The Butterfield Blues Band Leans into R&B Fervor on the Brassy Keep on Moving: Album Features a Horn Section with David Sanborn and Prioritizes the Art of the Groove

Hear the 1969 Record in Audiophile Sound for the First Time on Disc: Strictly Limited to 2,000 Numbered Copies, Mobile Fidelity’s Hybrid SACD Plays with Dynamic Liveliness and Revealing Clarity 

And then there was one. Paul Butterfield stands as the last remaining original member of his namesake collective on Keep on Moving. It’s hard to imagine it being any other way. Picking up where it left off on In My Own Dream, the Butterfield Blues Band wholly embraces R&B fervor — and indirectly dares any horn-accompanied ensemble of the era to match its energy, pulse, tightness, and flair. While going all-in on soul with a crack support cast on this 1969 set, Butterfield would pull the plug on the band just two years later.

Sourced from the original analog master tapes, strictly limited to 2,000 numbered copies, and housed in a mini-LP-style gatefold package, Mobile Fidelity’s hybrid SACD makes Keep on Moving available in audiophile quality for the first time on disc. Open and balanced, it underlines the dynamic liveliness and organic feel of Jerry Ragovoy’s production. As well as the palpable chemistry of the sessions recorded at his then-brand-new Hit Factory studio in New York. This reissue’s clarity also exposes key details, accents, and textures germane to the music. Not to mention Butterfield and company’s pervasive interplay.

The prominence and positioning of the formidable horn section — comprised of a young David Sanborn, Gene Dinwiddie, Trevor Lawrence, Keith Johnson, and Steve Madaio — particularly benefit from the newfound transparency and presence. Separation between the instrumentalists is such that you can distinguish tenor, baritone, and alto parts. You can sense the air between brassy shades, pauses, and swells. Butterfield and Howard “Buzz” Feiten’s guitars register with a similar sense of realism and directness, with everything from the in-the-room tones to the wiry snap of their strings emerging with dimensional body. The imaging and pacing further help frame Keep on Moving as a far better album than many critics of the time believed. 

Anyone expecting the Butterfield Blues Band to repeat the moves of its first two albums might be inclined to close their mind to what the guitarist-vocalist spearheads on this album, which climbed into the Billboard Top 200 and marked the leader’s final collaboration with Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder and drummer Phillip Wilson. The direction the group takes is obvious from the first bars of the aptly named opening “Love March.” Distinguished with fanfare complete with horn taps and hup-two cadences, the zig-zagging and psychedelic-leaning piece places the group amid the Age of Aquarius. It even finds Butterfield briefly trading his six-string for a flute.

The remainder of the record pursues funky, bluesy paths carved by rolling bass lines, stacked horns, buttoned-up rhythms, and signature harmonica blasts. Walls of brass border “Morning Sunrise,” a slippery rave-up with Butterfield’s unhinged vocals contrasting with the measured playing of his horn section. Akin to most of the tracks on the Keep on Moving — if you’re not tempted to get out of your chair and dance by the time this feel-good cut wraps up, check your pulse — it leans into catchy R&B disciplines and prioritizes grooves over riffs.  

That approach and momentum carry over to the swaggering “All in a Day,” marked by Feiten stepping up to the microphone for his lone lead vocal and a quivering Butterfield harmonica solo that Chicago legend Junior Wells would surely appreciate. “Love Disease” shouts with punchy brass shots, stammers with wet snare drums, and threatens to go into the red via infatuated, emotional singing. For the standout “Buddy’s Advice,” the group places a piano front and center, summons hand-clapped beats, and welcomes the saxophones to stroll downtown as Latin-tinged percussion rattles in the background. 

Butterfield doesn’t completely abandon his blues roots. When he wants, he commands his guitar to scream with the kind of raw electricity and no-frills purpose it did during the mid-60s in his hometown’s rough-and-tumble clubs. Check the down-and-out lament “Losing Hand,” as soulful and deep as anything in the band’s catalog — and sent up with a shivering harmonica spot and sparking guitar lines that interlace with the horns. See, too, the ramble-tamble “Walking by Myself,” which gets down with smoky country-blues flavors, welcoming hooks, and hip-swiveling vibes that, to quote the great Buddy Guy, are “so funky you can smell” ‘em.

Keep on moving, indeed.