The Butts Band Complete Recordings

The Butts Band - Complete Recordings
1996
eac. wavpack. covers

Despues de la muerte y la desintegracion de Doors, tras un par de albums de dudosa calidad, Densmore y Krieger forman The Butts Band, una poderosa banda con la que graban un par de albums. El primero, "The Butts Band", con temas dentro de la onda rockera y del R&B, y "Hear&Now", con toques mas soul y una voz femenina de altura.

The 1973 debut of Butts Band, produced by Doors engineer turned producer Bruce Botnick, is — along with Ray Manzarek's 1974 release, The Golden Scarab (also produced by Botnick) — the true fulfillment of what Other Voices and Full Circle initiated. A release of Golden Scarab and The Butts Band on one CD would be a good companion piece to the aforementioned post-Morrison Doors releases; it's most likely what would have evolved had the Doors' trio given us a third album in the early '70s. Make no mistake, this is very musical and great stuff, it just had no image, introduced us to new personalities, and was saddled with a terrible name (c'mon, the Butts Band? What was Jimmy Castor's line in "Troglodyte"? "Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters." It's just plain silly with the world watching the Doors' legacy). Before Robbie Krieger went on his jazz tangent, this folky blues group may have been a necessary diversion. There's none of the Doors' darkness or Ray Manzarek's manic intensity here. It's laid-back, well-played, perfectly recorded music on the Blue Thumb label. What is surprising is that Robbie Krieger was an integral part of the Doors' hit singles. He seems to have put that in the past on these compositions. "Baja Bus," with conga by Larry McDonald, might as well be the Allman Brothers. Side one was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, with Botnick as engineer, while in London for side two at Olympic Studios they used Keith Harwood on the boards, though Bruce Botnick is the producer of the entire package. More of what you'd expect than the follow-up, Hear and Now, which changes all the musicians save the two Doors and completely reshuffles the sound. Gotta hand it to Krieger and Densmore; they can be as proud of this as Ten Wheel Drive's Zager and Schefrin can be of their post-Genya Ravan disc on EMI. That record wasn't Ten Wheel Drive with Genya Ravan, but it was competent and worth a listen, as is The Butts Band.

"The Butts Band" 1974

1. I Won't Be Alone Anymore
2. Baja Bus
3. Sweet Danger
4. Pop-A-Top
5. Be With Me
6. New Ways
7. Love Your Brother
8. Kansas City

"Here & Now" 1975

9. Get Up, Stand Up
10. Corner Of My Mind
11. Caught In The Middle
12. Everybody's Fool
13. Livin' And Dyin'
14. Don't Wake Up
15. If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody
16. Feelin' So Bad
17. White House
18. Act Of Love
19. That's All Right
20. Lovin' You For All The Right Reasons

ROBBY KRIEGER "ROADHOUSE BLUES"