Released in 1969,
Keep on Moving was the fifth
Elektra release by
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. During a four-year span the group's namesake and leader was the only original member left from their first album in 1965. Morphing in a similar direction as
Michael Bloomfield's
Electric Flag, this edition of
the Butterfield Blues Band prominently fronted the horn section of
David Sanborn on alto sax,
Gene Dinwiddie on tenor, and
Keith Johnson on trumpet. The band's direction was full tilt, horn-dominated
soul music, first explored on
The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, which took them farther away from the highly regarded gritty
blues experimentation of
East-West and the duel guitar attack of
Michael Bloomfield and
Elvin Bishop. This album also signaled the final appearance of
AACM and
Art Ensemble of Chicago drummer
Phillip Wilson, whose
Butterfield swan song was the collaboration with
Dinwiddie on the hippie
gospel track
"Love March," of which an appropriately disjointed live version appeared on the
Woodstock soundtrack album. The difference between
Butterfield's 1965 street survival ode
"Born in Chicago" ("My father told me 'son you'd better get a gun") and
"Love March" ("Sing a glad song, sing all the time") left fans wondering if the band had become a bit too democratic. However, on cuts like
"Losing Hand," some of the band's original fervor remains.
Butterfield's harp intertwining with the horn section sounds like a lost
Junior Parker outtake and the
Jimmy Rogers' penned
"Walking by Myself," is the closest this band comes to the gutsy Windy City
blues of its heyday. The remaining tracks aren't horrible, but tend to run out of ideas quickly, unfortunately making what may have been decent material (with a little more effort) sound premature.
Butterfield would make a few more personnel changes, release one final disc on
Elektra,
Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin', and then dump the band altogether to embark on a solo career. In 2006,
Sundazed released a High-Definition Vinyl LP version of
Keep on Moving. ~ Al Campbell
