Re: [Harp-L] Butter TV spot

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ev630 wrote:
<I didn't say he wasn't a blues musician. I just said that his rock
<sensibility doesn't float my boat. And I hear his influences a lot when I
<drop into jams and hear cats playing those arpeggiated licks that push the
<beat.

Butterfield made his early reputation as a blues man, but he was always an innovator first and foremost.  His entire recorded output is about pushing himself and his bands into new territory.  It's missing the point to argue that he didn't play blues exactly the same way that his contemporaries did.  He didn't want to.  What he wanted to do was bring together the vast range of musics he loved--blues, rock, R&B, jazz, Indian ragas--into a coherent musical statement.  In many cases throughout his career, he succeeded, and certainly he was among the most successful musicians of his era in this regard.

It's really backwards to argue that Butterfield and other white blues players and rockers of the era were ripping black musicians off (unconsciously or otherwise) by taking gigs that should have gone to black musicians.  In fact the opposite is true: Butterfield and his white contemporaries introduced the blues to a large white audience to whom it was new music, and in so doing, created many more career opportunities for black blues musicians.  

Butterfield wasn't part of the problem--he was part of the solution.   

Regards, Richard Hunter





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