** The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

AN ANTHOLOGY: THE ELEKTRA YEARS

(Elektra)

Behind the cardboard slipcase of this double CD rests a blurry, black-and-white shot of Paul Butterfield puffing on a cigarette and smirking like a kid out of some old Ivy League class picture. The image is a fitting one -- Butterfield was one of the great white blues hopes of the mid '60s. But he never lived up to the hype. The Elektra Years, which features 33 tracks drawn from five albums the Butterfield Band released between '65 and '71, is a reminder that he was, at best, an accomplished harmonica player with a skilled band who never got much past rote blues clichés.

The collection's highlight, "East West," is an adventurous jam built around droning modulations and intense scalar runs by guitarist Mike Bloomfield. The Byrds, however, accomplished three times as much in a fraction of the time with "Eight Miles High." The instrumental "Work Song" is a tune the Animals had already flogged the hell out of on the BBC. Everything here is pleasant enough, but it pales next to what bluesmen like Otis Rush, Little Walter, and Buddy Guy accomplished with the same raw materials.

-- Colin Fleming