There's been quite a lot of talk, assumption, quotes from everyone but Butter himself about how Butter played, I'm certainly no expert on his stuff, but I offer for your discussion some Butter overlayed with some of me doing some Butter style playing. It's deliberately lo tech, H2 capturing CD through the Hi Fi plus live amp in the room, no remixing, no adding/tweaking at the desk..."singing in the shower" type feel if you like. Accessible to anyone with a recording device.
Your turn...
Apologies for dessicrating one of the milestones of blues recordings :-)
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 12:18 PM
Weird, I've been listening to it from this site? Oh well, flummoxed by technology again! ;-) ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 11:47 AM
5f6h: Although Butterfield had great tone with or without the 545, someone could sound exactly like Butter pre 545 and play in front of a roomful of harp players and no one would accuse him of being a Butter clone. Put a 545 in his hand and he could play licks that Butter never played and everyone in the room would think him a Butter clone. What I mean is, when people talk about the Butter tone, they mean the 545 recordings, imo.
Nice stuffman, I liked thelick at 2.00, very bluesy :)
I've heard some people say that PB played with very little breathforce, yet he has such a powerful sound? Perhaps he played with economy of breathforce?
All I know is that I'vebeen watching the hell outof TheLastWaltz lately and I love the version of this song on there, so sparing and tasteful with his chugs! Also, I think the mix of Levon Helm's voice with Butter's is awesome :D
@Michael - There is no 545 on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band album (partly why selected the track I did), there is more to Butterfield tone than that. Yes, I appreciate that a 545 & a tolex Fender gives a cutting, slightly metalic tone that people (in isolation) associate with Butter, but then other guys have hit on similar sounds with Shure wand mics like Cotton, Carey Bell & Al Lerman (off the top of my head)...but they didn't sound like Butter, neither did Mojo Buford & I strongly disgree that give anyone a 545 & they will sound like Butter in a side by side comparison.
@ Dirty Deck - Cheers, yes I heard the same thing, I seem to recall that he said that "most of the problems guys have with the harp are from blowing too hard" or something like that. He makes me think of a cola bottle that has been shaken up & you are just letting off the excess pressure, bit by bit, to stop the whole lot from whooshing out? ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 3:49 PM
Nice anology! Yeah, that guy sure had something. I'm trying to learn to play with less breathforce myself, I'm doing ok, but can't help bursting a lung when I'm really ripping it up!
Butter was Butter. Forget mics he had his own phrasing and licks that was his. The Butter vibrato is his emotional signature. ---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
Yeah. PB's phrasing is so distinctive and so musical. But i just can't figure out what he's doing. i heard someone say that he is arpeggiating much of the time. i don't know, but whatever he's doing sounds way cool and i can't seem to figure it out.
@Dirtydeck - first time I saw Butter live was at the Last Waltz - What a freakin night.
re. 545 - I have a few of them. They are nothing that special - a dynamic mic with a kill switch (I have one with a volume pot too - that I put a 57 capsule in) - I'm sure Butter could have grabbed any dynamic mic lying around, plugged in and he would have sounded - like Buttah!
quick Bloomfield story. He was living in Marin , and playing a small (but nice) bar in sf. Between sets I asked him if I might sit in. HIs two work answer "Fuck No". He was entitled I guess, being something of a former 'rock star' and all. Of course the same attitude did not follow Naftlin or Gravenities, - both of whom where lovely , and open.
-fyi, I might be up for parting with one of my 545's , If anyone's interested PM me and I'll give it serious thought. ----------
Last Edited by on Oct 31, 2011 1:51 AM
@bonedog...Nafty is one of the nicest guys/musicians I have met in the last 40 years...cool guy. Tougher to get to see him now that he is on the other coast.
This is a little OT, but I've always considered asking to sit in to be bad form. I may mention that I play, but I never ask to sit in. i figure if they want me to sit in, they'll invite me.
I think it was great bonedog asked to sit in. That is what you had to do to get on stage back then. There were no open mic/jams like today. You had to keep asking until they finally let you up. It always helped if you had somewhat of a reputation, but still it was a long road to gettig on a stage back then. In defense of bloomfield- do you guys have any idea of how many people asked him that question a week? Probably enough to make every show a big jam session, which usually amounts to the jammers on stage loving it, the featured performer getting more drunk,and the audience leaving. I spent a lot of time with louisiana red. He never knew how to say no to a person asking to sit in. That usually amounted to most of our gigs turning into a mess of crap. When he married his current wife Dora, she took control of that and his career has blossomed. ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Well after poring over every online shot/video I can find it appears that at Newport 65 Butter (Born in Chicago clip above) used a couple of different mics, one looks most like the EV635A PA mic, but videos are a bit blurry.
There is not an obvious harp amp either, some amps appear & reappear (Epiphone, Ampeg, BF Bandmaster) but no obvious harp amp. Unless anyone knows better, looks most likely that he played through the PA?
The biggest factor in the Butterfield sound was the man himself...as is commonly found ;-)
Last Edited by on Nov 01, 2011 1:02 PM
The first Butterfield LP, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was released in 1965. The second album, East-West, was released in 1966.
I saw Paul Butterfield live in the October or November of 1968. Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop had both left the band by then and the new guitarist was Buzzy Feiten. At this show Butterfield was using a Fender Princeton Reverb Amplifier and a Fender Twin Reverb Amplifier simultaneously. His microphone was plugged into the first input of a Fender Princeton Reverb amplifier, and a guitar cord linked the second input of the Princeton Reverb amp to the first input of the Vibrato (Reverb) Channel of a Fender Twin Reverb Amplifier
TMF 714 where exactly is there anything to suggest he had that amp in 1965, or that he took it to Newport, why is it not in any of the copious stage shots. There is nothing of provenance linking that amp to Newport 65 in your post.
There are certainly pics of the band using Super Reverbs likely during 66 whilst Bloomfield was in the band. Fender were sponsoring the band by this time.
I don't doubt Madcat's account of 68, but that is 2 1/2 years after Newport 65...and it's Newport 65 the above clips referred to are from (despite the mistaken title of "Newport 1967" on the Juke clip). ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
@ TMF714 "There is mention of his amp in this article-"
I've read the article through twice, used the "find" function and can't seem to find it...it would be just what I'm looking for...perhaps you could isolate it & snip & paste into a post? The thread's beginning to look like a library of dissertations ;-)
The delay caused by the need to run power to the band's three amplifiers, rearrange the mics and position Sam Lay's drum kit irks emcee Lomax. The musicologist, who is known for his firm conviction that folk music – and blues in particular – is an acoustic music, looks on the Butterfield crew's paraphernalia with disdain. When the band is finally ready, Lomax makes a five-minute speech about the origins of the blues, describing the music as an intimate, personal expression made by a musician and a single, simple instrument. He then says that the next group of musicians requires a lot of hardware to play its blues, and invites to the audience to judge whether the youngsters can really even play the music at all.
"Looks like an Ampeg with a PA on top of it in the background-that could be Paul's rig?"
It's a Portaflex Ampeg, what looks like a tube PA is the bass amp's chassis. There's only one cord in the BF head & cab combo which is Bishop's (or at least Bishop is using it that photo, Arnold seems to be using it in the Juke clip).
In other shots (they played several times over the weekend) there's what looks like a Shure vocalmaster & Bloomfield also uses a Guild Thunderbird (as opposed to the Epiphone Futura in the shot above), Butterfield plays harp through a mic on a stand, next to the vocal mic.
Not proof of anything, it's conceivable that Butterfield shared an amp...doesn't particulary sound like it though?
EDIT in the Thunderbird shot, no one appears to be plugged into it.
EDIT EDIT what looked like a Vocalmaster is in fact Bloomfield's Epiphone control panel (one visible cord?), the Epiphone's front is partly obscured by an organ.
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2011 6:18 AM
Fillmore 66 - Pics clearly show Butterfield's 4x10 Tweed bassman (fitted with casters, straight 545 mic), 3 more pics from 66 (featuring Billy Davenport) show the Bassman, one with harps clearly visible atop the amp.
Of course, there was more than one Fillmore gig in '66, so not clear when he adopted a tolex amp.
Wolfgang's Vault has audio (lo quality, bootleg style) from 66 Fillmore dates, including Butterfield backing Muddy (10.02.1966). ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2011 6:44 AM
Here are two pictures from Boston, Mass. in 1966-Pauls amp would have to be a blackface as tweed Fender amps never carried a logo in the upper left corner-
"The delay caused by the need to run power to the band's three amplifiers, rearrange the mics and position Sam Lay's drum kit irks emcee Lomax. The musicologist, who is known for his firm conviction that folk music – and blues in particular – is an acoustic music, looks on the Butterfield crew's paraphernalia with disdain. When the band is finally ready, Lomax makes a five-minute speech about the origins of the blues, describing the music as an intimate, personal expression made by a musician and a single, simple instrument. He then says that the next group of musicians requires a lot of hardware to play its blues, and invites to the audience to judge whether the youngsters can really even play the music at all."
I love this quote for the simple fact that you could change like three words and it would describe a lot of peoples' attitudes toward modern harmonica. ---------- Mike Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas VHT Special 6 Mods
Bingo! Nice one TMF714, you've just posted 2 images, not just a measly 1, increasing the number of Butterfield & Bassman photos I am aware of by 66%. Good to have you on my side :-).
Paul's amp at the time (at least in late 65 & during 66) was a tweed bassman, Paul himself said so (unedited masterclass tapes), so did Rothchild ("precious Altec mic and tweed Fender amp" - lost sessions liner notes).
It's entirely plausible that he is connected to more than one amp.
Link to Butterfield band stage shot from the Living End Detroit, April 1966...Bloomfield & Butter's harps, 545 & bassman...see full stage shot in the Bloomfield story 3 video above.
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=6mh1bcnikblbl60&thumb=4
Last Edited by on Nov 05, 2011 2:03 PM
Please be so kind as to point out the Bassman Paul is connected to in my photos- And just for the record,I will never be "on your side"-the most you can hope for is I am a constant thorn in your side till the day I die---
tmf714 you seem to enjoy controversy of course you told me I had a strange sense of ethics you have already labeled me and harpdude BTW who gives a rat`s ass which amp butterfield used?
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2011 10:50 AM
Does it really matter what amp/mic Butterfield used?
I personally couldn't care less what amp and/or mic Butterfield (or any other great harp player for that matter) used or didn't use. He'd still sound like himself no matter what he used. People really do seem to be obsessed with "gear" rather than on the physical mechanics of playing harmonica these days. I myself have been guilty of it too on occasion in the past. These days though I prefer to concentrate on the music and use whatever mic/amp/PA is available. I make "my sound" not some magical gizmo.
TMF I do love your sense of humour...it keeps me going if I'm ever feeling down :-) If it was anyone else "insulting, impugning the intelligence & good intentions of board members" I'd probably reference the forum creed, but I'd miss you too much if they kicked you off...so do try and cling onto life a little longer, just for me! Besides I know you're only joking.
There are also 5 rabbits in the pics....can you spot them?
....No? Because they're all hiding in the Bassman on the stage....the bassman in the middle of it....there's only one...you really can't be telling you can't see it. If not, it's time to hand in your driving licence! (Appologies if you genuinely are sight impaired, but I guess if you were, then you wouldn't be playing this game?) ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Kingley, yes, that's the whole point & my intention with this thread...in what seems to have become a reverse kind of way. Look through the previous Butterfield threads and there is always someone saying that this mic or that amp will give you "the PB sound". By exploring the facts, as documented in the album cover TMF posted, I'm actually hoping to show what a fallacy this potentially is...there's probably a guy down the road from, you using gear that Butter used, at one time or another, but he doesn't sound like Butter...because HE doesn't sound like Butter.
I'm interested in the gear for sure, but not because I think it's going to give anyone the "golden key"...listening & playing will do that.
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2011 10:22 AM
I've mentioned this before, but this reminds me of an article I read. A writer and guitar player had a chance to play Stevie Ray Vaughans' Guitar. He was so excited and couldn't wait to her the sound of SRV. He said he was shocked when he plugged in and began to play that he sounded just like himself! No SRV sound! What? After all the talk about how Stevie had his guitar setup, and the fatter neck and heavier gauge strings. The specially wound pickups and especially the wood of the body.
Guitar forums are loaded with guys who swear by and argue over what pickups to swap out of your stock guitar or which wood gives the best tone and especially "gear." The debates are endless on how to get that " David Gilmore" tone as in "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Pickups, amps, hookups , effects etc. All are disappointed when they discover that tone comes from the fingers, not the gear.
I'm sure all instruments are the same. ---------- Tommy
"Kingley, yes, that's the whole point & my intention with this thread...in what seems to have become a reverse kind of way. Look through the previous Butterfield threads and there is always someone saying that this mic or that amp will give you "the PB sound"."
5F6H - Yeah it does indeed seem strange to me that a lot of players seem to buy into the "If I get the same amp/mic/harp combo as (insert name of pro player here), I'll sound just like them" school of thought. I know of quite a few good players that are still baffled by the fact that although they have the same gear as their harmonica idol, they still don't sound the same as them. They all seem to be convinced that there's some secret piece of gear that they haven't been told about that their hero uses. Even though they may have seen them play live on numerous occasions!
I guess I'm one of the few that doesn't totally agree. I love the tone of his first album. Iliked it much less on the second. Then there were some latter albums with great sound quality IMHO. I hated the live album! I can't even listen to it today. Then on better days "Too Many Drivers" is perfect. Maybe he didn't care about his sound as much as we do? There are many variations of great. What ever he used on Too many drivers was perfect for my ears. Now to me that doesn't sound like his live stuff at all. So I guess I would make it a point not to buy anything he used on the live album and I would be interested in knowing what he used on the first album and on Too Many drivers off Better Days. Point being what you play thru does matter to alot of people! But if anyone does have the answers for the above questions I truly am interested in knowing.
Ahhh, reminds me of Martial Arts in the 70's, when every numbnut Bruce Lee wanna be ran out and bought a pair of "Numbchucks" and ran around wearing the same clothes Bruce wore in Enter the Dragon or Game Of Death. Funny though, none of them ever could fight like Bruce, but they became great at cracking themselves in the head, elbows, knees and nuts, which is why nunchaku ended up being known as "Numbchucks".
A few of us actually skipped the garb and chucks method, and went to the people Bruce trained with - his friends/protgee's - to learn what it was Bruce actually did to get the results he got. Most of us had more success than the numbchucks and yellow/black tracksuited crowd, go figure lol.
I learned a huge amount about amplified tone from David Barret's site, cleared up a lot of mystery and improved my amplified tone tremendously. I've purchased my fair amount of gear, but what I spent on my first month's membership to Dave's site made 100 times more difference to the amplified tone(s) I could get than all the gear combined. No question about it.
@Chromaticblues- The answer to the amp on the first album (PBBB) IS a Fender 4x10 Tweed bassman. Rothchild (producer) makes reference to an Altec mic. Tom Ellis (formerly of Tom's Mics) suggests this was a re-badged EV crystal mic, a 926 (Tom Ellis has been a Butterfield historian for decades, contributing to the compilation of "The Elektra Years - An Anthology"). During '65 he is seen in live performance with a multitude of mics. Ellis reckons that around '65 the 545 gained popularity with Chicago players. So if he used the Altec/EV for the first album, he may well have settled on the 545 after that & during 66. We can only really speculate on the East West rig (or rigs...there's quite a variance in sounds, All These Blues could almost have come off the 1st album, East West ...not so much), suffice to say that during 66 Butterfield is mostly seen with a 545 (but on occasion with a JT30) and that he still had access to the Bassman, Super Reverbs & Twins. To try and specifically claim any one, or combination of, the above would be purely speculative.
He upsets the timeline by recording "Ressurection of Pigboy Crabshaw" acoustically (no reason to avoid it, beautiful tone). Though by/during '67 the bassman seems to have been a less common sight on the stage. He is seen with Twins, SRs, Deluxes, a Princeton in the following few years. He was sponsored by Fender & really doubt that the actual model of amp had a big effect on his tone, just the volume.
The amplified tone on "In my own dream" is what I guess a lot of guys would find most recogniseable & has much in common with contemporary & later PB recordings like Woodstock, Fathers & Sons & The Last Waltz (545S "pistol grip", tolex Fenders).
Sorry, can't help with "Too Many Drivers"...I haven't made it into the 70's or later yet...
Thanks Mark. I also agree with the "Resurection of pigboy crabshaw". That was a cool album. One more heartache is agreat song. I always felt that killed is own sound. I just don't like the sound of the 545. Although he may have used the 545 on "Too many drivers". That song sounded more like his earlier stuff but better recorded.
In speaking with my brother tonight,he reminded me of Kinya Pollard,who,IMHO,is the best Butterfield imitator I know. He is featured on David Barretts CD History of the Blues Harmonica Concert. Here is a letter from Kinya-
Hello All, Yes, I have one of Paul's 1965 black face Fender Super Reverb amps. For those of you who had an opportunity to play through it know it is a voracious beast and heavy as hell!
For the amp geeks out there, I checked all the make/serial numbers stamped onto the transformers against a Fender component list and found all were date coded 1964.
The Shure catalog pages submitted, along with the Butterfields photos were extraordinary (great wallpaper material). Thank you!
Shure has reissued the 545SD, the predecessor to the SM57, The 545SD Classic Unidyne® Instrument Microphone is a dual-impedance, unidirectional, dynamic microphone. http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/classic/545SD-classic...
I learned from Tom Ellis III, Paul Butterfield historian, that it was very common for Shure and Fender to "ring out" their new products by having the Paul Butterfield's Band road test their stuff. Makes sense ... all the photos I've seen of PBBB have Fender and Shure gear.
A must see DVD of Paul Butterfield featuring Buzzy Feiten on guitar is the German produced "Rockpalast", filmed live on September 15, 1978 in Essen at the Grugahalle. Available at: http://www.bluebeatmusic.com
Scroll through the pics, see Bloomfield blowing through the harps on top of the tweed bassman at one of the bands '66 gigs (Living End, Detroit, April), cross reference with the photo of the band from the same venue (Billy Davenport is in the band).
Paul Rothchild recorded 3 albums worth of material with Butterfield 64-65, as well as attending gigs at Big Johns, in the "lost sessions" liner notes he refers to Butter's "precious Altec mic & tweed Fender" that escaped the theft of gear from the New York pavement outside the Albert Hotel, immediately prior to the October '65 recording session at Mastertone that yeilded the PBBB album.
Whilst I relish and look forward to your posts (not sure that even my mum thinks of me as often as you do) our jovial correspondence is starting to clutter up the thread...as ever, you're welcome to e-mail me direct...jeez, you don't call, you don't write...;-) ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2011 6:08 PM
When I started a a thread a couple of weeks ago with the same title, and a great version of Everything's Gonna be Alright', I wrote that when I started playing amplified I would have tried to get Butterfields gear to reproduce his tone, but now I know better.
Whilst I am really interested in gear, and enjoy reading and learning about it (and what a wealth of knowledge we have on this forum) and would love to have PB's original mojo infused gear, to anyone who thinks that the gear will give you the tone and the mojo: good luck, and enjoy the journey. ---------- Lucky Lester
@didjcripey-I am not sure if Zack is still a member of this forum-I thought he was at one time-surprised he has not chimed in. Anyway,here is an example of a young Zack blowing through Butterfields amp-
Originally Posted by Zack Pomerleau It was a Super I think, it was big and tall. Check the video of me playing with Sam Lay (Butterfield's First Drummer) YouTube - Everything's Gonna Be Alright -PBFS Gathering 2007 Vibro looks nice, but I played Harmonica through Mr. Paul Butterfield's amp, and it rocked (he added new speakers, like 50 pounds each) and then Guitar through it, luscious. Might just go for it! But will do some research. I mean Bloomfield played through one, also a Super
I met Paul's son online, and his wife (Gabriel Butterfield is Paul's son, Salli is Gabriel's Wife). They invited me down for a little get together and they had that Amp. Rod Hicks was there, too, and Bob Corritore. If you ever want to send them a shout out send me a PM. At the end you can clearly see the amp, it is big.
@TMF No one is saying you are wrong about the Butter playing a super reverb and also a twin with a shure 545, But his sound at the beginning is NOT either one of those things. The only thing that has me confused is some of 70's studio stuff does not sound like any of his live music from the same period so he must have recrded with different equipment that would sound great recorded, but maybe didn't want to deal with feedback using the same stuff? Thats possible he played loud gigs. I might be wrong I haven't researched this, but if I am could someone post an example or just list it (I have 6 or more Butter CD's) of a live recording that sounds anything like "Too many Drivers". I believe at that he was playing live with the 545 thru a twin which IMHO even the great (and I'm not being sarcastic) Paul Butterfield didn't make sound very good! I'm not talking about his playing. I'm a big PB fan! I hated the tone! Some of the 70's studio stuff sounds like it wasn't with a 545 mic. In closing I'd like to say I think the combination of a 545 and a super or a twin sucks. The only reason PB did it was because it was free and maybe less prone to feedback!
