[Harp-L] Butterfield, What's My Line?

[Mick Zaklan <mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx>]

   I hate to throw gasoline on the fire here, but I'm going to anyway.
Before I do, let me say that I loved the Butterfield clip.  Probably just as
much for my fond memories of the show as for Paul's appearance.  I'm not
going to dispute that the guy had his own sound and style.  And I've
probably appropriated a riff or two from him over the years.  He turned a
lot of people on to blues harmonica.  Good for him, I don't have anything
bad to say about him.  It's obvious he touched quite a few people.  His
stuff lives on in the playing of Rob Paparozzi and Mark Ford, among others.
If and when the Ellis book comes out, I'll probably buy a copy.  It's a
fascinating story.
   I was born in Chicago and have lived in the city or slightly outside of
it for 60 years now.  As a casual observer of the Chicago harmonica scene
for over 40 years, I can tell you that Paul Butterfield's influence on the
city's blues harpists has been pretty negligible. My opinion, of course.
With the possible exceptions of Corky Siegel and maybe Chicago Slim (and
Slim would probably punch me for saying this); I haven't heard much, if any,
of Paul's stuff in the playing of the local guys.  And Paul was a
Chicago harpist.  I could be wrong, but I don't believe Joe Filisko has ever
devoted any time to Paul Butterfield in any of his hundreds of hours of
teaching blues harmonica.  And Joe has transcribed a ton of solos.  I don't
want to put Joe on the spot here; the more harmonica you heard in town, the
less likely you were to favor or be influenced by Butterfield.  The
other stuff just sounded or fit the music better.  At least to my ears.
   Frankly, Paul Butterfield was the harpist for the out-of-town players.
If you lived in Chicago, you could see Jr. Wells, James Cotton, and Big
Walter just about any night.  Jimmy Rogers and Sam Lay always carried
excellent harpists in their bands.  The Chess records were easy to get in
town.  Heck, I even have some of the 45's.  I saw several waves of
serious blues harpists over the years in Chicago, and I don't remember any
of them gravitating towards Butter.
   During the last Butterfield flare-up, I think someone wrote something to
the effect of "he's all we had".  Well, in Chicago, he's not all we had and
the fact that his musical footprint here is practically invisible does say
something.  And as far as quoting Muddy Waters about Paul, I'd be careful.
A long time ago, I picked up a blues album in the cut-outs by the "Sky Saxon
Blues Band".  This was basically a psychedelic rock band otherwise known as
"The Seeds".  They had a huge hit, "Pushing Too Hard", and decided to
moonlight as a blues band.  As I recall, Muddy was on the back cover
quoted as saying something like, "these boys can really play".  Well,
believe me, this record (even at 99 cents) was one of the worst pieces of
shit I ever heard.  It quickly found the garbage can in my garage, though I
suspect that Tom Ball may own a copy in his collection of oddities.

Mick Zaklan