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

[<fssharp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mick Zaklan, in an excellent post, wrote among other things:

"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..."

Great post Mick, but I doubt Corky was influenced by Paul.
I say this because they were contemporaries.  
"The Siegel-Schwall Band" album on Vanguard (VSD-79235) was issued in 1966,
the same year "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" album came out.

(Note: this is the original SSB album, not the more famous one of the same
name that came out in the early 70's - that one had Hush Hush on it.)  

Cuts on the 1966 SSB album include covers of Howlin' Wolf's "Down to the
Bottom" and "Little Babe", Jimmy Witherspoon's "Boot Hill", and Dixon's
"Hoochie Coochie Man", as well as a number of originals.  Listening to this
record, I think that Corky's harp style was pretty well established by 1966.


Now, that's not to say that Corky didn't hear Paul pre-1966 and was
influenced by his playing.  Nor that Corky's subsequent development of his
style post-1966 didn't owe something to Butter's influence (although I don't
hear that progression in the later records, I think he already had his style
established by 1966).  I just want to alert our dear readers that Siegel and
Butterfield were developing and recording their playing essentially
simultaneously.  I always think of Butter and Corky as the two major white
harp players of the mid-60's, although Corky was definitely on a more
regional stage at that point.

The good news with whether Corky was influenced by Butter or not is: 
I guess we could always ask him !!

Fred S