Re: [Harp-L] RE: Paul Butterfield(answering to Micholas....)

[Larry Marks <larry.marks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, please snip off old stuff! The message I received was obscenely 
long, with loads of expired garbage attached.

I listened to Butterfield when I was 23 and looking for another 
instrument, since trombones weren't much in demand for rock bands. I 
also listened a lot to John Sebastian Jr., and Mel Lyman (from the Jim 
Kweskin Jug Band.)

They were all, to my mind, the best to which I could aspire. But 
Butterfield's sound was as clean as any I had ever heard. For what he 
played, he was a super technician and I still revere him in that way. 
And he was almost surely the most important influence on my playing style.

I found much of what he played a sheer delight to me; yet, I do have to 
admit that while I admired his technical skill, I sometimes did not like 
what he played. It wasn't that he was "busy". It simply had to do with 
the musicality and logic of a phrase.

Some of what one might find unmusical could be excused as valid blues 
variations, but some of it was just plain wrong to my thinking. And 
sometimes, I lost the logical thread of his solos.

BTW, I never found anything in the work of my other two idols, Sebastian 
and Lyman, that I found musically objectionable.

  -LM

Anthony Smith wrote:
> I am not a big fan of Butterfield's stuff.  To me, he seemed like a really
> busy player and much didn't sound correct. It seemed like he would use blow
> notes in place of bent draws to allow for fast play and to simplfy breathing
> patterns even if it wasn't right. In fact, when I started playing the
> instrument, I would turn the station when he came on to hopefully avoid
> getting sucked in to playing what to my ear, was wrong.  I surely don't want
> to offened anyone who felt his playing and again this is just my take on it.
>