I love jazz, but when I heard those country blues, I became a blues fool. Moanin' stuff .. Son House, Robert Johnson, Ramblin' Thomas, Bukka White, even Lonnie Johnson. As long as the artist sounded like he or she meant it, I jumped on board. That's still my listening rule ... do you believe the artist, or not? Later, of couse, I got into the electric stuff ... Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King. Later, the gospel singers ... The Swans, Harmonizing Four, Soul Stirrers with Sam Cooke ... that sort of thing. Later Stravinsky, Bartok and Mozart. Then Puccini ... he's got the blues. I should stop.

MG:---Yeah, maybe. Anyway, you mentioned that jazz wouldn't be jazz without blues. What do you mean by that?
Geoff: Jazz is a blues-rooted form. You can hear the same chords, scales and even attitudes from Johnny Dodds through Coleman Hawkins through Cannonball. But not through that 'jingle jazz' of today. McCoy and Reggie Workman, guys like that are keeping it going, but the popular stuff is not rooted. It's out of that pop and jingle scene in NYC. That blues feeling is missing. No historical comments in the playing.

MG:---You say that the first blues you listened to were country blues. Why not electric blues?
Geoff: That's just the way it happened. If I had lived in Chicago, I probably would have gone Paul's route. The country blues gave me a way to express myself. Corny, right? But that's the deal. When I got to Cambridge, Mass. in the early sixties, only a few people knew anything about blues music ... Eric Von Schmidt, Rolf Cahn, Van Ronk in New York. The rest were into other folk music ... Irish, sea shanties, Appalachian stuff, bluegrass. Pretty great to hear all these different things. Did you know that Bill Monroe had a jug in his first band? Anyway.

My approach to the country blues fit right in somehow. I didn't want to imitate anyone .. just sing and play the old blues. That's what I primarily did in the {Jim Kweskin} Jug Band along with other styles. Later, people learned all the right {original} notes, but I never wanted to do that. Maybe I just couldn't, I don't know, but I never did and probably never will, 'cause I try to make each blues my own. Add my thing to the literature. Later, Gary Davis came around. Then everything exploded ... Sleepy John, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, Big Joe Williams, Skip James, Fred McDowell all played Cambridge and around the northeast. We all parties and hung out. What a dream.

MG:---Did you hang out with Muddy, Wolf and other electric players later?
Geoff: Not much, although I did spend some time with those folks when I played with Butterfield ... and later when I played gigs with my own groups and with Amos {Garrett}. I got on pretty good with Muddy. I showed him sme C tuning stuff, which he dug a lot. He showed me that you can summon the angels and look at your watch at the same time. Hung a little with Willie Dixon, Otis Rush; recorded with Spann ...

MG:---Okay, tell us about your time with Paul Butterfield.
Geoff: We both lived in Woodstock in the early seventies, and we were both managed by Albert Grossman {Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, The Band, Janis Joplin, et al}. I had a group with Maria, Amos Garrett, Bill Keith and Billy Mundi from the Mothers of Invention. We were basically spinning our wheels making records but not touring. Lots of bar banging. Much Party.

Butterfield was looking to do something a little different, and Albert started doin' some managing. He got a crazy piano player from New Orleans named Ronnie Barron to join Amos, myself and Paul along with a young hotshot drummer from New York named Christopher Parker. We started making the first record -'Better Days' using Rick Danko on bass, but that wasn't working out, so we got Bill Rich in from Denver to round out the band. Bill had played with Ealectric Flag and various funky things. For some reason this group clicked.

Amos had that sweet sound and Ronnie had that evil thing and Bill Rich and Topher drove harder than any blues rhythm section of the time. Paul, of cource, could put his signature on anything he touched ... that wait in the alley and mug 'em rhythmic thing. I did a lot of the singing and brought the country blues sound into the group. 'Poor Boy' {on the 2nd album -'It All Comes Back'} was a blend of my country flavor and Paul's hard-ass Chicago sound. This approach became a model for much of what I've done since.

MG:---What have you done since?
Geoff: Since Butterfield, I guess I've made ... oh ... probably 6 or 7 albums. I've produced another few, like Lenny Pickett with the Borneo Horns and Richrad Greene String Quartet. I've also done some film and TV music ... got an EMMY, toured japan, USA and Canada a bunch ... I don't know.

MG:---What do you want to do next?
Geoff: I'm planning a strange blues album. Like Stephen Bruton says, 'Hey, why don't you put an album together of all that weird stuff.' So, that's next. Chamber blues. Maybe fiddle, French Horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, guitar, bass and vocal ... your usual blues band.

MG:---Not exactly mainstream
Geoff: Gosh, you don't think so? {laughs}