Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield, an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, formed the Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s. In 1963, Butterfield teamed up with Elvin Bishop, Jerome Arnold, and Sam Lay to form a quartet that became the house band at Big John's, a folk music club in Chicago. The cast of the band remained in flux, with members coming and going, but the group kept releasing albums through 1971 when Butterfield broke up the band. He later formed a new group named The Better Days, which went on to release two more albums. Butterfield spent the late 1970s and early 1980s as a session musician and a solo act and in 1986, he released his final studio album, The Legendary Paul Butterfield Rides Again. One month before his death from an overdose of drugs, Butterfield was featured on B.B. King & Friends, a filmed concert that featured the Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Etta James, Gladys Knight, and Eric Clapton.