Down By The River

Why Paul Butterfield matters...

It was hard to escape the folk music boom of the early-mid 1960s. Dylan was not the first heard—vanilla groups like the Kingston Trio and New Christy Minstrels made their way into the consciousness of even a new teenager like me. The intros came mostly from older brothers and sisters who had growing record collections and dialed into frequent appearances on shows like Ed Sullivan or Hootenany! on television. Folk music also unleashed a score of new guitar players who found folk songs easy to learn and ideal for social settings.

The popularity of the music led to folk festivals like the granddaddy of them all at Newport. Many offered camping and it was in those campgrounds that a lot of great music would be played, as artists and amateur players would mix and jam through the night. Lots of good music could be made.

I was completely unaware of this phenomenon when I drove south from northern Florida for the Miami Pop Festival in December of 1968. That festival was a rarity for Florida and Miami wasn’t thought of as a hotbed of musical activity. But it was December, in warm Florida, and the promoters (one of whom was on the team at Woodstock) had assembled a remarkable collection of artists, from the Grass Roots and Box Tops to Steppenwolf, Hendrix, and, to the band that we wanted to hear the most, the new, horn driven Butterfield Blues Band.

More will be told about the great performances we saw/heard there, how the Festival introduced us to the hippie generation, and how the event added to the groundwork that would become a life of listening, but one of the things I remember was what was going on in the campgrounds those first two nights.

The campground happenings at folk festivals were in full bloom in Miami. And they would run late into the night, which meant minimal sleep over the weekend for us. Balmy nights and a distinctive sea breeze made for ideal conditions. The sweet and not entirely familiar smell of weed blew through the grounds. Music was abundant.

I was still barely a fledgling harmonica player but Charlie and Tim were gigging musicians. Charlie’s Mother had been a jazz singer in San Francisco and he was into Grant Green, Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts. When music was on at Tim’s place it would trend toward Buddy Rich or Maynard Ferguson. So I followed their lead through the tents and music collectives. What we heard was guitars and singers, some good, some so-so. Occasionally a fiddle would be heard. Regardless of the mix of instruments, a communal vibe was everywhere.

I will never forget what happened next. We came upon a larger gathering, maybe fifteen to twenty people, standing around a group of seated musicians playing a very sweet version of a blues, featuring a mandolin and some beautiful flute playing.

Edging through the standing crowd listening we finally moved around the crowd so we could see the faces of the mandolin player and flautist.

It was Paul Butterfield on flute (I later learned he had been an accomplished flautist as a teenager) and his band’s tenor saxophonist, Gene Dinwiddie, on mandolin.

Holy shit.

We followed the two of them a bit, as they dipped into various musical environs. Besides being in some semblance of awe, I was so impressed how they, and others there, could meld and blend so seamlessly in a variety of settings and remain so musical in what they played. I think I decided that night that I wanted to be able to play an instrument well enough to do that, too.

A few years later I did. After a summer of playing bluegrass and country I’d started attending some Florida and Georgia folk festivals a few hours from home either with Michael or Jim. Michael and I had a duo of sorts and were occasionally on a stage. Jim was the lead guitarist of our amplified band, and he and I would go just for the campground jams. The campgrounds tended to be populated by all ages, with the smells of hamburgers, hot dogs, wood fires, weed and incense everywhere. Banjos, fiddles and even a washtub base were at play. Main stages would normally close around 9 p.m., with campground music starting up immediately thereafter, if not before, running late into the night.

Michael was the more formal of the two. His set list included Richie Havens, Leadbelly, Dylan and even a smattering of John Denver and Don McLean. Jim was easier and more accustomed to jamming. I can remember many gigs when the dance floor would be hoping and we would jam for extended time to keep the crowd up and moving. We weren’t a jam band, but we did know how to read a crowd and how to respond to them. Three-minute songs by Creedence, the Stones, J Geils Band and Delaney & Bonnie would stretch out, sometimes over ten minutes, solos extended, verses repeated.

Campground playing wasn’t much different. Songs could be short or long, often shortened when those jumping in didn’t add to the presentation or clearly weren’t experienced in campground rules about taking your turn and keeping it brief.

But the song we always came back to was “Down By The River,” Neil Young’s favorite for long, extended solos. Either Jim or I would sing, and he would solo behind me or vice versa. Deep into it, eyes closed, I would often come close to the overwhelming feeling I’d had that night in Miami. I’m still chasing it today.