Paul Butterfield's Better Days

Paul Butterfield's post-Blues Band outfit's second album is a bit more laid back than its predecessor, but it definitely has its moments, and as before the musicianship is stellar. The opening "Too Many Drivers," for example, is a churning Chicago blues, with Butterfield's horn impressions figuring as intensely as ever, that would have fit in perfectly with anything on his old band's debut. Geoff Muldaur turns in a haunting rendition of a delicate Rick Danko-penned R&B ballad "Small Town Talk," while "Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It," co-written and co-sung by Butterfield and R&B legend Bobby Charles, is a clavinet-driven funk workout whose instrumental sections work up a real Little Feat-style froth.