Post by AlanB on Jul 24, 2014 10:23:34 GMT -5
Not the most prolific of artists but..... He toured the UK briefly in 1992. I'll see what else I can dig up, I've a few of his 1966 Jewel 45s.
George 'Wild Child' Butler
Tony Russell
The Guardian, Wednesday 18 May 2005
The death of George "Wild Child" Butler, at the age of 68, reduces still further the company of blues harmonica players who played alongside the genre's postwar masters, Little Walter Jacobs, Big Walter Horton and Alec "Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller. Though not their technical equal on the instrument, Butler was a loyal and talented adherent of the kind of music they developed in the 1950s.
Born in Autaugaville, Alabama, Butler spent part of his youth in the state capital Montgomery, where he played harmonica as a child with Big Mama Thornton, a family friend. At first, he played the instrument upside down - with the high end to the left rather than the right - "because no one showed me how to hold it the right way".
Disenchanted with farm work, he left Montgomery to seek a living as an itinerant musician, and travelled widely in the US south. By his early 20s, he was married and living in Chicago or Detroit, where he played in clubs and at house parties with Big Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sunnyland Slim and others.
Later, in the 1960s, he worked mostly in Texas and Louisiana, and it was for Jewel Records in Shreveport, Louisiana, that he made his first important recordings (though the sessions were in Chicago and supervised by that city's blues godfather, the bassist and composer Willie Dixon).
As Butler recalled, his old-fashioned singing struck Dixon as "way-out strange". After a couple of sessions, the producer was apparently sufficiently impressed to comment: "You are the moan of the suffering woman, the groan of the dying man. You ain't nothing but the blues. Keep this work up and you gonna help keep the blues alive."
The records came out with the byline George "Wild Child" Butler, the nickname he had acquired as a baby, when, his mother Beatrice told him later, he would bother her lady friends by crawling over to them, stroking their legs and pulling at their skirts. "Beatrice," the visitors would say, "this child is wild."
The music Butler and Dixon created was admirable, but it was 10 years too late: that sort of hard-hitting, unpretentious blues had little or no market at the end of the 1960s, and even the gesture of recording a number called Hippy Playground could do nothing to win over fans of the Grateful Dead or Big Brother & The Holding Company. Blues enthusiasts paid attention, though, and Butler was able to record fairly often over the next 35 years, making half a dozen albums in the US and one in Britain.
Though a seasoned listener could readily spot evidence of his admiration for men like Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Lightnin' Hopkins, Butler distinguished himself by not relying on the standard blues repertoire but creating his own stories instead. It's A Pity, which he first sang in 1991 on the album The Devil Made Me Do It, was a rare bluesman's reaction to his country's confrontation with Iraq. His last album, Sho' Nuff, was issued in 2001.
Over the years, Butler had spells of working for Howlin' Wolf, Waters and Hopkinson, as well as with Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay, Jimmie Lee Robinson, Big Jack Johnson and others. Latterly, he made his home in Windsor, Ontario.
He is survived by his wife Elaine.
George "Wild Child" Butler, blues musician, born October 1 1936; died March 1 2005
George 'Wild Child' Butler
Tony Russell
The Guardian, Wednesday 18 May 2005
The death of George "Wild Child" Butler, at the age of 68, reduces still further the company of blues harmonica players who played alongside the genre's postwar masters, Little Walter Jacobs, Big Walter Horton and Alec "Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller. Though not their technical equal on the instrument, Butler was a loyal and talented adherent of the kind of music they developed in the 1950s.
Born in Autaugaville, Alabama, Butler spent part of his youth in the state capital Montgomery, where he played harmonica as a child with Big Mama Thornton, a family friend. At first, he played the instrument upside down - with the high end to the left rather than the right - "because no one showed me how to hold it the right way".
Disenchanted with farm work, he left Montgomery to seek a living as an itinerant musician, and travelled widely in the US south. By his early 20s, he was married and living in Chicago or Detroit, where he played in clubs and at house parties with Big Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sunnyland Slim and others.
Later, in the 1960s, he worked mostly in Texas and Louisiana, and it was for Jewel Records in Shreveport, Louisiana, that he made his first important recordings (though the sessions were in Chicago and supervised by that city's blues godfather, the bassist and composer Willie Dixon).
As Butler recalled, his old-fashioned singing struck Dixon as "way-out strange". After a couple of sessions, the producer was apparently sufficiently impressed to comment: "You are the moan of the suffering woman, the groan of the dying man. You ain't nothing but the blues. Keep this work up and you gonna help keep the blues alive."
The records came out with the byline George "Wild Child" Butler, the nickname he had acquired as a baby, when, his mother Beatrice told him later, he would bother her lady friends by crawling over to them, stroking their legs and pulling at their skirts. "Beatrice," the visitors would say, "this child is wild."
The music Butler and Dixon created was admirable, but it was 10 years too late: that sort of hard-hitting, unpretentious blues had little or no market at the end of the 1960s, and even the gesture of recording a number called Hippy Playground could do nothing to win over fans of the Grateful Dead or Big Brother & The Holding Company. Blues enthusiasts paid attention, though, and Butler was able to record fairly often over the next 35 years, making half a dozen albums in the US and one in Britain.
Though a seasoned listener could readily spot evidence of his admiration for men like Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Lightnin' Hopkins, Butler distinguished himself by not relying on the standard blues repertoire but creating his own stories instead. It's A Pity, which he first sang in 1991 on the album The Devil Made Me Do It, was a rare bluesman's reaction to his country's confrontation with Iraq. His last album, Sho' Nuff, was issued in 2001.
Over the years, Butler had spells of working for Howlin' Wolf, Waters and Hopkinson, as well as with Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay, Jimmie Lee Robinson, Big Jack Johnson and others. Latterly, he made his home in Windsor, Ontario.
He is survived by his wife Elaine.
George "Wild Child" Butler, blues musician, born October 1 1936; died March 1 2005