[Harp-L] Re: Butter TV spot

[Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The reason Cotton or some other great black musician wasn't on the  
show was that it wasn't about
showcasing the musician. It was about stumping the panel by making  
them think is it the black guy or one of the white guys that's
the blues musician.

Butter was a white guy playing blues in 1965. The age and social  
background of the panel members was raised on blacks playing blues.
All the musicians coming out of Chicago blues scene were black. Butter  
was an oddity.

Now if they had a white guy and 2 black guys on and one of them was a  
polka player....
you can see where that is going.  It's about stumping the chump.:)

btw, I fell in love with Butter's style but I also listened Cotton,  
Wells, Terry and anyone else I thought had chops.
37 years later I can play a broad spectrum of blues and rock because I  
learned a little from all of them.
Butter taught me more then anything to think outside the box when I  
played and to constantly try to improve my solos rather then
play them canned.

I recently found out some history about Butter from a friend of mine  
who was part of the Chicago music scene in the 50's and 60's
.  He is the one who turned Albert Grossman onto Butter.
I turned Tom Ellis onto my friend.  I'll save the story for Tom's book  
on Butter.
My buddy knew Butter, Cotton, and LW  on a first name basis and knew  
Butter in his teens.
It'll be a great read for any Butter fan.

Mike

On Dec 18, 2009, at 11:35 PM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Message: 7
> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:21:24 +1100
> From: Ev630 <eviltweed@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Butter TV spot
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID:
> 	<b985a2fe0912181821mc99fcc4i37993492e20b3b7a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>
> Two observations on this:
>
> First, I could never get into Butterfield. His phrasing has too much  
> of a
> rock sensibility for my taste. Like that arpeggio descending lick he  
> would
> always do and that you hear at the intro of the TV spot. Not saying  
> he's a
> bad player, but he just doesn't float my boat as a blues musician.  
> Lord
> knows I have tried and I know he was the first cat that hipped a lot  
> of
> white Americans to the blues, and that's one reason I think why he's  
> adored.
> But I got into the blues listening to Wells, Cotton, the Walters,  
> etc... so
> it just doesn't do it for me.
>
> Second, what a shame they couldn't have had Cotton or some other  
> great black
> blues musician on that TV show.