The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was an American blues and blues-rock band from Chicago. Formed in the summer of 1963, the group originally featured eponymous vocalist and harmonicist Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, bassist Jerome Arnold, and drummer Sam Lay. The band added guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Mark Naftalin before recording their self-titled debut album, which was released in October 1965. The founding sextet were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, along with Billy Davenport, their drummer on their second album, East-West.

History

In the early 1960s, Butterfield met aspiring blues guitarist Elvin Bishop. Bishop recalled:

He [Butterfield] was playing more guitar than harp when I first met him. But in about six months he became serious about the harp, and he seemed to get about as good as he got in that six months. He was just a natural genius. This was in 1960 or 1961. By this time Butter had been hanging out in the ghetto for a couple of years, and he was part of the scene and getting accepted.

Eventually, Butterfield, on vocals and harmonica, and Bishop, accompanying him on guitar, were offered a regular gig at Big John's, a folk club in the Old Town district on Chicago's near North Side. With this booking, they persuaded bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay (both from Howlin' Wolf's touring band) to form a group with them in 1963. Their engagement at the club was highly successful and brought the group to the attention of record producer Paul A. Rothchild.

With Mike Bloomfield

During their engagement at Big John's, Butterfield met and occasionally sat in with guitarist Mike Bloomfield, who was also playing at the club. By chance, producer Rothchild witnessed one of their performances and was impressed by the chemistry between the two. He persuaded Butterfield to bring Bloomfield into the band, and they were signed to Elektra Records. Their first attempt to record an album, in December 1964, did not meet Rothchild's expectations, although an early version of "Born in Chicago", written by Gravenites, was included on the 1965 Elektra sampler Folksong '65 and created interest in the band. Additional early recordings were released on the Elektra compilation What's Shakin' in 1966 and The Original Lost Elektra Sessions in 1995.

To capture their sound better, Rothchild convinced Elektra president Jac Holzman to record a live album. In the spring of 1965, the Butterfield Blues Band was recorded at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City. These recordings also failed to satisfy Rothchild, but the group's appearances at the club brought them to the attention of the East Coast music community. Rothchild persuaded Holzman to agree to a third attempt at recording an album.

In these recording sessions, Rothchild had assumed the role of group manager and used his folk contacts to secure the band more engagements outside of Chicago. At the last minute, the band was booked to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965. They were scheduled as the opening act the first night when the gates opened and again the next afternoon in an urban blues workshop at the festival. Despite limited exposure on the first night and a dismissive introduction the following day by the folklorist and blues researcher Alan Lomax, the band was able to attract an unusually large audience for a workshop performance. Maria Muldaur, with her husband Geoff, who later toured and recorded with Butterfield, recalled the group's performance as stunning; it was the first time that many of the mostly folk-music fans had heard a high-powered electric blues combo. Among those who took notice was festival regular Bob Dylan, who invited the band to back him for his first live electric performance. With little rehearsal, Dylan performed a short, four-song set the next day with Bloomfield, Arnold, and Lay (along with Al Kooper and Barry Goldberg). The performance was not well received by some and generated a controversy, but it was a watershed event and brought the band to the attention of a much larger audience.

The band added keyboardist Mark Naftalin, and its debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was finally successfully recorded in mid-1965 and released in October of that year. The opening song, a newer recording of the previously released "Born in Chicago", is an upbeat blues rocker and set the tone for the album, which included a mix of blues standards, such as "Shake Your Moneymaker", "Blues with a Feeling", and "Look Over Yonders Wall", and compositions by the band. The album, described as a "hard-driving blues album that, in a word, rocked", reached number 123 in the Billboard 200 album chart in 1966, but its influence was felt beyond its sales figures.

Shortly after the album's release, Lay was hospitalised after contracting pleural effusion; he was replaced for one show by Billy Warren, who was then dismissed in favor of Billy Davenport, who joined in late December.