University of Virginia Library

Paul Who?

Hm. Openings weekend concert.
With whom? Oh,The James Gang.
Yeah, a good young group. Lots of
promise. Ought to be interesting
but, wait, what's this? With the
Butterfield Blues Band? Featuring
Paul Butterfield? Isn't he the one
who sparked the current blues
revival, who helped launch Michael
Bloomfield, who's probably the
finest blues harp player alive today
and among the best blues men,
white or black, in this country?

Yeah, I thought that was he.
But, there must be some mistake.
The James Gang appears to
dominate the billing. Why one
would almost think they were the
featured group. Oh they are?

Seriously, folks, isn't this a mite
ludicrous? Mr. Butterfield's
influence on the current musical
scene can hardly be over-estimated.
Before his epochal first album in
1965, the blues was purely a cult
phenomenon, performed by
obscure blacks, supported by a
small but dedicated group of whites
who were determined that this
vital, basic American music should
not die.

Butterfield's first album changed
all that. It brought the blues, hard,
driving real blues into the current
musical scene and opened people's
minds to the incredibly current
beauty of a music that many
already regarded as anachronistic.
Certainly, Mr. Butterfield was not
the first white bluesman, but it was
the success of his record that
opened the doors to so many
musicians.

However, to some at this school,
apparently this is a dubious
achievement. I cannot explain the
power of good blues, its purity and
universality, neither can I
adequately describe its cathartic
effect or the joy and peace that
springs from the depth of a good
bluesman's wisdom, the wisdom
borne of an understanding of an
entire races' unreasoned oppression;
but perhaps I can hint at its
importance.

I expect its unarguable that
nearly all popular music (the James
Gang included) is either rock or
jazz, in some combination, and the
plain fact is both rock and jazz
spring from the blues. Even country
and western, the last refuge of the
fierce white, draws heavily on it. I
doubt if a more important
bluesman will ever appear at this
university, for I doubt that our
cloistered gentlemen could accept
Muddy Waters of Howlin' Wolf,
and I'm ashamed that our school
has treated Mr. Butterfield so
shabbily.

By the way, I intended to point
out some of the myriad errors in
Mr. Grymes preview, but they all
seem so trivial compared to the
monumental stupidity of PK
German, that I'll decline.