[Harp-L] Butter TV spot



Rob P writes:

IMHO Butterfield was an innovator of the highest order


Amen! Butterfield knocks me out. No one was playing harp like that when PB emerged. His technique was powerful and HE DIDN"T PLAY A HARMONICA LIKE IT WAS A HARMONICA. He was the first to approach the instrument like that. And there is great emotion in his playing.


Someone put a post up not long ago talking about how the world needs another harp player imitating Little Walter licks about as much as the world needs another Elvis impersonator. Personally, I find few things in life less interesting than listening to some contemporary harp player playing Juke note for note. I mean, didn't somebody famous already do that 50+ years ago?

As great as players like Wilson and Estrin are, they ain't doing much that hasn't been done before. Now, they may do it extremely well, but it's not an original artistic contribution. The world is full of imitators and has too few originals. Butterfield was an authentic blues artist with an original and individual style of own that was far more sophisticated than anything that had come before. And it's not rock music. His phrasing is not rock and roll. His note selection and placement is more sophisticated than that.

Of the older Chicago guys, IMHO, Cotton was more innovative than the others, and some of his stuff comes much closer to rock music than Butterfield's does. I, for one, am profoundly bored with harp players who are obsessed with trying to recreate the past. Blues is something that lives in the heart of the player, not on old recordings. Making it come out of the instrument as an authentic and original statement that has some validity is the real challenge.

Others may disagree. But as far as I'm concerned, they can go practice l little Walter licks note for note--or Butterfield licks-- or Cotton licks--or go reenact civil war battles--or dress up like Elvis.

End of rant. FWIW

JP



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