Every generation has pop music heroes who briefly capture the imagination of the mainstream market
with catchy melodies. The marketing departments of their record labels are always
quick to provide fans with a shallow biography that employs descriptors
like great or ground breaking, but most of that process is about crass commercialism
rather the music. Unfortunately, too
many of these heroes have careers that
just bump and grind across the stage for what seems like only an hour or so before
they disappear into the shadows, where they are heard no more.
Then there are our anti-heroes who recoil from that mainstream spectacle in favor
the opportunity to create their art on the quieter periphery. It's in that place that they are more likely to create a body of music which resonates with several generations of listeners who are not fooled by the mainstream
antics. These artists often become the most significant contributors
to popular music, rightfully earning descriptors like great
and groundbreaking.
A good example of this type of artist is America's first
guitar hero Michael Bloomfield. When he is a comparatively obscure guitarist in the mid-sixties, Bob Dylan offers him a lucrative position as
the principal guitarist in his band, but the idealist rejects the offer with all the
passion of a 19th century French artist who believes in l'art pour l'art. Bloomfield doesn't want the mainstream spotlight, he wants to
practice his craft with the fledgling Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
There are many in the mainstream who think Bloomfield's decision
is naive, maybe even unwise, but the virtuoso
guitarist hears an energy coming out of Paul Butterfield many don't understand
yet. He hears the band's 23 year old leader interpret urban blues with the
skill of a journeymen communicating the urgency of someone about to commit murder or make love - but never
in between. He knows that Paul Butterfield is the real deal, and is quick to publicly announce his commitment telling filmmaker Michael Lerner, Butterfield is something else, he feels it.
He's in there all the way. He is a blues singer. There is no white bullshit
with Butterfield. It is more than
just an calculated endorsement from one a colleague to another. This is a
recognition from a respected artist in his own right that Paul Butterfield is
not just some white kid aping the songs of older blues men, but rather a man
able to lead urban blues to the next step in its evolution.
If we compare early Butterfield
band recordings with all other young blues bands of the era, we hear an artist reaching for a dream of transcending the confines of genre,
race and all other convenient mainstream industry labels. It is a quality that surpasses technique, natural talent, and is intuitively recognized by the listener as
something more emotionally complex. As Butterfield confides to one interviewer, The
blues to me is any kind of music that has a heavy feeling. Music is a universal thing. You feel music,
you play music. It doesn't belong to a black man. It doesn't belong to a white
man. It isn't just the attitude of an artist as a young man that sets him
apart from herd, but his desire to travel an ambitious road,
one which will not always be paved. If Butterfield is to free himself from these shackles
of the status quo, he will need
to listen with big ears, employ immense
ingenuity, and demonstrate a unique ability to lead
people toward the realization of his dream.
One of Paul Butterfield's most overlooked talents will be his strength as a bandleader. Similar to a few other great leaders like Duke Ellington, he consistently demonstrates an extraordinary ability to recognize skilled musicians, and lead them to a place where they want to create rather than decimate. Consider the numerous musicians he enlists for
various incarnations of his Butterfield bands, and you should notice that many of them will permeate popular music for the next two
generations, and make their own important contributions as influential instrumentalists,
bandleaders, session players, songwriters, inventors. It is this overlooked talent
as a leader that often denies Paul Butterfield recognition as one of the twentieth
century's greatest bandleaders. 
However, the most significant contribution of Paul Butterfield's legacy is his music. He
starts out his career with a dream of a new music, and we now know from his
body of work that he succeeded. We have eleven official albums which are always a very hip, yeasty blend of blues, rock, folk, jazz, R&B,
gospel, all of it anti-pop. It is this profound legacy that places him in the enviable position of an early
pioneer in a new genre of music which will become known as Americana. Almost as impressive is the fact that three
decades after his death, with minimal
industry promotion, and no grueling road tours, all of his albums are still in print.
It is an monumental feat very few artists enjoy.
These important accomplishments come at a cost to
anti-heroes though. Since they are not producing product for mainstream
markets, record label accounting departments tend to neglect them, and then many trade journalists underrate their contributions. In spite of the fact that Paul Butterfield is
as important an artist as Charlie Parker or Miles Davis, until now, there have been
no extensive biographies, or documentaries that single out his enormous
contributions to popular music. Outside snippets of shallow biographies found
in old trade magazines we know very little of Paul Butterfield the artist. There are distant voices like veteran Jazz
writer and broadcaster Jim Gallert who says, This man is so underrated. People talked about Miles Davis as the
harbinger of jazz rock, but Paul Butterfield was doing this fusion between jazz
and blues in a different way, but those insightful words are scarce. The last
three decades since his passing have shown us that the people who keep Paul
Butterfield's contributions alive are in fact his devoted fans.
As a testament to the
reality, consider this anecdotal evidence: In the mid-sixties a self-described folkie by the name of Sandra Warren has
her first encounter with Butterfield's music when buys an Elektra Records sampler
called Folksong '65. The album features the band's youthfully bold version of their song Born in Chicago. Similar to so many other young people of era,
something about the attitude conveyed through the music resonates inside her, and she rushes out to buy
his first album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Then the band is booked
to play several nights at Cafe Au Go-Go in New York City's bohemian neighborhood
of Greenwich Village, and she goes to hear them live, not once, but several times. She
is transfixed enough that his music will now play a recurring role in the
soundtrack of her life. What Warren doesn't know then is that her love for his music will inspire her own
dream. One which will demand that she listen with big ears, employ immense
ingenuity, and demonstrate a unique ability to lead people toward making her dream a
reality. Sandra Warren's dream will be to make a documentary about the story of Paul Butterfield.
Part of her task as the producer is to enlist a talented team who
will make the project into a definite success. The key member of Warren's team is award winning director John Anderson. He has documented some of the most important
contributors to popular music of the last century, from pop icons The Beach
Boys, and Paul McCartney to punk poet Patti Smith, and the king of Chicago
blues drummers, Sam Lay, so he is perfect fit for a documentary on Paul
Butterfield.
It should be noted that Anderson's new film Horn
From The Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story is not concert film, or a story
about Paul Butterfield's music, we already have his impressive body of work. Anderson uses extensive historical research, fresh insightful
interviews with family, close friends, and former colleagues
to peel back the multiple layers of Butterfield's life to tell us the
story of the man who created the music.
Paul Butterfield belongs to a very elite group of artists in
history because of his unique gifts, but he was human too. Viewers will hear very poignant stories of battles between his passion for music, and own his emotional frailties. They will feel his deep
love for family which is complicated with his self destructive obsessions. Then there is betrayal
of his trust by his associates which places him on a painfully tragic journey. All
of it is peppered with wry humor, and heartwarming anecdotes from people who really
knew him well. After viewing the film, the viewer will realize that while Paul Butterfield really did belong to an elite group of artists, he was also one of us.
Similar to other important anti-heroes in music such as Charlie Parker, Mike Bloomfield and Bob Dylan, Paul Butterfield refused to submit to mainstream expectations, and instead set out to create a new music, one that was not shackled by genre or race, and he succeeded. We have always had his music, but until now, we have known very little about the man who created the music. John Anderson's Horn From The Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story fills that void with his documentary about one of America's most important artists. It will
delight fans, and finally give Paul Butterfield his rightful place in history.
https:
https:
