By MIKE CHAIKEN EDITIONS EDITOR Ultimate Classic Rock magazine, in a retrospective article, described the 1966 album “East-West” by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band “as a swift kick to the doors of convention.” Contemporary blues artist James Montgomery agrees. And, as the artist tells it, Butterfield changed his own musical direction forever. Montgomery is so enamored with the legacy of Butterfield, who died at 44 way before his group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, his most recent album is “The James Montgomery Blues Band: A Tribute to Paul Butterfield.” Montgomery performs July 10 at the Great American Hemp and Blues Festival inside the Mohegan Sun Earth Ballroom. Until the Paul Butterfield Blues Band arrived on the scene, said Montgomery, nobody had heard anything like the 20 minute jam on the title track on “East-West.” Forget about the length of the jam, said Montgomery, no one had ever heard a musical jam based on an Indian modal scale. Before the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Montgomery said rock guitarists would just play rhythm chords and take the occasional eight bar solo. But Butterfield, and his guitarists Elvin Bishop and the late Mike Bloomfield, showed that […]
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