There was a time in the ‘60s and early ‘70s when every self-respecting young white blues-rock guitarist was required to know two tunes, “Louie, Louie” and “Born in Chicago.” The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was a fairly big name back then, as was Butterfield himself, and rightfully so: They had bridged the slight gap between gritty Southside Chicago electric blues and the British blues-rock of the Rolling Stones, et al, with their eponymously-named 1965 Elektra album, and introduced blues-jazz fusion to a rock audience with their incredible 1966 album, “East/West”. To many young blues-rock musicians today, Paul Butterfield is as remote a name as Beethoven — they’ve vaguely heard of him, but not his music. A shame — ‘the more you know, the better you blow,’ as an old sax player once put it. Read up on Butterfield here while you listen to two different versions of “Born in Chicago”.
From a live performance in 1966:
From a 1979 concert with Rick Danko of The Band on bass: