More Butterfield Blues Band
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- An outstanding copy of the band’s 1968 release with solid Double Plus (A++) sonic grades on both sides
- Like most of the group’s albums on these early pressings, the sound is full-bodied and smooth, with prodigious amounts of bottom end
- Notable as the last Butterfield record with original members Mark Naftalin and Elvin Bishop who both moved on to solo ventures after its release
- “More to the point, this album represented a new version of the band being born… there was a widely shared spotlight for the players, and more of a jazz influence on this record than had ever been heard before from the group…The playing is impressive…”
This vintage Elektra Gold Label pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1968
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We Listen For on In My Own Dream
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The musicians aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Last Hope’s Gone
Mine To Love
Get Yourself Together
Just To Be With You
Side Two
Morning Blues
Drunk Again
In My Own Dream
AMG 5 Star Rave Review
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s In My Own Dream — their fourth official release — marked the point where the band really began to lose its audience, and all for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of their music. They’d gotten past the loss of Michael Bloomfield in early 1967 (which had lost them some of their audience of guitar idolaters) with the engagingly titled (and guitar-focused) Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw. In My Own Dream has its great guitar moments, especially on “Just to Be with You,” but throughout the album, Elvin Bishop’s electric guitar shares the spotlight with the horn section of Gene Dinwiddle, David Sanborn, and Keith Johnson, who had signed on with the prior album and who were more out in front than ever.
More to the point, this album represented a new version of the band being born, with shared lead vocals, and the leader himself only taking three of the seven songs, with bassist Bugsy Maugh singing lead on two songs, Bishop on one, and drummer Phillip Wilson taking one. What’s more, there was a widely shared spotlight for the players, and more of a jazz influence on this record than had ever been heard before from the group. This was a band that could jam quietly for five minutes on “Drunk Again,” building ever so slowly to a bluesy crescendo where Bishop’s guitar and Mark Naftalin’s organ surged; and follow it with the title track, a totally surprising acoustic guitar-driven piece featuring Sanborn, Dinwiddle, and Johnson. The playing is impressive, especially for a record aimed at a collegiate audience…