Paul Butterfield (December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987), a lawyer's son who attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, studied classical flute with Walfrid Kujala ( later professor of flute at Northwestern University) and looked like landing an athletics scholarship to Brown University might have been the archetypal white boy lost in the blues.
He shot to prominence with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, formed in 1963 out of a gig Butterfield and fellow University of Chicago student Elvin Bishop landed at Big John's, a folk club in the Old Town district on Chicago's north side where they recruited bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay from Howlin' Wolf's road band. Elektra Records producer Paul A. Rothchild persuaded Butterfield to add Mike Bloomfield to the line-up (though Joe Boyd claims it was his idea) and that was the outfit that went on to become fixtures on the late-1960's concert and festival circuit.
They were the first electric band to play the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, much to the disgust of purists like Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger, and that was before Bloomfield, Arnold and Lay were among the backing band when Dylan went electric (Chapter 12 of Joe Boyd's White Bicycles has all the gory details). From there they added keyboard player Mark Naftalin to the lineup, recorded The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and were already working up the material that became East West when they hit it big time in San Francisco as regulars at the Fillmore.