738 --> 00:27:42.201
And you're probably not doing anything in Chicago right now.
00:27:42.642 --> 00:27:44.285
Muddy was not doing anything in Chicago.
00:27:44.444 --> 00:27:44.625
So...
00:27:45.346 --> 00:27:57.415
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.
00:27:58.617 --> 00:28:02.019
Which I thought was kind of funny and kind of on point.
00:28:03.121 --> 00:28:08.546
Butterfield made Muddy feel like this was going to be a successful deal and you're going to be very well taken care of.
00:28:08.625 --> 00:28:09.267
And of course he was.
00:28:09.626 --> 00:28:10.548
The album won a Grammy.
00:28:10.807 --> 00:28:13.230
I mean, it was the only Grammy Muddy ever earned.
00:28:13.549 --> 00:28:16.872
So, yeah, it all worked out the way it was probably planned out.
00:28:35.329 --> 00:28:38.374
And this was the last Muddy album on Chess Record, yeah?
00:28:39.055 --> 00:28:40.256
It was, that's correct.
00:28:40.497 --> 00:28:56.057
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.
00:28:56.497 --> 00:29:00.221
Those two different dates, the Fathers and Sons and the Woodstock album.
00:29:01.026 --> 00:29:09.423
Mm-hmm.
00:29:20.289 --> 00:29:21.592
I doubt it.
00:29:22.011 --> 00:29:23.734
I mean, maybe on a cut or two.
00:29:23.755 --> 00:29:31.826
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.
00:29:31.906 --> 00:29:37.314
What I do hear is I hear Butterfield changing his sound somewhat.
00:29:37.513 --> 00:30:13.479
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.
00:30:13.499 --> 00:30:22.068
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.
00:30:22.128 --> 00:30:23.109
But, you know.
00:30:24.152 --> 00:30:27.556
Yeah, it might be one of those myths that come
00:30:27.576 --> 00:30:27.615
up.
00:30:27.635 --> 00:30:32.320
There's a particular aspect of that, you know, that sure 545s into a twin.
00:30:32.361 --> 00:30:35.704
That is a particular sound that is really his sound.
00:30:36.385 --> 00:30:41.450
And a green bullet into a twin probably would be difficult to match up to begin with.
00:30:42.250 --> 00:30:43.632
But secondly, a green bullet would be...
00:30:44.313 --> 00:30:47.255
They have a unique sound that kind of becomes the sound.
00:30:47.756 --> 00:30:55.542
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.
00:30:56.303 --> 00:31:02.368
So another thing he did with Muddy is he played with him in the Last Waltz concert, the famous concert, which was in 1976.
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