Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) 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 Butterfield was also athletic and was offered a track scholarship to Brown University. 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 (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.

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. 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. It reached number 79 in the Billboard album chart. By the end of 1968, both Bishop and Naftalin had left the band. 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. 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.

right|thumb|With [[Rick Danko (left) 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

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.

Legacy

Aside from "rank[ing] among the most influential harp players in the Blues", The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 2015. The induction biography commented that "the Butterfield Band converted the country-blues purists and turned on the Fillmore generation to the pleasures of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Elmore James". Directed by John Anderson and produced by Sandra Warren, it won the Outstanding Achievement Award in Filmmaking: Editing. It has received critical acclaim, including being named a New York Times Critic's Pick, as well as features in Rolling Stone, and The Wall Street Journal.

Harmonica style

Like many Chicago blues harp players, Butterfield approached the instrument like a horn, preferring single notes to chords, and used it for soloing. His style has been described as "always intense, understated, concise, and serious", and he was "known for purity and intensity of his tone, his sustained breath control, and his unique ability to bend notes to his will". In his choice of notes he has been compared to Big Walter Horton, but he was never seen as an imitator of any particular harp player. Rather, he developed "a style original and powerful enough to place him in the pantheon of true blues greats".

By the time of his death, Butterfield was out of the commercial mainstream. Although for some, he was very much the blues man, Maria Muldaur commented "he had the whole sensibility and musicality and approach down pat ... He just went for it and took it all in, and he embodied the essence of what the blues was all about. Unfortunately, he lived that way a little too much."

Discography

In 1964, Butterfield began his association with Elektra Records and eventually recorded seven albums for the label. After the break up of the Butterfield Blues Band in 1971, he recorded four albums for manager Albert Grossman's Bearsville Records – two with Paul Butterfield's Better Days and two solo.

  • East-West (1966) (No. 65 on Billboard 200)

Tribute albums

  • A Tribute to Paul Butterfield, Robben Ford and the Ford Blues Band (2001)
  • The Butterfield/Bloomfield Concert, the Ford Blues Band, with Robben Ford and Chris Cain (2006)

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