Blues ’66, Part Two: John Lee Hooker and the Butterfield Blues Band
Crawdaddy Features John Lee HookerThis article originally appeared in Issue 6 of Crawdaddy on October 20, 1966.
[John Lee Hooker, of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Detroit, Michigan, is one of Americaâs best-known blues singers, He sings and plays in an intensely personal style that is neither Chicago nor Delta; he has performed in almost every club and recorded for practically every blues label in the world. This interview was recorded June 30, 1966, at the Club 47 in Cambridge, Mass; Ken Dawson, engineer; Paul Williams, interviewer]
CRAWDADDY: How long have you been playing professionally?
JOHN LEE HOOKER: Well, professionally, since â49.
CRAWDADDY: Have you been using an electric guitar since the beginning?
JLH: No, l didnât start with an electric guitar. I started with an acoustic, you know, with the round hole, an old Stella, and when I made âBoogie Chillun,â thatâs what I made it on. âBoogie Chillun,â and a few more of my hits down the line, those were made with just a plain guitar.
CRAWDADDY: What made you start using an electric?
JLH: Well, some places you have to, because when youâre playing for dances you canât sit down with an acoustic and people not hear you âcause you canât hit it hard enough, and then the same thing when I play in bars, you know, the people drinking and you got to have something to be over them, donât you just be there playing and nothing happening, so you figure youâll just have to use that. But l love acoustic guitar. A house like this is the place for it, because peopleâre listening to what youâre doing.
CRAWDADDY: Do you do a different sort of thing when youâre playing a different instrument?
JLH: Yeah, and see with different types of audiences you do different types of things, and particularly youâll find that some places you play some of them want it loud, that rock ânâ roll bunch, so you gotta be loud, âcause if youâre not you just better go somewhere and sit down, they donât want to hear you when youâre quiet. Then you might run into a type of audience, they want it quiet, they want to listen, they want you just play it low and they want to hear what youâre saying, they want to hear your voice.
CRAWDADDY: And you use a different kind of material depending on the audience?
JLH: No, I use the same material. But just sort of, I could take the same thing that Iâm playing now and play it for any audience, any nationality, and you could use it with the band, with a little moreâitâs the same thing but it just got a little more punch to it. And, well, I wonât leave my style, because Iâm known to have this style. No matter how and where I go, Iâm gonna keep this trademark, I may hop it up or brush it up or have maybe a four- or five-piece band behind it, but Iâm still playing John Lee Hooker.
CRAWDADDY: Most of the material you use is either stuff you wrote, or stuff you rewrote from traditional material. Do you still do a lot of songwriting?
JLH: Yeah. The Animals do a great deal of my stuff. You take Eric Burdon, I guess you heard of him, heâs with the Animals, I and him is real good friends and I go over there about three times a year you know, for the last five years or so. So I got to know them, theyâre a bunch of nice fellowsâand the Rolling Stones, I know themâso uh, they do a lot of my material, and I like the way they do it. Eric just recorded a new thing of mine called âMaudie.â He really does sing. It was very good, the way he did it.
CRAWDADDY: You worked in clubs over there? What sort of a scene was it?
JLH: Well, it was mostly a teenage scene, they like it loud. Theyâve got some loud groups over there, but theyâre good, though. Thereâs a lot of good blues groups over there too, Alexis Korner, Georgie Fame, Long John Baldryâyou heard of him?
CRAWDADDY: I understand there are a lot of young kids over there whoâve been listening to the blues, who know whatâs going on, more than over here.
JLH: Yeah, they do. Theyâre more hep to it than they are over here, they know just whatâs going on. They know a lot of my old tunes that I done forgot, and they donât just know them, they got them; theyâre right down with it. People are more serious. Theyâre just right down to earth. They donât pull no punches I mean, because theyâre down with the blues and thatâs just the way they are.
CRAWDADDY: Have you heard any of the blues groups thatâre coming up over here? What do you think of them?
JLH: I like, uh, Paul Butterfield, good group. Thereâs another group over here in Boston that I like, too, canât think of the nameâŚthe Hallucinations. They backed me once, I think theyâre very good.
CRAWDADDY: Are you familiar with the people who are working in Chicago now?
JLH: Well, I donât work too much in Chicago, but I get over there a lot. Chicago got some real swinging hip blues singers.
CRAWDADDY: Who do you really like?
JLH: Muddy Waters. A lot of them is good, but me and Muddy is such close friends. I always have admired him. See, he was recording before I was. And when I heard him, before I started to record, I said, âThereâs one man I want to be like.â Thereâs a lot of other good blues singers, and donât think lâm taking nothing from any of them, theyâre good, but when you get to know a person personally, personal friends you know, it goes a little deeper.
CRAWDADDY: Do you find over the last couple of years itâs been easier to get gigs? I imagine there must have been slow periods, around â60, â61âŚ
JLH: Well, I donât know. I guess I must have been lucky, I never had a hard time getting work, because I had a field all to myself and a different style, so I didnât have any problems. Thereâs a lot of musicians thatâs real good, fantastic, but sometimes you done heard one you heard âem all. So I been lucky, I just had a field all to myself.
CRAWDADDY: How much do you work with a song? After you do it once, do you do it again the same way?
JLH: Well, some songs, yeah. Some I donât. And itâs mostly, you know, the way l feel. Sometimes I do it different. Sometimes I feel like I can put something to it and make it better; and I do it, I do it deliberately. I feel like this: these words here that Iâm going to say, it comes, it really rushes in me and I feel like I should do it, and I do.
CRAWDADDY: Youâve worked with a lot of labels, Crown, Vee-Jay, Chess, youâre working with Impulse now. What do you think of these places?
JLH: Vee-Jay was the best I worked for. Iâd been with them so long, ten years, they just let me do what I wanted to do.
CRAWDADDY: Are you still recording 45s, singles?
JLH: Yeah, I got a new one out now, âLetâs Go Out Tonight,â on Chess, itâs an old recording but itâs got a modern beat on it. And also theyâre putting out another album on me, too, theyâve got about twelve or sixteen sides of old stuff, So theyâre putting out all this stuff because itâs selling bigger now, itâs got a bigger market. At the time I recorded that stuff, it was just sort of a lot of kids that didnât know about no blues, which wasnât buying none then, but theyâre buying them today.
CRAWDADDY: Why do you think that changed?
JLH: Well, you know, everything changes, the whole world changes.
CRAWDADDY: Do you think the blues is gonna keep on, uhâŚ
JLH: Oh yeah, theyâre here to stay.
CRAWDADDY: Are there new people coming up that can play it?
JLH: Yeah, thereâs new people coming up, the marketâs getting bigger for the blues, more people understanding the blues, theyâre digging the blues. So blues is here to stay, âcause blues is the root of all music, jazz, ballads, rock ânâ roll, everything comes from blues, just stepped it up and changed it a little bit but itâs all blues, when you get right down to where itâs at, it all come from the blues.
[The Butterfield Blues Band was formed in Chicago in 1964 and has developed into one of the finest small bands in the country in any field. The present members are: Paul Butterfield, harmonica and vocal; Mike Bloom?eld, guitar; Elvin Bishop, guitar; Jerome Arnold, bass; Mark Naftalin, organ and piano; and Billy Davenport, drums. This interview which concentrates on the more vocal members of the band, was recorded June 24, 1966, at Cambridgeâs Club 47; Daniel Alexander, engineer: Pamela Mafz, transcriber; Paul Williams, interviewer and editor. The assistance of Mark Dorenson, road manager for the Butterfield Band, was extremely valuable in conducting the interview]
CRAWDADDY: The question is, basically, what do you call yourself now? Electric blues? Do you think youâre in some sort of a bag?
MIKE BLOOMFIELD: We used to be in what you would call an exclusively Chicago blues thing, but weâve come out of it in the last few months and weâre gradually working into the establishment of possibly a new idiom. Who knows?
CRAWDADDY: Youâre not moving in any specific direction, itâs just what you want to do now?
BLOOMFIELD: Itâs just whatâs coming out of us.
PAUL BUTTERFIELD [off-mike]: You guys take care of it. I sign my name.
BLOOMFIELD: Everybody in the groups got a different background, a different thing. And everybody also, with the different backgrounds, has a very much mutual background due to the heterogeneous nature of our organizationâyou know, we get our own uniquely musical blend on certain numbers. And Iâll say this, the level of musicianship of our group is higher than almost any group of this nature that Iâve heard in the country. Almost any rock band that Iâve heard. Paulâs the best in his field; thereâs not a person living in the world today that can cut him.
CRAWDADDY: What is your personal background? I know you had a contract with Columbia for a whileâŚ
BLOOMFIELD: lâve been playing professional rock ânâ roll since I was fifteen.
CRAWDADDY: What sort of stuff were you doing before you got together with the band?
BLOOMFIELD: Working with a guy named Nick Gravenites, a band with him.
CRAWDADDY: You had a rock band then?
BLOOMFIELD: Well, no, it was a band sort of like this, but not nearly as tight or as good. But it was mostly Nickâs tunes, heâs a songwriter.
CRAWDADDY: Whatâs he doing now?
BLOOMFIELD: Heâs running a club in Chicago. Nick Gravenites in Chicago is one of the greatest singers and composers in the folk idiom, in the blues idiom, in the last five or ten years. And B. B. King is one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, and more people should listen to B. B. Kingâs records and his band work and his guitar playing, âcause heâs one of the greatest ones of all. Percy Mayfield too.
CRAWDADDY: Youâve been with the band since Sam Lay quit?
BILLY DAVENPORT: Yes, since December.
CRAWDADDY: Have you done any r&b drumming before?
DAVENPORT: Oh yes, l worked with quite a few men, but not no longer. It was mostly local, back in Chicago.
CRAWDADDY: Whatâs going on in Chicago now?
DAVENPORT: Well, thereâs quite a few blues things going on now in Chicago, more so than in the jazz field, even rock ânâ roll, because like the South Side is full of blues now, and itâs getting more further north than it was a few years ago.
CRAWDADDY: What sort of an audience does a man like, say, Johnny Youngâguys who arenât as well-known as Muddy Watersâget? Is it still largely a Negro audience?
DAVENPORT: Well, you find that now, like I say, itâs moving mostly to the north, and you can find it mixed. Itâs not exactly one audience now, one particular race of people. Everybodyâs beginning to learn more of the blues here than it was, like five, ten years ago.
CRAWDADDY: You find itâs more the young kids who are coming in?
DAVENPORT: Yeah, Iâd say right now thereâs at least 60 or 70 percent of the younger people that is catching on to the blues.
CRAWDADDY: Do you think thatâs because of the interest some of the rock ânâ roll groups are showing in the blues?
DAVENPORT: Yeah, because for instance the Beatles, I believe when they first started they were strictly rock, but theyâve done quite a few blues now, and you canât say itâs because they were listening to the Negro, you know, altogether; itâs just some blues things have a pretty good meaning to it, and if itâs a song I say itâs a song, I donât care who wrote it or playing it. Thatâs the way I am, whether itâs rock ânâ roll, jazz, or blues, if itâs got a good meaning to it, itâs a good song.
CRAWDADDY: How do you feel about what youâre doing with the Butterfield Band right now? I mean you started out as the newest person in the group. You feel pretty much at ease?
DAVENPORT: Yeah, when I first started I was all on edge because it was the first time, you know, that I had ever played with a mixed band, for one thing, and I didnât really know how it would work out at all. And what it is, well, it worked out wonderful for me, I mean everybody respects me and I respect them. And what they got is mine if l need it and everything. In fact, when I left home, I left home with three dollars in my pocket, but it wasnât for long, though. And then you say itâs a new thing, but itâs not really a new thingâbecause if you go back years and years you find like guys like Benny Goodman had guys like Lionel Hampton, and I canât think of the clarinet player, he had Billie Holiday singing vocal. You know, itâs not a new thing, but itâs more of a popular thing now than it was then, because musicians now, when youâre on the bandstand now thereâs no one thinking in terms of race, theyâre thinking in terms of music. If youâre qualified to play what the next guyâs playing, good. If youâre not, then they get somebody else.
CRAWDADDY: Do you find that playing with guys like Paul, they really have the same feel for the stuff that the people you were playing with in Chicago do? Because the backgroundâs different, I mean youâd expect theyâd at least have a different orientation.
DAVENPORT: Well, I donât know, because when you speak of one particular city like that, everybody is just about on the same thing. Iâve known Paulâand Elvin and Jerome, tooâabout six or seven years now. And I canât say thereâs a difference; once a guy learns how to play his instrument and you learn what heâs doing, itâs about the same.
CRAWDADDY: Whatâs the recording scene like right now? It seems a number of people are getting recorded who didnât get that chance before.
DAVENPORT: Well, itâs like I said, thereâs a change here going on in the last four, maybe five years or so. Then, if you didnât have a name, I donât think there was too many recording companies accepting an unknown to cut blues. But now if youâve got a good sound and youâre playing the blues, itâs a matter of if the company like you and they accept you. Because the band here, we cut an album and it was a strictly blues album, although we have a couple of tunes thatâs a little rock on there, but itâs mostly a blues album and the company was thrilled over it, everything came out perfect.
CRAWDADDY: I donât know if thereâs much you can say or not, but Iâm interested in your comments on your own work as a drummer.
DAVENPORT: Well, I feel like I got to get down to a little more studying, because thereâs whole lots yet I got to learn, and because I feel that sometimes Iâm capable of putting on a good show, and the next time it looks like thereâs something lacking, l donât know. But right now I keeps in my books every day, you know, I goes over my rudiments and things; and maybe another couple of years Iâll be halfway where I want to be. Iâm not the best, Iâm not the worst, Iâm in between there somewhere.
CRAWDADDY: Youâve been doing both club gigs and concert gigs; are concerts pretty much of a drag?
DAVENPORT: No, I think theyâre wonderful. For one thing, you donât have to work so hard so long. You do a half an hourâs work and you get a full weekâs pay.
CRAWDADDY: At some of the concerts they have a lot of trouble setting up the sound system and that sort of thingâŚ
DAVENPORT: I wasnât worried about the sound. I was worried about who was going to pay me.
CRAWDADDY: What are the cities where you find you can draw the most people now?
DAVENPORT: Well, I would say number one really is San Francisco. And this is a very nice club to work in here, though I wish it was a little biggerâŚ
CRAWDADDY: About this new electric blues businessâŚ
MIKE BLOOMFIELD: The blues has been electric since the forties. Most blues guitar players, even the old country cats, have electric guitars. They all do. They record for Folkways and Prestige without electric guitars, but they have them. Electric is ethnic, man, electric is where itâs at, itâs old as can beâŚand I think electric music is really the music of the future. YouâII find that all music will be amplified one day. Itâs a new type of musicianship. Itâs a musicianship of this generation.
CRAWDADDY: Is the band pretty much open to doing any kind of music?
BLOOMFIELD: No, different cats are purists, different cats simply refuse to do certain kinds of music. Thereâs music that I just canât get interested in. We have our hang-ups, but thereâs tunes we agree upon. Besides, we play blues, blues-based music, best.
CRAWDADDY: A number of people are interested in a particular style of yours, the slide guitar.
BLOOMFIELD: I donât play slide but very seldom.
CRAWDADDY: Yeah, I noticed you did more earlier this year than you do now.
BLOOMFIELD: Right, because my main style is playing the slide guitar with my fingers, not using the slide, you know, doing it by tremeloing your fingers. Slide guitar was put on the record. Itâs bottleneck. I donât use it much, just for certain tunes, and for certain effects which I can get much clearer with my fingers than I can with a slide.
CRAWDADDY: Are you familiar with other people who are playing this sort of electric guitar?
BLOOMFIELD: The masters Iâm familiar with: Elmore James and Muddy Waters. And Iâm familiar with a few other cats in the country who play guitar in my style and are my equal or betterâHarvey Mandel in Chicago; Eliot lngberton [spelling uncertain] in Los Angeles; a very good cat, Robbie Robertson, from Canada, who plays with Bob Dylan; and uh, thereâs me; and a cat named John DeWeiss who isnât quite where those other cats are, but heâs very good. Heâs right here from Boston. And Jeff Beck, whoâs one of the finest modern blues guitar players strictly in the blues idiom that Iâve ever met in my life. Itâs unfortunate that he doesnât play that way on the Yardbird records. But Iâve had the privilege, the stone privilege of hearing that dude play blues. Heâs number one out of sight, a great guitar player. And thereâs a guy named Alex is
Korner thatâs very good; heâs been around for many years in England.
CRAWDADDY: What do you think of your new album?
BLOOMFIELD: Well, thereâs one very long piece that I like. And Elvin sings a tune Iâm very fond of on the album. I like it, itâs more modern than our other album, but I still donât think itâs as good as us in person. And I thought that first album was one of the poorest production jobs, in terms of soundâŚbut it was my fault, too, âcause I was there at the editing and I didnât take care of business as well as I should have.
CRAWDADDY: Whatâs your opinion of the Elektra recording studios?
BLOOMFIELD: I donât think Elektra is as good as youâll find. I donât think Elektra holds a candle to Motown, the Motown sound. The Beach Boys and the Beatles on Capitol, their sound is far superior to Elektraâs [editorâs note: neither group, however, has ever actually recorded in Capitolâs studios].
JEROME ARNOLD: Even Garfunkel and those people on Columbia with Bob Johnston are much better. See, when we recorded the first album we were dealing with engineers and a&r people who had just been working with folk music, and they had never done any amplified stuff before, and that put us at sort of a disadvantage. A lot of things got away; the things that they did catch, I donât think they utilized them to the fullest.
BLOOMFIELD: Absolutely. My sentiments exactly.
CRAWDADDY: Who do you think is important thatâs working now?
PAUL BUTTERFIELD: Let me turn it over to my man ElvinâŚ
ELVIN BISHOP: As far as blues in general is concerned, very few people are important that donât originate in Chicago: Wolf, Otis Flush, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, us to a certain extent, and none of the other white blues groups that l know of. None of them, that Iâve heard, that is, really have anything. And we donât primarily do blues anymore. The tunes that Paul does now are pretty indicative. Itâs not really stone-hard-down blues anymore; he does one of Wolfâs tunes that is uptempo r&b. He does two Percy Mayfield tunes, both of which are arranged by Ray Charles, and just tough modern r&b. The thing is, everything we do is blues-based, but music is getting more complex, further away from the nitty-gritty down-home sound.
CRAWDADDY: Like that last jam [âEast-Westâ], for example.
BISHOP: Yeah, well this thingâwell, you could call it jazzâitâs sort of an experimental thing, it changes every time we do it. It has a general structure, but outside of that, the things that we do vary with the set. Tunes like that that we do reflect the collective background of the group, which includes not onlyâbasically, with everyone itâs down-home blues, but thereâs also jazz. People listen to Indian music, different genres of jazz, like from Cannonball on up to Ornette Coleman.
CRAWDADDY: Do you think thereâs anything in what the guys are doing who arenât working in the electric sounds? I mean like Koerner, Ray & Glover, andâŚ
BISHOP: Well you see, the thing is, that type of music by definition is dead. It canât develop any further. Itâs like classical languages and literature. Cats can sit and cop from a record that was recorded in 1920 or â30, and thereâs nothing more they can do with it. Itâs always going to be a ways off, a relatively cold thing without any blood, because thatâs not the environment they grew up in. You take Paul and I, and certain other members of the group, namely Billy and Jeromeâactually, Billy and Jerome grew up with the thing, the Chicago blues thing, and Paul and I have been in it for five, six, seven yearsâŚAnd the music that we play, the Chicago blues, we can connect that with experiences that weâve had over the last six or seven years, the people that we know. When I was in school, the cats that taught me were the guitar players on the South Side that played in blues bands. I would go and stay with them and learn, and for certain periods of time live the way that they lived, and have the same concerns. And when you go to the bandstand, the things that youâre singing about and the tunes that youâre playing have a whole lot to do with the life that youâre living. Itâs like a thing that youâre in, rather than a thing youâre outside of that you try to cop.
CRAWDADDY: And you feel that whatever you are doing now has developed out of the Chicago blues band?
BISHOP: Well, to me, mine has. I canât speak for the other people.
CRAWDADDY: Would you call what youâre doing the electronic sound?
BISHOP: l would never think of it that way. Ever since Iâve been listening to music, Iâve heard bands that use electronic amplification, and itâs just a natural thing to me. Youâd have to come from a background of folk music before youâd think that using electronic instruments was anything exceptional.
CRAWDADDY: But it isnât just playing an instrument and amplifying it. It seems to me that, at least for you, itâs more of a unique sound characteristic of the electronic machine.
BISHOP: Well, if youâre a decent musician, then youâre able to use the resources that your instrument makes available to you, and since we use electric instruments we try to take advantage of the characteristics of that type of instrument.
BUTTERFIELD: You see, itâs just a different armature, a different way of playing, playing amplified. You have a lot of different subtleties you can get out, and itâs much different than playing the acoustical.
BISHOP: Say youâre singing, or playing an instrument, be it a saxophone, a flute, or a harmonica, through a microphone; if youâre singing without a microphone, itâs not exactly a different instrument. Youâre playing the same notes, but itâs a matter of technique. If youâre singing straight out or playing a harmonica straight out without a microphone, you just go ahead and do what youâre going to do, but if youâve got a microphone you have to consider it as another dimension. You back up from the mike when you sing loud, to keep the thing the same and yet increase the intensity of your voiceâŚIf you sing loud right into the microphone, itâs going to bring a certain element of distortion in. What you do is just learn to automatically back the mike up from your mouth and get the degree of distortion that you want, because distortion is sometimes desirable. Same thing with a guitar. Playing an acoustic guitar, well, itâs just all the same, you know. If you play an electric you have two or three more things that you have to take into consideration, because of, like, unwanted noises that wouldnât really show up if you were playing an acoustic guitar, and like, thereâs a certain grating sound that you can get by, uhâif you turn your amplifier up and your guitar down, you get distortion. If you turn your guitar up and your amplifier down, you get a clearer sound. You can learn to control that to get the amount of distortion that you want, because distortion on an electric guitar can be very exciting if you handle it right.
CRAWDADDY: How about the difference here between your performing and your recording? I imagine itâs almost two different media.
BISHOP: Well, yeah, itâs a whole art in itself, learning how to conduct yourself in a recording studio, because itâs just a whole different set of resources that are at your fingertips. Recording is much easier than playing on the bandstand, because when youâre on the bandstand, well, itâs just you and the people. If you want to singâsay you have a real driving, loud background, your voice has to be strong to match it. In a recording studio, you can pre-record a loud, driving background and then sing at a softer level and have the engineer turn your singing up. When you record in a studio, you usually have a mike on each instrument, or each person, each voice, and the engineer can mix them to his own desire, you know, like the relative volumes are completely changeable. When youâre on the bandstand you have to take care of your own part right then and there. Itâs an on-the-spot thing, you really have to be together to make it sound right.
CRAWDADDY: What difference does it make having an audience there?
BISHOP: Itâs a world of difference.
CRAWDADDY: Do you feel the audience?
BISHOP: Well, Iâve seen a lot of bands that donât seem to, but our band, well, if youâll pardon the expression, the soul is real close to the surface. The way people react really makes a big difference. Because with our band, we rehearse occasionally and get our tunes together and make up the arrangements and so forth, and that helps, but the real thing that the whole performance hinges on is how each person feels at the moment. If youâve got a lot of people out there that are on your side, then youâre going to, you know, just sing your butt off. Itâs just a matter of how you feel, because you may be out onstage and if the people arenât digging it, then self-consciousness sets in, you get uptight and nervous and everything. That doesnât happen so much with us, but itâs just like being turned off. Our normal thing is being just keyed up and oblivious of everything but the music, and we could have our eyes closed and justâyou could practice at home and get your technique down and so forth, but when it comes to really blowing those beautiful phrases and the really exceptional things, that comes from feeling.
And within the last few months the people in this group have really gotten together to the point that any time we get together to play we just sort of, after you count âone-two, one-two-three-four, POW!â youâre into it, until it really doesnât make much difference whoâs out there too much. Like if an audience is really yelling and screaming and digging it, that can have a positive effect, but really nothing too much can have a negative effect, because weâre playing our music and we know weâre playing it, and we can hear the other cats playing it and itâs just a matter of close your eyes and groove.
CRAWDADDY: Whereâs your favorite place to play?
BISHOP: San Francisco.
CRAWDADDY: Yeah, thatâs what they all say. Why?
BISHOP: Well, because we seem to have a very large following there. The people dig our music. We played a concert at Berkeley and 7,000 people showed up, and we played the Fillmore Auditorium a few times and it was capacity both times. And the people seemed to understand. People are much freer in San Francisco than other places.
CRAWDADDY: Do you ever pick up a very big Negro audience?
BISHOP: Sure, in Chicago. This is the first group l ever played in with any other white members.
CRAWDADDY: What blues singers do you particularly enjoy?
BISHOP: When I listen to blues, it tends to be the more polished, more complex type. l mean cats like B. B. King and Percy Mayfield are classified as blues singers, and they keep the basic soul, but still in a more sophisticated context. When I listen to jazz, it tends to be the more blues-influenced sound like Cannonball and Horace Silver, Kenny Burrell. Five years ago when
I started playing, I listened to John Lee Hooker and Lightning Hopkins, and I dug them and I gradually got into what they were doing, and then l sort of craved something with a little bit more something to it. And I started listening to cats that made the right changes I wonât say the right changes, but twelve-bar changes, like Jimmy Reed maybe is the next step up, and then after that Muddy Waters and Little Walter, and when youâre through with them, start listening to B. B. King, which is another level of complexity and subtlety. And then after B. B. King, the natural thing is to go into what is called jazz but actually is blues, like a lot of things that Horace Silver does, or Cannonball Adderley, Kenny Burrell, Gene AmmonsâŚ
CRAWDADDY: How have people been reacting to the Butterfield Band around the country? What sort of scene have you found?
BISHOP: The funny thing is, itâs only been lately that people have begun to look at us objectively as what we are, the thing weâve got going, our own particular sound. Because when we first startedâlike we came to the East Coast, the people were trying to judge us by their own standards, as they would judge a jug band or a single blues singer like John Koerner. In other words, they tried to put us in the folk bag, and then relate us to that. Other places weâd go, like Detroit, the West Coast, people would try to relate us to the rock ânâ roll bands theyâd heard. So we were caught in-between. But lately our own sound has been sort of jelling, weâve been getting our own thing together and people just had to recognize it. Theyâre looking at us now as a unique phenomenon.
[This concludes our series of interviews on âBlues â66.âJohn Lee Hookerâs most recent, and most easily obtainable, LPs, are: âŚAnd Seven Nights on Verve-Folkways and lt Serve You Right To Suffer, on Impulse. Also recommended are his early recordings on Chess (John Lee Hooker Sings and Plays the Blues) and Vee-Jay (Iâm John Lee Hooker). The Butterfield Blues Band have two albums on Elektra Records; the more recent, East-West, is an excellent and exciting re-creation (when played on the best equipment) of the way the band sounded live at approximately the time of the above interview. A review of this album, by Jon Landau, will be found on page 27.]