Record basics

• Album name: The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw
• Group name: the Butterfield Blues Band
• Year: 1967
• Number of discs: one
• Label: Elektra Records
• Collection: Friedman
• Buy it on Amazon: $29.00

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Admittedly, when I first picked this record out of the box, it did not look like “the Butterfield Blues Band” to me: I thought that it might have said “Buzzerfield,” or possibly “Buggerfield.” So let that be a warning to the people who design albums that they should use a legible font.

At any rate, I do think I’ve heard of the Butterfield Blues Band, though I’m not familiar with their work. I am familiar with one member of the group, Elvin Bishop, who first came to my attention when I reviewed Let It Flow (1974) last summer, and also played on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper (1969), which I reviewed two months ago. Both of those were 5/5 records.

What I expected

Blues, electric blues.

What it was actually like

I thought this record was consistently pretty good, with excellent arrangements of some classic songs, but I mostly did not like the excessive use of horns.

Tollin’ Bells was too slow, as was Driftin’ and Driftin’.

One More Heartache, however, was a quite lively cover of a Marvin Gaye song with a great harmonica solo and excellent bass guitar, and Run Out of Time was similarly energetic with strong bass guitar.

Born Under a Bad Sign was a strong version of a blues classic, though Cream did it better: Clapton’s wailing electric guitar stood in for the horns on this version.

Double Trouble was one case where the saxophone solo was not bad per se, and I even thought that it would have been good in a totally different song.

Though this record came from my cousin, I Pity the Fool really made me think of my other cousin, his older brother, as I will always associate that phrase with him. It had great rhythm and I liked it, and thought the horns were fine in it.

Grade

4/5: would listen again