Billy Butler’s Swinging Blues
For this month’s Crossroads, John Wheatcroft discovers the legendary guitarist behind the 1956 hit instrumental Honky Tonk, and much more besides.
Billy Butler was a wonderful guitarist with a beautiful tone, inventive lines and impressive stylistic range that included authentic blues, swinging jazz, genre defining R&B chops and much more besides. Probably most famous for his work in the mid 50s with pianist and organist Bill Doggett, and more specifically for the 1956 instrumental that he co-wrote with Doggett, Honky Tonk, Butler maintained a steady career as session musician, sideman and leader in his own right.
Butler’s playing swung like crazy and was rooted in the blues, although the influence of Charlie Christian was also clearly evident. Billy’s lines were always super clear, with a real sense of both melodic and rhythmic intent. This direct and at times simple melodic playing can be deceptively difficult to deliver with authority, as every note really counts and any rhythmic anomaly or glitch in the delivery stands out a mile. Needless to say, Butler made everything sound effortless and the musical ideas that he conjured up and delivered expertly, always sounded like they originated directly from his musical imagination, and not from any kind of memorised finger pattern or shape.
The musical examples that follow explore two sides to Billy’s impressive and musically compelling style. First off we’ll explore his shuffle blues phrasing, beginning with three examples taken directly from his improvisational vocabulary. You’ll notice an abundance of triplet rhythms here, consistent with the underlying pulse of the rhythm section. We follow this with three similar ideas found in the wider world of blues from Duke Robillard, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jimmie Vaughan. Next up, we contextualise these ideas with a cohesive solo based around the same shuffle groove and around a complete chorus of a 12-bar blues in the key of G.
For the next section we’ll look at Billy’s jazzy swing playing, again with a trio of phrases although this time we’ve upped the tempo and these ideas are delivered over a stylisticallt appropriate I-VI-II-V vamp, this time in the key of C. These lines are followed by three contrasting phrases courtesy of Django Reinhardt, Oscar Moore (Nat King Cole) and Danny Gatton (Gene Vincent).
We’ve mentioned many times in these articles the immense musical benefits that come from transcribing, and we’d urge you to go directly to the music for each and every artist that we cover here. If you’ve shied away from this activity, the clarity and directness of Billy’s playing might be the
