Paul BUTTERFIELD

⬇️ PAUL BUTTERFIELD ⬇️

DISCOGRAPHY 1973-2022 (40CD+27CD)

 BIOGRAPHY 

Paul Butterfield (17 December 1942 – 4 May 1987) was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival.

The son of a lawyer, Paul Butterfield was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was born and raised Jewish. He attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private school associated with the University of Chicago.

After studying classical flute with Walfrid Kujala of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a teenager, he developed a love for the blues harmonica, and hooked up with white, blues-loving, University of Chicago physics student Elvin Bishop.

The pair started hanging around black blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and Otis Rush. Butterfield and Bishop soon formed a band with Jerome Arnold and Sam Lay, both hired away from the touring band of Howlin' Wolf. In 1963, the racially mixed quartet was made the house band at Big John's, a folk club in the Old Town district on Chicago's north side. Butterfield was still underage (as was guitarist Mike Bloomfield.)

Following the releases of Live in 1970 and Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smiling in 1971, Butterfield broke up the horn band with David Sanborn and Dinwiddie, and returned to Woodstock, New York. He formed a new group including Chris Parker on drums, guitarist Amos Garrett, Geoff Muldaur, pianist Ronnie Barron and bassist Billy Rich, naming the ensemble "Better Days." The group released Paul Butterfield's Better Days and It All Comes Back in 1972 and 1973, respectively.

In 1976, Butterfield performed at The Band's final concert, The Last Waltz. Together with The Band, he performed the song "Mystery Train" and backed Muddy Waters on "Mannish Boy".

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw Butterfield as a solo act and a session musician, doing occasional television appearances and releasing a couple of albums. He also toured as a duo with Rick Danko, formerly of The Band, with whom he performed for the last time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He also toured with another member of The Band, Levon Helm, as a member of Helm's "RCO All Stars", which also included most of the members of Booker T and the MGs, in 1977. In the 1970s, Butterfield dated fellow musician Elizabeth Barraclough.

In 1986 Butterfield released his final studio album, The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again.

Paul Butterfield died of peritonitis due to drug use and heavy drinking on May 4, 1987 Los Angeles, California. Before then, Butterfield tenor sax player Ruben Riera had taken him to Bellevue Hospital in New York City for emergency surgery for perforated intestine. He died at his home in North Hollywood, California. A month earlier, he was featured on B.B. King and Friends, a filmed concert that also included Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Etta James, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan and Eric Clapton. Its subsequent release was dedicated to Butterfield in memoriam.

In 2005, the Paul Butterfield Fund and Society was founded. It petitions for Butterfield's inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

THE BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND:

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was signed to Elektra Records after adding Bloomfield as lead guitarist. Their original debut sessions were scrapped, to appear in 1995 as The Original Lost Elektra Sessions. A second attempt was recorded live at the Cafe Au Go Go, but these too were rejected by producer Paul Rothchild. Some of the discarded tracks appeared on the What's Shakin LP shared with the Lovin' Spoonful.

At the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, Bob Dylan went electric in a move considered controversial at the time by much of the folk music establishment, backed by members of Butterfield's band — Bloomfield, Arnold, and Lay — but not Butterfield himself. In October, the self-titled debut recorded a third time after the addition of organist Mark Naftalin on some tracks, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, containing Nick Gravenites' "Born in Chicago," was released. Shortly thereafter, Lay became ill with pneumonia and pleurisy and Billy Davenport took over on drums. The Butterfield Band's second album was East-West, released in 1966, after which Bloomfield, Arnold, and Davenport left the band.

Bloomfield formed The Electric Flag with Nick Gravenites, and Bishop began playing lead guitar on The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967). The band now included saxophonists David Sanborn and Gene Dinwiddie, bassist Bugsy Maugh, and drummer Phillip Wilson. In 1967, The Butterfield Blues Band played the seminal Monterey International Pop Festival along with the Electric Flag, Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar, The Who, Otis Redding, the counterculture bands of San Francisco, and many others.

After the release of In My Own Dream, both Bishop and Naftalin left by the end of 1968. Nineteen-year-old guitarist Buzzy Feiten, joined the band for its 1969 release, Keep On Moving, produced by Jerry Ragavoy, and Rod Hicks replaced Maugh on bass. The Butterfield band played at the Woodstock Festival, although their performance wasn't included in the resulting Woodstock film.

NEW:

1997-Droppin' In With the Butterfield Blues Band... (2CD) @320