The Butterfield Blues Band East-West 180g LP

In 1965, just one year after Paul Butterfield had formed his blues band - named after himself - and launched one of the very best groups among the white Chicago blues community, the band produced this dynamic and visionary album. The group presents a wide range of contrasting numbers, both eastern and western, which reflect the LP's title - something totally new and innovative. In the first few titles, traditional standard numbers come over rather enigmatically while supporting original and rhythmic compactness, but this soon gives over to a tactically well-formed instrumentation and lengthy solo interludes. The all-embracing motto 'blues' is taken up by the band in Nat Adderley's "Work Song" at the very latest, with mind-expanding ways of playing and varying sounds. Catapulted by Mike Bloomfield's artistry on the guitar into the world of rock, all the musicians celebrate these well-known jazz standards and each man contributes his personal skill into forging a perfectly balanced team effort.

The title number "East-West" ultimately demolishes the world of the blues. In the tonal mixture of confidently prepared rock ingredients and borrowings from Indian music (raga rock), we have an amalgamation of rock, blues, jazz and oriental melodies which result in an emotional, unheard-of sound that is well worth the hearing.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head.

All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Reissued many times, this earned the Speakers Corner treatment not for sonic worth but musical merit. Regarded as Butterfield's best, there is no doubt it marked a transition in typical blues band repertoire, as exemplified by the title track: a 13m jazz/raga. The band's second album, from 1966, it freed practitioners of the genre, especially young white blues players, from the constraints of the 12-bar format, but this contains enough of straight blues not to alienate hard-core fans. The cover of 'Get Out Of My Life Woman' is my fave, but all of it is exceptional - especially Butterfield's harp virtuosity and the guitar skills of Mike Bloomfield.