Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.
In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York City, the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency. and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. The band was also among the first racially integrated blues groups. After the breakup of the group in 1971, Butterfield continued to tour and record with the band Paul Butterfield's Better Days, with his mentor Muddy Waters, and with members of the roots-rock group the Band. While still recording and performing, Butterfield died in 1987 at age 44 of an accidental drug overdose.
Music critics have acknowledged his development of an original approach that places him among the best-known blues harp players. In 2006, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Butterfield and the early members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Both panels noted his harmonica skills and his contributions to bringing blues music to a younger and broader audience.
Career
Paul Vaughn Butterfield was born on December 17, 1942, in Chicago and raised in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood. The son of a lawyer and a painter, he attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private school associated with the University of Chicago. Exposed to music at an early age, he studied classical flute with Walfrid Kujala, of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Butterfield was also athletic and was offered a track scholarship to Brown University. However, a knee injury and a growing interest in blues music sent him in a different direction. He met guitarist and singer songwriter Nick Gravenites, who shared an interest in authentic blues music. By the late 1950s, they were visiting blues clubs in Chicago, where musicians such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Otis Rush encouraged them and occasionally let them sit in on jam sessions. The pair were soon performing as Nick and Paul in college-area coffee houses.In the early 1960s, Butterfield met aspiring blues guitarist Elvin Bishop. Bishop recalled:
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 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.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band
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. 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., securing 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. 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. The performance was not well received by some and generated controversy, but it was a watershed event and brought the band to the attention of a much larger audience.The band's debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was released in 1965, reaching number 123 in the Billboard 200 album chart. On March 28, 1966, Butterfield appeared on the CBS game show To Tell the Truth. At the end of his segment, he performed "Born in Chicago" with the house band. In August 1966, the band released their second album, East-West, which reached number 65 in the album chart.
In England in November 1966, Butterfield recorded several songs with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, who had recently finished the album A Hard Road. Butterfield and Mayall contributed vocals, and Butterfield's Chicago-style blues harp was featured. Four songs were released in the UK on a 45-rpm EP, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Paul Butterfield, in January 1967.
The Butterfield Blues Band changed its lineup, with Arnold and Davenport leaving the band, and Bloomfield going on to form his own group, Electric Flag. The band added bassist Bugsy Maugh, drummer Phillip Wilson, and saxophonists David Sanborn and Gene Dinwiddie. This lineup recorded the band's third album, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, in 1967. It was Butterfield's highest-charting album, reaching number 52 on the album chart. Most of this lineup performed at the seminal Monterey Pop Festival on June 17, 1967.
The band's next album, In My Own Dream, released in 1968, continued to move away from the band's Chicago blues roots towards a more soul-influenced, horn-based sound, with Butterfield singing only three songs. It reached number 79 in the Billboard album chart. By the end of 1968, both Bishop and Naftalin had left the band. In April 1969, Butterfield took part in a concert at Chicago's Auditorium Theater and a subsequent recording session organized by record producer Norman Dayron, featuring Muddy Waters backed by Otis Spann, Mike Bloomfield, Sam Lay, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Buddy Miles. Such Waters warhorses as "Forty Days and Forty Nights", "I'm Ready", "Baby, Please Don't Go", and "Got My Mojo Working" were recorded and later released on the album Fathers and Sons. Waters commented, "We did a lot of the things over we did with Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers and Elgin Evans on drums ... It's about as close as I've been since I first recorded it". To one reviewer, these recordings represent Paul Butterfield's best performances.
The Butterfield Blues Band was invited to perform at the Woodstock Festival on August 18, 1969. The band performed seven songs, and although its performance did not appear in the film Woodstock, one song, "Love March", was included on the album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, released in 1970. In 2009, Butterfield was included in the expanded 40th Anniversary Edition Woodstock video, and an additional two songs appeared on the box set Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm.
The album Keep On Moving, with only Butterfield remaining from the original lineup, was released in 1969. It was produced by veteran R&B producer and songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, reportedly brought in by Elektra to turn out a "breakout commercial hit". The album was not embraced by critics or long-time fans. It reached number 102 in the Billboard album chart.
A live double album by the Butterfield Blues Band, Live, was recorded March 21–22, 1970, at The Troubadour, in West Hollywood, California. By this time, the band included a four-piece horn section in what has been described as a "big-band Chicago blues with a jazz base".
After the release of another soul-influenced album, Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin' in 1971, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band disbanded. In 1972, a retrospective of their career, Golden Butter: The Best of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was released by Elektra.
Better Days and solo
After the breakup of the Butterfield Blues Band and no longer under contract with Elektra, Butterfield retreated to Woodstock, New York, where he eventually formed his next band, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, with drummer Chris Parker, guitarist Amos Garrett, singer Geoff Muldaur, pianist Ronnie Barron and bassist Billy Rich. In 1972–1973, the group recorded the albums Paul Butterfield's Better Days and It All Comes Back, released by Albert Grossman's Bearsville Records. The albums reflected the influence of the participants and explored more roots- and folk-based styles. Although without an easily defined commercial style, both reached the album chart. The band did not last to record a third studio album, but its album Live at Winterland Ballroom, recorded in 1973, was released in 1999.image:Butterfield & Danko 1979.jpg|right|thumb|With Rick Danko on bass guitar at Woodstock Reunion 1979
Butterfield next pursued a solo career and appeared as a sideman in several different musical settings. In 1975, he again joined Muddy Waters to record Waters's last album for Chess Records, The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album. The album was recorded at Levon Helm's Woodstock studio with Garth Hudson and members of Waters's touring band. In 1976, Butterfield performed at the Band's final concert, "The Last Waltz", accompanying the Band on the song "Mystery Train" and backing Muddy Waters on "Mannish Boy". Butterfield kept up his association with former members of the Band, touring and recording with Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars in 1977 and touring with Rick Danko in 1979. A 1984 live performance with Danko and Richard Manuel was recorded and released as Live at the Lonestar in 2011.
As a solo act with backing musicians, Butterfield continued to tour and recorded Put It in Your Ear in 1976 and North South in 1981, with strings, synthesizers, and funk arrangements. In 1986, he released his final studio album, The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again, which was an attempt at a comeback with an updated rock sound. On April 15, 1987, he participated in the concert "B.B. King & Friends", with Eric Clapton, Etta James, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and others.