East-West (180g LP)

A pivotal '60s album. The Butterfield Blues Band's 1965 debut was a life-changing experience for a generation of young blues players; this follow-up, while not quite as epochal, can still be credited with influencing just about every underground band then percolating in San Francisco. In fact, the album's title track is an epic 13-minute modal jam that is an obvious template for what the Airplane, the Dead, Quicksilver, and the rest would be doing a year later. The remainder of the album is more traditional, save for a radical deconstruction of Monkee Mike Nesmith's "Mary Mary" (if this was a bid for a hit single, they were kidding themselves), and there are sensational performances in abundance, including a deeply-felt rendering of the blues classic "Got a Mind to Give Up Livin'." Includes liner notes by Paul Nelson.