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. He died of drug-related heart failure.^[1]

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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was signed to Elektra Records after adding Bloomfield as lead guitarist.^[2] 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 producerPaul Rothchild. Some of the discarded tracks appeared on the What's ShakinLP shared with the Lovin' Spoonful.

At the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, Bob Dylan was backed by members of Butterfield's band (Bloomfield, Arnold, and Lay, but not Butterfield himself) when he went electric, a move considered controversial at the time by much of the folk music establishment.^[2] 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.^[2] 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 Festivalalong 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 resultingWoodstock film. In 1969, Butterfield also took part in a concert at Chicago's Auditorium Theater and a subsequent recording session organized by record producer Norman Dayron, featuring Muddy Waters and backed by pianist Otis Spann, Michael Bloomfield, Sam Lay, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Buddy Miles, which was recorded and portions released on Fathers And Sons on Chess Records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfield_Blues_Band

East-West is the second album by The Butterfield Blues Band, released in 1966 on Elektra Records, EKS 7315 in stereo, EKL 315 in mono. It was recorded at the famed Chess Studios on 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It peaked at #65 on the Billboard pop albums chart.

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Like the band's record debut, this album features traditional blues covers and the guitar work of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. Unlike the debut, Bishop also turns in some guitar solos, and drummer Sam Lay had left the band, to be replaced by Billy Davenport.^[2] The social complexion of the band changed as well; ruled by Butterfield in the beginning, it evolved into more of a democracy both in terms of financial reward and input into repertoire.^[3]

One result was the inclusion of two extended jams at the instigation of Bloomfield following the group's successful appearance at The Fillmore in San Franciscoduring March alongside Jefferson Airplane.^[4] Both reflected his love of jazz, as "Work Song" had become a hard bop standard, and the title track "East-West" used elements of modal jazz as introduced by Miles Davis on his ground-breakingKind of Blue album. Bloomfield had become enamored of work by John Coltrane in that area, especially his incorporation of ideas from Indian raga music.^[5] The album also included Michael Nesmith's song "Mary, Mary," which Nesmith would soon record with his band The Monkees - although original pressings of East-West did not include a songwriter's credit for this track

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West

Passion can lead down to some very very strange places. Watch out! Don't go! Got to...

I Got A Mind To Give Up Living

I've got a mind to give up living,
And go shopping instead
I've got a mind to give up living,
And go shopping instead
Pick me up a tombstone,
And be pronounced dead

Well, I read your letter this morning,
That was on your place in bed
Oh, when I read your letter this morning,
That was on your place in bed
That's when I decided that I'd be better off dead
Oh, yeah!

When I read your letter this morning,
That was on your place in bed
Yes, when I read your letter this morning,
That was on your place in bed
That's when I decided that I'd be better off dead

It read, "There is no use looking or ever hoping,
Or ever hoping to get me back
Oh, no use looking, baby
Or ever hoping to get me back
Because it's all over now
And, baby, you can bet on that"
Oh, yeah!

-- traditional