The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
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Year:
2015
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Inducted by:
Peter Wolf
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Category:
Performers
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Billy Davenport -
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Elvin Bishop -
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Jerome Arnold -
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Mark Naftalin -
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Michael Bloomfield -
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Paul Butterfield -
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Sam Lay
Introduction
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band rocketed the blues straight into the stratosphere.
One of the first integrated blues bands with mass appeal, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band inspired people of all kinds to sing the blues. They pounced on the music and took no prisoners.
Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band Inducts the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band Inducts the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the 2015 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony-
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Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band Inducts the Paul Butterfield Blues Band00:06:22 -
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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Acceptance Speeches00:20:10 -
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"I Got My Mojo Working"00:04:53
Hall of Fame Essay
2015
They came roaring out of Chicago, playing electric blues that seemed plugged into the cosmos.
Grounded by the music of their South Side heroes - Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Elmore James, and others - the Paul Butterfield Blues Band changed rock & roll as surely as any band in mid-sixties America. They did it with a combination of street-smart swagger, an endless well of feeling, and, maybe most strikingly, an impossibly energetic attack on the soul.
The group, originally composed of Paul Butterfield, Michael Bloom- field, Elvin Bishop, Sam Lay (later replaced by Billy Davenport), Mark Naftalin, and Jerome Arnold, made true blues accessible to the growing youth counterculture, and in the process opened up the possibilities for what rock & roll could really be.
you can hear the South Side Chicago sound inside them.
Photography: Michael Zorn
