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Real Deal
by Steve Huey
The call came sooner than expected. Sam Lay became ill in late 1965 in Boston, and was hospitalized in Chicago. "They called me on a Friday night where I was working at Pepper's. They said they were going on the road, and there was a chance to make some real money; at that time I was making around $45 per weekend, and the pay wasn't working out. Paul called me about five times that night, and we talked and I asked him one question -- could I bring my wife. Paul said, 'You can bring your wife or your whole family, but we need you.' So on Monday morning we drove up to Detroit. We rehearsed three numbers that their drummer couldn't do, and Paul said, 'That's it. He's the drummer.' We left almost immediately for Hollywood, California." During the Boston gig the band had started playing a long improvisation, loosely titled "The Raga," which was soon named "East-West." "We were listening to a widening range of music," recalls Naftalin, "including Indian classical music, particularly that of Ravi Shankar," which obviously impressed Bloomfield. Soon he announced he had had a revelation with respect to Indian music and that he understood how it worked. The band began performing "The Raga." "This song was based, like Indian music, on a drone," explains Naftalin. "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. Every section ended with a big build-up of eighth note accents and a climactic break. Some, but not all, of the sections began peacefully and floated along for awhile before building to the break. In each section the soloist chose the mode, and throughout the song the drummer contributed not only the rhythmic feel but much in the way of tonal shadings, using mallets as well as sticks on the various drums and the different regions of the cymbals. "The first section was Elvin's solo; he set the mood for the piece. Starting with the second section Michael played lead on a series of sections where he explored different modes, or scales, some of which were suggestive of Indian or Arabic music and some of which were North American, as in blues, country & western or Mexican. "In places Elvin played tamboura-like drones, especially where Mike was experimenting with quasi-Eastern sounds. Elsewhere Elvin played rhythm parts and counter-melodies behind Mike. In some sections the two of them played parts that I would call double-leads. In the last section Paul came in with his solo, driving the tune into the final climax, which included harmonica and guitars at full wail and 'Joy to the World' on the organ in multiple octaves, capped on occasion by a series of musical 'amens.' This was a group improvisation. In its fullest flower it lasted over an hour." Certainly the "flowering" of East-West, and of the Butterfield band's expanding musical repertoire, accelerated exponentially with the addition of Davenport, a percussionist who could handle many styles and color and decorate long, improvised passages, something unheard of among blues drummers. Those close to the band, like Allen Bloomfield, heard the immediate impact Davenport had on the overall sound and musical direction. "Sammy Lay came from an R&B background, and as great as he was, he was more straight ahead. 'Mojo' and those songs were quite different from 'East-West'; Davenport was more refined, more delicate. He was very competent. It's possible that 'East-West' wouldn't have happened without him, because he is the source of movement in the song. Billy was so articulate. He was a good jazz drummer and had heard a lot of those guys, especially Max Roach. He was just so refined." In the early 1950s, when Muddy Waters and other first-generation electric bluesmen plugged in and amplified their rural blues, there was no such thing as a "blues drummer." Muddy pulled Fred Below from Chicago's jazz circles and Below's style set the format for blues drummers from that point forward. Late in the '50s Muddy brought in Francis Clay, another jazz drummer who reinvigorated blues rhythms. Now, nearly a decade later, Butterfield had injected the skills of Davenport, stewing even more jazz percussion back into the mix, opening up the music to improvisation as never before. If Below was the first great jazz drummer in blues and Clay the second, Davenport was certainly the third, and his playing expanded the role of drummer to even greater heights. "Paul never told me what to play," Davenport says. "He just said to play what I felt was best and try what I wanted. I'd never heard the band when I joined, just been in a jam with them. But when we got to California we spent a week rehearsing, and spent a lot of time on this thing called 'East-West.' It took a while for me to find out what I was going to do -- it was a strange rhythm thing. I first tried to play with a jazz beat, and that didn't work. They kept telling me it wasn't a rock beat or a jazz beat, but in-between -- and I didn't know what the hell in-between was. Then it dawned on me that there was one thing that might work, and that was bossa nova. And that became the pattern for what I played; it started with bossa nova, and I turned it around some and added some things. As the band grew and its performances began to garner rave reviews, Butterfield was also opening up. When he started the band in the early 1960s, his hard attitude and physical and psychological intimidation seemed molded on the "stone leader" concept of band leaders like Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter. "Paul was very temperamental," Lay told a radio interviewer. "He never did nothing to me, but he would go off on someone else in the band, and I'd have to settle him down." And as a stone leader, Butterfield was taking a bigger share of the money. But by the time the second Elektra album, East-West, appeared, all that had changed. Conversation and confrontations within the band had led to a more democratic unit, both financially and musically. Everyone was urged to contribute. Butter was no longer always the center of the show. Bishop and Bloomfield were both singing, while Bishop's musical style was allowed to grow and find definition. At some shows Bloomfield stunned the audience by eating fire: In 1995 Al Kooper told Bloomfield Notes that the fire-eating was "as exciting as Hendrix setting his guitar on fire or Townshend smashing his guitar." "East-West," significantly toned down for the album, became a showpiece for the guitarists, and a full-blown musical exploration for all involved. Butterfield had evolved from the approach of Wolf to that of Muddy, his mentor and great friend. Wolf was the hardened leader, barking orders to his troops, the headliner with a back-up band. Muddy more often took the paternalistic approach -- the leader who let his troops run with their musical abilities, the one who knew the value of a long-time relationship between his musicians and his music. Butterfield, by letting go of his ego and establishing equality in the group, unleashing his players, and by pushing his musicians to be better while soliciting their input, was expanding the scope of the blues band in the 1960s, much as Muddy had done with his seminal bands of the early 1950s. His own singing and instrumental prowess had also grown beyond that of any living harp player. For proof, listen to The Lost Elektra Sessions, then to East-West: On the former you hear a leader with sidemen, on the latter a cohesive ensemble with shifting personnel in the traditional frontman/leader's role. Butter's singing is markedly different, stronger. His playing is incredible. The Butterfield Band had become a great band-- and certainly no longer just a blues band. Butterfield was becoming a complete musician with a very effective style of leadership. Both were about to take on a new role they could never have imagined.
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