About Butane MacLane

REAL DEAL BUTANE MACLANE IS A BLUE ROCKER
MUSIC REVIEW: “SEVEN SONGS FROM ARKANSAS”

Whenever I meet an old-time blues rocker, I’m amazed at how they’ve aged (sometimes not recognizing them from press photos), and, how, nearing the end, the fight has gone and the attitude has soured. I recall one dude who’d played all the tough joints in the South and even had a Billboard #3 Hit. He showed up wizened and pissed with wrinkled white skin like a chicken’s and a beak about an inch longer than his photo. His demeanor was so gloomy he’d darken a room on a summer’s afternoon. Then there was the aged bluesman who, despite having a string of radio successes, never left the top half of his state. He made such a repulsive impression on me (and my photographer), I thought I was looking at a giant black spider the size of a man. So, it was a pleasant change to encounter Butane MacLane’s good-humored smile and charming manners during our interview over a 4 a.m. breakfast at our downtown Denny’s.
MacLane’s new release, “Seven Songs From Arkansas”, is a compilation of re-arranged blues tunes he learned back in the 1960’s, in two cases from the original sources. As a young man, MacLane had the good fortune to attend the iconic Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals in Rhode Island during that turbulent decade. He sat with and played with some of the legends, i.e., John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt and Reverend Gary Davis to name a few. Armed with this experience, he went on to play the New York to Boston circuit and had regional success. He started studio work in 1969, later sharing time and instruments with his then unknown pals in Aerosmith. This led to a contract with Capital records and an here-to-fore unreleased album that’s now “rectified, revivified and digitized”. MacLane branched out writing poetry, then short stories and screenplays. He ended up a Hollywood “hack”. His new website will be featuring all this material, added incrementally throughout this year. See www.butanemaclane.com.
“Seven Songs From Arkansas” begins with an almost rockabilly version of “I’m Ready”, recently covered by Aerosmith. I was correct in assuming that MacLane had never heard their version. “About all I listen to are the tweety birds,” he said. However, his website states that he’s “The Real Deal” and Butane’s authenticity shines through here with the help of the Rochelle Rochelle Trio, “a group of crazy Jamaican women introduced to me by Jerry Seinfeld”. Next is Jimmy Reed’s “Shame Shame Shame” with an infectious beat, stinging guitar and wild harmonica. “Little Red Rooster” is a haunting version of the old tune, scarier than even Howlin’ Wolf could have delivered. “It’s about some chickens,” MacLane offered. Chuck Berry’s “No Money Down” made me feel I was cruising down Route 66 in my ‘57 Chevy. “Ain’t Got No Money is an original written when Butane was down on his luck in the Safari Motel in Los Angeles. “I’d like to apologize to the maid,” the guitarman said. Then we come to a re-arranged version of John Lee Hooker’s “Serves Me Right To Suffer”, that could be considered a blues opera. MacLane takes us down a road of 38 tempo changes and roller-coaster emotions that made my skin crawl. The project ends with “Baby, Please Don’t Go” crafted so powerfully that it almost blew me out of the venue. It was refreshing to meet Butane in person -- a strong, serene individual with candid eyes surrounded by tiny wrinkles like sunrays.
“Seven Songs From Arkansas” 5 Thumb’s Up! David Hagopian Herald Examiner

Music Review: Butane MacLane “Seven Songs From Arkansas”

Hailing from a “lazy village beside the ocean”, Mr. MacLane now lives in a yurt on the “wrong side” of an Ozark Mountain dubbed Rattlesnake Hill. Along with his axes, MacLane shares his life with a “gorgeous blond” - his miniature German Shepherd JoJo. “If Paris Hilton was a dog,” he said, “JoJo would be her twin, or did I amscray that backwards?” Asked how he came by the unusual first name, the musician jokingly accused your reviewer of sexism, “Would you ask my girly-girl sister Methane where she got hers?”
At the age of 5, the Blue Rocker found himself “tinkling on the ivories” after a sweaty nightmare involving “My Darlin’ Clementine.” The night Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, Butane claims he strummed a hemp fireplace broom until “my grubby little feelers bled. Little did I know them red stains would be the yellow canary in the mine.” Yes, Elvis was cool, and Jerry Lee was better, but it was the Originator, the Architect that fired MacLane’s soul, “the Tutti Frutti himself, Mr. Little Richard Penniman.”
A complex twist of fate brought Butane to the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals of the 1960’s. He spent valuable hours with some of the best: John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, and a “cat on a collision with kismet, that funky white dude from Minnesota - Blind Boy Grunt.” Music historians will recognize the name as an early pseudonym of Bob Dylan. “I always thought of Grunt as more of a ha-ha clown, a jester, but all that went down the toilet once the long-hairs called him God.” Butane described the day he met Howlin’ Wolf as “overcast, threatening, but rainless. The only sound was the dripping on my leather shoes.”
Asked how he’d characterize his music, MacLane answered in the third person, “Butane wants you to dance.” Pressed on what ocean he’s from, and where’s he’s been for three decades, the handsome rocker cried that he “wasn’t there” and “didn’t do anything.” He added that we must have him “confused with someone else.”
Yes, here is an enigma, a perplexing, puzzling artist, but one thing is absolutely unambiguous - this music is sharp - clear and sparkling as a sunshiny day. 5 stars!
Dave Edwards Post/Herald Times *****

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