Elektra Records Spotlight: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Mellow Down Easy and I Got My Mojo Working

Mellow Down Easy

I Got My Mojo Working

Day two at our look at Elektra Records. Yesterday we looked at the missed opportunity Elektra Records president, Jac Holzman, had in his hands when he released only one song by The Byrds...under the quizzically named The Beefeaters. Columbia Records came and stole the band away from his light grasp on what would become a hit machine and a hugely influential band. It took 11 months before Holzman would get back in the saddle with another release.

In October of 1965 Elektra released the first published recording of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The Chicago band had been turning heads in Chicago for about a year and Holzman and staff producer, Paul Rotchild, were eager to not let another buzz creating band slip away. It also bears noting that the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was a band of three white guys and two black guys. May not seem like a big deal today, but it was in 1965. It was downright unusual and even a little risky for a little known label to market them. Paul Butterfield was the frontman and harmonica player, Elvin Bishop on rhythm guitar, Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar, Jerome Arnold on bass and Sam Lay on drums. The latter two had done time in Howlin' Wolf's house band and thus had some serious street creditionals.

That first Elektra single for The Paul Butterfield Blues Band were two blues covers of Chess Recordings songs. The A-Side was Mellow Down Easy, a number originally recorded by Little Walter in 1954. The Flip-Side is the Muddy Waters standard, I Got My Mojo Working, first laid down in 1957. Sam Lay takes the vocal duties on The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's recording.

[Of note, also on that first 1965 album, was the first recording of Born In Chicago, which we featured just last week by a band called The Blue Beats. Check that out here]

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

The Blue Beats - Born In Chicago

Despite what the title says, The Blue Beats actually were NOT born in Chicago. The band, in fact, hailed from Ridgefield, Connecticut and were Kit Miller, Peter Robbins, Lance Drake and Jack Lee. The band released two singles, both on the titan of a label, Columbia Records.

Born In Chicago is the Flip-Side of their second single, released in April of 1967, and is the only one of their four recordings that is not an original song. The number was written by San Francisco music guru Nick Gravinites who wrote for a ton of San Francisco performers like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Chicago band, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The latter first recorded Born In Chicago in 1965. This is likely where The Blue Beats picked up on it and, rather ironically, gave it a British Invasion feel. 

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

(Not, Alas) a Monkee’s Nephew

Sometime last year I think it was, I had a dream that Michael Nesmith was my uncle. I don’t remember much about the specifics, or even if I managed to ask him the burning question, “How could you work with Davy Jones for three years without beating the crap out of him?” But I do remember that I was pretty sad to wake up and find that Uncle Nes wouldn’t be at Thanksgiving after all.

I’ve always liked the Monkees, and I firmly believe Micky Dolenz has one of the great rock and roll voices. But Nesmith was the one who made them feel substantial and not just a made for t.v. cartoon.  He was already an experienced songwriter before he was cast as a Monkee.  His song Mary, Mary appeared (somewhat uncomfortably) on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s second album East-West even before the “Monkees” series debuted in September 1966, and in 1967 the Stone Poneys hit big with Different Drum another pre-Monkee Nesmith composition.  By picking an actual quirky tunesmith who was not a central casting teen idol type, the Monkees producers sowed the seeds for the group’s eventual rebellion against the use of outside songwriting and studio musicians. 

While existing in the heart of the Monkees teen-pop bubble, Nesmith was increasingly drawn to country styles.  In May 1968, as the Monkees show was winding down, he recorded a session in Nashville.  Most of these songs were not used on Monkees records, and some would be redone on his own albums in the early 70s.  I like these early versions, which exhibit some of the same generational tension between song and backing that Bob Dylan’s Nashville-era recordings do.  In contrast to his wry and laconic Monkee persona, a lot of Nesmith’s songs are wordy and conversational.  Check out Some of Shelly’s Blues and The Crippled Lion.  While the backings are pure 60s Nashville country (with the addition of harmonica on Shelly’s Blues) the songs themselves are, in typical Nesmith fashion, crammed full of words and chord changes.  In Shelly’s Blues Nesmith dishes out his brand of clear-eyed but syntactically jumbled advice, while The Crippled Lion is a humble and self-aware inwardly directed pep-talk.  The guy would really make a fine uncle.