''East-West'' is the second

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...

by The Butterfield Blues Band led by

Paul Butterfield Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his n ...

, released in 1966 on Elektra Records, EKS 7315 in stereo, EKL 315 in

mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...

. It was recorded at the famed

Chess Studios Chess Records was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and ro ...

on 2120 South Michigan Avenue in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It peaked at #65 on the Billboard pop albums chart, and is regarded as highly influential by rock and blues music historians.

Content

Like the band's eponymous record debut,

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his n ...

, this album features traditional blues covers and the guitar work of

Mike Bloomfield Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American guitarist and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his ...

and Elvin Bishop. Unlike the debut album, Bishop also contributed guitar solos; drummer

Sam Lay Samuel Julian Lay (March 20, 1935January 29, 2022) was an American drummer and vocalist who performed from the late 1950s as a blues and R&B musician alongside Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and many others. He was inducted into ...

had left the band due to illness and was replaced by the more jazz-oriented

Billy Davenport Billy Davenport (April 23, 1931 – December 24, 1999) was an American drummer known for his work with blues musicians such as Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, and Paul Butterfield. He played on the Butterfield album '' Eas ...

. The social complexion of the band changed as well; ruled by Butterfield in the beginning, it evolved into more of a democracy both in terms of financial reward and input into repertoire. One result was the inclusion of two all-instrumental extended jams at the instigation of Bloomfield following the group's successful appearance at

The Fillmore The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California. Built in 1912 and originally named the Majestic Hall, it became the Fillmore Auditorium in 1954. It is in Western Addition, on the edge of the Fillmore District and Upper Fillm ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

during March alongside Jefferson Airplane. Both reflected his love of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, as the blue note-laden "

Work Song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and ...

" featuring harmonica by Butterfield had become a

hard bop Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...

standard, and the title track "East-West" used elements of

modal jazz Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...

as introduced by

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

on his ground-breaking '' Kind of Blue'' album. Bloomfield had become enamored of work by

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Born and raise ...

in that area, especially his incorporation of ideas from Indian raga music. The album also included

Michael Nesmith Robert Michael Nesmith or Mike Nesmith, (December 30, 1942 – December 10, 2021) was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He was best known as a member of the pop rock band the Monkees and co-star of the TV series ''The Monkees'' (1966� ...

's song " Mary, Mary," which Nesmith would soon record with his band

The Monkees The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was con ...

- although original pressings of ''East-West'' did not include a songwriter's credit for this track. On October 29, 2001, a reissue of this album

remastered Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

Bob Irwin Robert Eric Irwin (born 8 June 1939) is an Australian naturalist, animal conservationist, former zookeeper, and a herpetologist known for his conservation and husbandry work with apex predators and reptiles. He is the founder of the Queenslan ...

at Sundazed Studios and coupled with the debut appeared on Rhino WEA UK for the European market.

"East-West" track in music history

In 1996, original Butterfield Blues Band member

Mark Naftalin Mark Naftalin (born August 2, 1944) is an American blues keyboardist, recording artist, composer, and record producer. He appears on the first five albums by Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the mid 1960s as a band member, and as such was induc ...

(keyboards), who recorded on the album and is pictured on the cover of ''East-West'', released a CD on his own 'Winner' label entitled ''East-West Live'', comprising three extended live performance versions of the tune "East-West". Noted music critic and prolific author Dave Marsh contributed a substantial essay in the liner notes regarding the historic importance of the song, both the original 1966 recording and the live versions. Marsh, interviewing Naftalin, notes that the tune was inspired by an all-night

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

trip that "East-West"'s primary songwriter Mike Bloomfield experienced in the fall of 1965, during which the late guitarist "said he'd had a revelation into the workings of Indian music." Marsh's expansive liner notes observe that the song "East-West" "was an exploration of music that moved modally, rather than through chord changes. As Naftalin explains, "The song was based, like

Indian music Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk (Bollywood), rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed ove ...

, on a

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

. In Western musical terms, it 'stayed on the one'. The song was tethered to a four-beat bass pattern and structured as a series of sections, each with a different mood, mode and color, always underscored by the drummer, who contributed not only the rhythmic feel but much in the way of tonal shading, using mallets as well as sticks on the various drums and the different regions of the cymbals. In addition to playing beautiful solos, Paul utterfieldplayed important, unifying things n harmonicain the background - chords, melodies, counterpoints, counter-rhythms. This was a group improvisation. In its fullest form it lasted over an hour." In his summation, Marsh points out that "'East-West' can be heard as part of what sparked the West Coast's rock revolution, in which such song structures with extended improvisatory passages became commonplace." Going on to call the Butterfield Blues Band "one of the greatest bands of the rock era", Marsh concludes that "With 'East-West', above any other extended piece of the mid-Sixties, a rock band finally achieved a version of the musical freedom that

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

had found a few years earlier." The album is also credited with spawning the harder

acid rock Acid rock is a loosely defined type of rock music that evolved out of the mid-1960s garage punk movement and helped launch the psychedelic subculture. Named after lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), the style is generally defined by heavy, d ...

sound. The track "East-West", with its early use of the extended rock solo, has been described as laying "the roots of psychedelic acid rock" and featuring "much of acid-rock's eventual DNA". The band members appearing on the album were all inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Album cover

The album front cover was photographed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Track listing

Side one

Side two

Personnel

;The Butterfield Blues Band *

—

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

, harmonica *

—

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

* Elvin Bishop — electric guitar, lead vocals on "Never Say No" *

Jerome Arnold Jerome Arnold (born Romeo Maurice Arnold; November 12, 1936, Chicago) is an American bassist, known for his work with Howlin' Wolf, and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the 1960s. As an original member of the Butterfield band, he was subsequent ...

— bass *

— drums *

—

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, organ ;Technical *

Jac Holzman Jac Holzman (born September 15, 1931) is an American music businessman, best known as the founder, chief executive officer and head of record label Elektra Records and Nonesuch Records. Holzman commercially helped launch the CD and home video form ...

- production supervisor *William S. Harvey - cover design, photography

Charts

References

External links

Michael Bloomfield Chronology & Analysis
* ttp://www.bluesaccess.com/No_25/butter.html Paul Butterfield- The Glory Years (includes further look at East-West development)br>Paul Butterfield Blues Band in concert (including East-West) Fillmore Auditorium, 10/14/66
{{Authority control 1966 albums Paul Butterfield Blues Band albums Albums produced by Paul A. Rothchild Albums produced by Mark Abramson Elektra Records albums Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Acid rock albums