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[tuning instruments]

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[man on microphone] Testing.

[tuning instruments]

[man 2] What'd you like to hear?

[tuning instruments]

[man] Like to do a tune we recorded on our first album,

it's called, "Born in Chicago."

[upbeat blues music]

♪ I was born in Chicago in 1941 ♪

♪ I was born in Chicago in 1941 ♪

♪ Well my father told me

♪ Son, you had better get a gun ♪

[music continues]

[man] The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,

a new generation of musicians, white and Negro,

is taking the beat and the message

of Chicago's South Side blues to bigger audiences

introducing a musical extension of blues

to white middle class enthusiasts,

to college crowds everywhere,

as at this fraternity dance at Columbia college

in New York City.

[music continues]

[crowd applauding]

[harmonica train sound]

[man] ♪ All aboard ♪

[upbeat blues music]

♪ Well them people just don't understand ♪

[Dan Aykroyd] Chicago,

"Hog butcher for the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat,"

wrote the poet, Carl Sandburg.

"City of the Big Shoulders" he called it.

Sandburg's, "stormy, husky,

brawling" metropolis sits smack dab in the center of America.

Sooner or later,

every railroad in the country leads to Union Station.

But it was the Illinois Central running from New Orleans

through the Mississippi Delta and Memphis

that brought the blues to the Windy city.

[blues music]

[Yank Rachell]

[Rachell continues]

[blues music]

♪ I went down to Ely's

♪ To get my pistol out of pawn ♪

♪ When I got back home

♪ My woman had gone

♪ Yeah, gonna murder my baby

♪ Oh, if she don't stop cheatin' and lyin' ♪

♪ I'm gonna put a hurtin' on her ♪

♪ Well I'd rather be in the penitentiary ♪

♪ And to be worried outta my mind ♪

[Aykroyd] By the 1940s,

most Southern Blacks knew someone living in Chicago,

maybe a relative.

They crowded into tenements and neighborhoods

previously occupied by other immigrant groups

like the area around Maxwell Street,

which had been known as Jew Town.

Musicians had flocked to the open air market

along Maxwell Street since the days of Big Bill Broonzy.

[blues music]

♪ Well I'd rather be in the penitentiary ♪

♪ Than to be worried outta my mind ♪

[music continues]

[Aykroyd] Not only was it a proving ground

for musicians fresh from the South,

but with hundreds of people jamming the sidewalks

every evening,

it was even possible to make decent money

playing the blues on Maxwell Street.

- You know, at that time the migration era started

there were most of the Negroes were coming up from the South

because there were no work down there.

A lot of 'em come to Chicago, lots to Detroit,

but mainly Chicago.

- Come up by the train, right?

- Train, any way they can get here

and if they weren't workin' they'd go on Maxwell Street

on Sunday with their guitar and sit down

and put their hat down and get to make

three, four or five dollars,

whatever it took to live on at that time.

You name them they were all there.

Little Walter,

Sonny Boy Williamson from Helena, Arkansas.

You had Muddy Waters from Clarksdale, Mississippi.

If they were on Maxwell Street, they were there.

♪ Well, I feel, yes, I feel

♪ Feel that I could lay down, oh, time ain't long ♪

♪ I'm gonna catch the first thing smokin' ♪

♪ Back, back down the road I'm goin' ♪

♪ Back down the road I'm goin'

- I've been in Chicago for quite a few years,

but I was born in Mississippi.

And I was raised up in Clarksdale,

I was raised up out on a farm or plantation.

I began it in Mississippi,

I first stated by blowin' the harmoni',

then by 17, 18 I switched over to guitar.

[blues guitar]

♪ I'm gonna get my 32 turnin'

♪ My baby she riding around in V8 Ford ♪

[Aykroyd] In 1942, the Library of Congress archivist,

Alan Lomax, made field recordings of Muddy Waters,

while he lived and worked on Stovall's plantation

in Mississippi.

The following year, Muddy moved to Chicago

and took the country blues to the big city.

- I got a job.

I worked that during the days and I played the weekend

at house parties, you know, at different houses.

Just me and my guitar.

Finally, it began to leak out, you know,

that they had a pretty good guy from Mississippi.

They called me the young blues singer then.

I think I'm responsible for Chicago blues.

I think I'm the man that set Chicago up for the real blues.

- I called him the godfather.

Muddy Waters did more for blues than any of us

because he lit up Chicago.

When most people think of Chicago blues,

the beginning was Muddy Waters.

♪ Got my mojo workin'

[backing singer] ♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ Got my bl-bl-bl-bl, workin'

[backing singer] ♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ Got my mojo workin'

[backing singer] ♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ Got my mojo workin'

[Waters] ♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ But it, hmmm, just don't work on you ♪

[music continues]

[crowd applauding]

[blues guitar]

♪ Well I wish I was a catfish

♪ Swimming in a ol', deep, blue sea ♪

[Aykroyd] "Rollin' Stone" by Muddy Waters

was the record that put the Chicago blues

on the map in 1950.

Released by the new Chess Records label,

which had started life three years earlier

as Aristocrat Records.

Chess was run by two Polish immigrant brothers,

Leonard and Phil Chess.

There would be other small labels

recording blues in Chicago, Vee Jay, Cobra, Delmark,

but Chess Records was the fountainhead of Chicago blues

making not only the greatest records by giants,

Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf,

but also their talented disciples, Little Walter,

Jimmie Rodgers, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Buddy Guy.

The label broke into the pop charts in the mid fifties

with rock and roll hits by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley,

but all was at the heart of the label's music

was the towering blues man, Muddy Waters.

He was the cornerstone of Chess Records

and the entire Chicago blues scene.

[blues music]

[Sam Lay speaking]

I know the whole band used to rehearse there.

Muddy had a little Cadillac, always had a Cadillac.

I learned a lot from that old man.

You better believe it, I learned a lot from him.

[Waters] ♪ Sail on, sail on, my little honey bee, sail on ♪

- And on that corner there was the Playhouse

where James Cotton got shot.

Wolf lived right over there at 43rd.

You see how close they were living together.

[Corky Siegel] Were Muddy and Wolf friends?

- No.

[Siegel] Enemies?

- Yeah. [laughing]

It sure brings back some memory.

[blues guitar]

- Well...

I'm gonna just break it down to you.

Muddy's a nice person, you know,

but he's a little jealous of me,

some kind of way. - [laughter]

- I speak highly of Muddy,

but yet still I don't say a man ain't jealous of me, you know.

I help him, he took my...

I give him two mens out of my band once or twice.

♪ Oh, the train I ride on

♪ Oh, the engine shine like gold ♪

♪ Oh, the train I ride on

♪ Oh, the engine shine like gold ♪

[Aykroyd] Chester Burnett, AKA Howlin' Wolf,

was first recorded in 1950 by Sam Phillips

on his Sun Records label in Memphis

five years before Phillips discovered Elvis Presley.

In 1952, Wolf moved to Chicago and signed with Chess Records

where he recorded for the rest of his life.

♪ Well now, baby, 'cause I know you ♪

♪ Comin' home, so smile at my happiness ♪

♪ She said I'm sorry dear, with tears ♪

♪ Don't do me that-a-way, baby ♪

♪ Oh, she said, smile at my happiness ♪

♪ Sorry my dear, with tears

♪ She said the words I wanna tell you ♪

♪ They go right into the ear ♪

[Aykroyd] Wolf was an imposing mountain of a man.

Everything about him was oversized

from his massive hands

that cradled his guitar like a toothpick,

to his deep, crusty growl

that sounded like it had been summoned

from the center of the earth.

[Wolf] ♪ It could be spoonful of diamonds ♪

♪ Could be a spoonful of gold ♪

♪ Just a little spoon of your precious love ♪

♪ Satisfy my soul

♪ Men lies about a little ♪

♪ Some of them cries about a little ♪

[Aykroyd] When Wolf relocated to Chicago

and put together a band,

he sent for the young guitarist

who had been playing with him in Memphis,

a teenager named Hubert Sumlin.

- He was in Chicago getting his new band together.

I wanted to play so bad.

I joined Wolf in Chicago.

He had the blues because he showed them to me.

He told me, he say,

"Hubert you better have them 'cause you playing with me."

He did have a thing, man.

He turned me loose on the recording a number

and when I hit a note, man, when I hear, I mean business,

I mean business.

[blues guitar]

- Rock and Roll come from the blues you better believe it.

I don't care how you play it, it's the blues.

♪ I'm a man

♪ I'm a full grown man

[Aykroyd] In 1960, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf

were the twin towers of a thriving Chicago blues scene.

Two giants surrounded by a remarkable community

of amazing musicians.

[piano music]

[Aykroyd] There were side men like piano player, Otis Spann.

The troubled genius of the blues piano

who often played in the Muddy Waters band.

[piano music]

[harmonica music]

[Aykroyd] The king of the blues harmonica,

Little Walter Jacobs, started out playing on Maxwell Street

before appearing on the early Muddy Waters records,

but soon graduated leading his own band

after nationwide hits like "Juke" and "My Babe."

[blues music]

[Jacobs] ♪ My baby don't stand no cheatin', my babe ♪

[Aykroyd] Little Walter's sound went straight

to the heart of Chicago blues.

[harmonica blues music]

- ♪ Well everybody cryin' about the seventh son ♪

♪ But in the whole round world there is only one ♪

♪ I'm the one

[Aykroyd] Standing wide and tall

over the Chicago blues scene was Willie Dixon.

- ♪ Well I'm the one, I'm the one ♪

♪ I'm the one they call the seventh son ♪

[Aykroyd] Willie Dixon worked in the recording studio

for the Chess brothers.

Record producer, songwriter,

talent scout and all around engine of the label's music.

Not only did he write landmark songs

like "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Back Door Man,"

"Spoonful" and "The Red Rooster,"

he often played bass on Chuck Berry's Rock and Roll hits.

[blues music]

- All the great blues players I ever met in my life

was met in the city of Chicago.

Anytime you have Little Walter, Muddy Waters, James Cotton,

Junior Wells, Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf,

Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush,

Otis Spann, Sunnyland Slim,

Willie Dixon, everybody was there.

- ♪ I found little notes ♪

[Aykroyd] The city was full of incredible musicians,

playing little bars and tiny dives

in the Black neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West Side.

- ♪ Good bye Junior darlin', oh yeah ♪

♪ Momma sure 'nuf don't want you no more, ha! ♪

[Aykroyd] On any given night, many blues bands

could be found working across town.

An entire world that existed without anyone

in the white community knowing.

- ♪ Oh, yeah!

- If it wasn't Junior Wells at Pepper's Lounge,

it was the brilliant Otis Rush at the Blue Flame.

[blues guitar]

- ♪ Well I'm tore up

♪ As drunk as I could be

[Aykroyd] Or the amazing Magic Sam at Silvio's.

[upbeat blues music] [vocalizing]

[Aykroyd] Or Buddy Guy at Theresa's Lounge.

[soulful blues guitar]

[Aykroyd] This was the Chicago blues scene

of the early sixties,

bursting with fierce, creative musicians.

Yet at the peak of its powers, the blues was dying.

[rock music]

- ♪ Papa's got a brand new bag

[Aykroyd] Artists like James Brown,

Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke ruled the ghetto jukeboxes.

Young Blacks had rejected the blues as a relic of the past.

- We didn't have too many young Blacks.

And for some reason they didn't like the word blues.

[upbeat light music]

[Aykroyd] This was the Eisenhower era

and an entire generation of young white Americans

shared the common knowledge

that their parents didn't understand them.

The American dream could be oppressive.

Many of these young people bristled

at the rigid conformity demanded of them.

They yearned for something different.

Some sought refuge from the white bread world

that surrounded them in music.

[blues music]

A few of these lonely, misunderstood kids

trained their beams on mysterious obscure corners.

[radio static tuning]

[blues music]

[Aykroyd] At the far end of the radio dial

on late night, high-watt specialty shows

that could be heard throughout the Midwest,

they discovered a secret world.

- I was 14, the year was 1955, listening to the radio,

I went to the end of the dial, the end of the radio

and heard this really far out music.

There was is this disc jockey, his name was Sam Evans

and his show was called "Jam with Sam."

And it was about 12 o'clock at midnight,

and he said, "We're gonna go down to the basement now

and turn on this little blue light,

and we're gonna dig some Jams with Sam.''

And in the background was this so far out theme song

of his "Blue Light" by Little Walter.

[soulful blues music]

- He unleashed the reverbs on the harmonica

and it just, things started to explode in my mind

and for me, it was sort of like a passport to freedom

and I turned it up and my parents,

they were a little concerned about it.

But to me, I discovered a new world.

- ♪ That's evil, evil is goin' on ♪

♪ I am warnin' you, brother

♪ You better watch your happy home ♪

- I didn't know it,

but simultaneously throughout the North Side,

in the suburbs of Chicago, teenagers my age

were discovering this same station.

[blues music]

And one of them was Michael Bloomfield,

who I would meet a couple of years later,

when we had rival rock and roll bands in high school,

we were competing to see who would play

for sweet 16 parties

and we developed a respect for each other

and we became friends.

[school bell ringing] [blues music]

- So I'm at New Trier High School in the hall,

and this kid with kinky, curly hair comes up to me

and he says, "Man I love your pants."

He knew I was Marshall Chess

and he knew about Chess Records,

but he introduced himself to me.

He used the pants as the entrée

and it was Michael Bloomfield.

And he invited me over to his house

and he lived in this big mansion.

He had a record player in his room

and he was a BB King fanatic.

He kept asking me, did ya ever meet BB King,

you know about BB King?

I know Mike Bloomfield, even when he was 17,

he wanted to be a blues man.

- Michael and I would see each other

in the halls and say, "Hello."

And he's, one of those times he said,

"Man, then you gotta come on down with me

I can borrow my mother's car

and we could go down to the South

and West Side of Chicago,"

which really no one ever did at that particular time.

Michael had been down there before

and struck up a relationship with Howlin' Wolf

and he said, "Come on, man, we're gonna go down

tomorrow night and sit in with Howlin' Wolf."

Man, this is like really far out, Howlin' Wolf,

and, "Are you sure it's good?"

And he said, "Just trust me."

So this was an adventure.

- ♪ I got to let you dog me around ♪

- We went down to the West Side at a club called Silvio's

and Michael said, "Now just listen to me,

you walk straight ahead you don't look to the left,

look to the right and we'll sit at the front table

and Wolf will recognize us."

And we sat down and there were a hush came

over the club and there are these four little white kids,

you know, sitting there amongst the blues lovers.

- Mike Bloomfield, Wolf used to let him on the bandstand

and play.

- "Michael Bloomfield, he got a friend with him,

he's gonna play the keyboards."

I started to shake.

The first song Wolf did was "Killing Floor."

- ♪ I shoulda quit you a long time ago ♪

- We started playing, Michael started playing the guitar

and the people really responded.

- And Wolf said, I don't care what color you is,

these guys can play.

These guys, Wolf knows what they is gonna be,

everybody knows.

They wanna learn and they learn it.

But man, let me tell you something,

Wolf loved these guys, man.

- All the great blues singers live in Chicago.

They play there, you know, since I was very young,

I've been going down to hear them, you know,

I'd sneak down to the bars and see, could I get in?

Listen and hear what they're playing

It flipped me out.

[guitar music]

I wanted to know the story of the blues

and the best way for me to learn was

to actually meet the guys, you know.

Muddy, he was in Chicago, he was like a God to me.

I just couldn't even imagine of ever knowing someone

of his magnitude and greatness.

I would go down the street, man,

and from two blocks away hear

that harmonica come out of the club

I hear that harp and I'd hear Muddy's slide.

I'd be trembling, I'd be like a dog in heat,

[stammers] I didn't know what to do,

I'd get near that place, man, I'd be all a-quiver.

I'd stand out in front,

me and Roy Ruby, man, we'd stand,

this buddy of mine,

we would stand out in front, man,

and just peer in the window.

We were too young to get in, you know, we had phony IDs

but they just laughed at us.

I would just stand all night long in the window, man.

It was just an amazing thing for my eyes to behold.

- ♪ You say you love me, darlin' ♪

- Not that we were so good at that time,

but they recognized the reverence and the passion

that we had for their music and the respect,

which was really important and Wolf liked it too.

[Aykroyd] In some cosmic way,

these older Black blues musicians

knew who these young white men were

and what they had come for.

They welcomed them, with gracious hospitality

and genuine warmth and affection.

They shared their world freely with these visitors.

These kids found something they couldn't find at home,

they found love.

It was a coming together of generations

bonded by music and transcended social issues.

It was about sound, not color.

It was about the love of the blues.

[blues music]

- ♪ Please, call me on the phone sometimes ♪

Mike Bloomfield!

[music continues]

- You have to hold your own.

If you sucked, you had no business being there.

You'd now only be a white kid, but you'd be a fool.

And the first initial reaction was, "Oh, he's white"

and "What's he doing here?"

I was an oddity,

and after a while it was, "He plays the blues."

[Interviewer] Were there any other white kids

coming down there?

[harmonica music]

[Bloomfield] There was Musselwhite,

but he was a country boy, man,

people just naturally loved him

they loved him cause he was just country.

[harmonica music]

- Charlie Musselwhite came into Chicago,

I think he was 17 or 18, from Tennessee.

And they called him Memphis Charlie.

And he lived in the basement

of Bob Koester's record store for a while.

[harmonica music]

- Everybody was getting out of the South

everybody was heading North.

I thought man, I gotta get up to Chicago

and get me one of them big factory jobs.

And I learned the city real fast

and I would see these signs and posters

and flyers in the windows of clubs that'd say,

Elmore James or Muddy Waters.

Wow, I didn't know these guys are here.

So I go to these clubs

and there was people like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.

They were real flattered that I knew who they were

and I had their records and I knew the names of their tunes.

I just became a fixture at Silvio's.

Then one night, a waitress that I'd gotten to know,

told Muddy Waters,

"You ought to hear that boy play harmonica."

Everything turned there. Muddy had me sit in

and then people started offering me gigs,

and that got my attention.

Then I got focused on,

hmm, this is my way out of the factory.

[harmonica music]

This one place I played at a lot

called Rose and Kelley's Blue Lounge is sort of

a harmonica hangout, be all these harp players there

and we would play and then you'd pass them the mic

and the harp to the next guy.

And he would play it,

do his best and he'd pass it to the next guy.

We'd be shoulder to shoulder

and finally Shakey Horton would walk up

and just take the harmonica and take the mic

and just wipe the floor with all of us.

[harmonica music]

This is the corner,

but it ain't like it used to be. [laughs]

I spent a lot of time right here,

Rose and Kelly's Blue Lounge.

And Walter Horton lived down here,

a couple blocks on this side of the street.

Me and Walter Horton

would walk these bricks right here many a time.

If I didn't find Walter here or at home,

he'd be at the liquor store between here and there.

I think he enjoyed playing harmonica more out in the alley

with his buddies then in any club.

[blues music]

- We'd all hung around the University of Chicago,

which was in this fringe Hyde Park,

which is a sort of integrated neighborhood in Chicago.

And we all hung around the university

'cause they had funky music around there

and they had this folklore society.

- I had heard that Chicago was where blues was happening

'cause that's when Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf were young

and strong and in their prime

and Chicago blues was being created, ya know?

I got a National Merit Scholarship

and I could basically go to any college I wanted to.

So I said, I'm going to Chicago, you know.

The University of Chicago is in an island called Hyde Park.

It's right in the middle of the South Side ghetto.

This is before gangs and drugs,

there wasn't that bitter edge on the ghetto

like there came to be later, you know.

I made friends with the musicians real quick.

They were much nicer to me than they needed to be.

- ♪ Well, I can't quit you baby ♪

♪ But I got to put you down for a while ♪

- Otis Rush invited me over to his house.

I'd go over and Otis would show me blues stuff.

I'd walk into the door,

the first thing he'd do is go in the kitchen

and go in the cupboard

and get down this pint of whiskey

and pour us both a shot.

[blues music]

I wanted to play blues like my heroes did, you know.

My main guy that really helped me a lot was

Little Smokey Smothers and he was beautiful, man.

I'd go over to his house and he'd sit me down

and he'd show me tunes.

He'd make sure I got it, he was conscientious about it.

If I was being hard-headed and wasn't getting the part

to his satisfaction, he'd take me in the kitchen.

He'd always had something good on the stove

like ham hocks and black-eyed peas

or neck bones, greens, and like that you know,

he'd lift up the lid, he'd say, "Smell that."

I'd smell, I'd say, "That's great. Can I have some?"

He slammed that lid then said,

"When you get this part, you can have some."

[blues guitar music]

[Interviewer] Yeah!

[blues music]

- I met Michael Bloomfield in a pawn shop

that's where I'd look for guitars.

So I was on Clark Street on the North Side

and I walked in and there was a guy behind the counter

looked kind of like a smart ass, you know.

And I looked up on the wall, I saw a guitar

I wanted to try out and I said, "Can I try that guitar?"

He hands it to me,

I start fumbling around a little bit, you know,

he said, "Oh, you like blues huh, give me that thing."

He grabs it and he started playing rings around the world.

[chuckling] I said, "Well, hey, that's great man."

That's how I met Michael Bloomfield.

- When I was living in the back of the record store

in Old Town, just a couple of blocks away,

Mike Bloomfield was living in the Carl Sandburg apartments.

So he would come over to the record store

like almost every day.

We would go through all these 78's, and everything,

playing records and just hanging out.

When he found out I played a little,

he wanted to know what do you know, who do you learn from?

What were they like?

He had a million questions.

He had this energy for life.

He wanted just to consume it all, just eat it all up.

And he had access to his mom's car,

so we'd drive around town and get into trouble.

Well, Mike Bloomfield had like a photographic memory,

he'd copy any style, whether it was like country blues

or modern blues.

He could listen to it and absorb that guy's style,

whether it was Muddy Waters or BB King

or Arthur Crudup, and he could play it.

[blues guitar music]

- Mike Bloomfield, I first heard him

when Grossman had me come out to play at a club

they had started in Chicago

and the name of the club was The Bear.

I saw this guy coming from across the street.

He was carrying a bag

and I knew there was a guitar in the bag,

I just knew that. He come in the front door

and he introduced himself and told me who he was.

He said he had a band on the South Side.

He said he'd heard my first record [laughing]

and said he wanted to show me how the blues were played.

He played Hubert Sumlin licks, he played everything,

and one after another.

Then he started playing Blind Lemon stuff,

which I couldn't believe.

And then he started playing Blind Blake,

which was really hard.

I mean, he just was the best guitar player I ever heard.

- I can play blues, you know,

but you can quote me on this, man,

Butterfield's something else.

He feels it, he's in there all the way.

- I met Butterfield the first day I was in Chicago.

I was walking around the neighborhood,

just checking it out you know, wow, you know,

Chicago, I'm here.

And sitting on some steps in front

of an apartment building was white guy playing blues

on the guitar and drinking a quart of beer.

I said, "Wow, this is pretty cool,

looks like my kind of guy."

It was Butterfield.

For the first six months I knew him,

he didn't play harmonica hardly, he was,

he was more of a guitar player,

but he picked up the harmonica...

straight to the stratosphere.

He became as good as he was ever gonna be in six months.

[harmonica music]

For the first couple of years that we played together,

we just did acoustic stuff at parties.

And that's where I met Nick Gravenites.

- Nick Gravenites who was like sort of the reputed leader

of this underground movement, the blues movement.

- In my early blues days,

I was a thug sort of a minor league gangster,

I carried a gun, I drank a lot, I took a lot of pills.

- Nick was sort of like the big chief,

he was the main guy

of the Chicago blues young guys clique.

- So I became like a beatnik.

I loved that whole coffee house, poetry, music,

folk music-type thing, that was for me.

- And Nick was also a scholar too.

Nick went to The University of Chicago.

He's a really smart guy,

but, his reputation was a real tough guy.

[Aykroyd] Nick Gravenites tested his way

into The University of Chicago,

but soon drifted off into a beatnik reverie,

traveling the country,

settling for a while in San Francisco,

before returning to Chicago and hooking back up

with his old pal, Paul Butterfield.

- Me and Paul, we were South Side blues guys,

and that was the time

we were all steeped in the blues real deep.

- A lot of the music,

the blues, is people [indistinct] jazz and stuff

came from Black American heritage

came from the Black people, but music, man, is universal thing.

If you feel music, you play music

and it doesn't belong to a Black man,

didn't belong to a white man.

- He wound up playing harmonica

at these blues revues on the South Side.

He became part of the show,

particularly at a place called The Blue Flame Lounge.

Sam Lay has these films, you see a long shot

of one of those clubs that Paul had all the way down the bar,

and every guy they're all standing there.

And the last guy you see is Paul smiling,

he was in his element, they loved him.

They thought he was a great musician.

All of a sudden here's some white kid who could really play.

[harmonica music]

And the Black audiences knew it.

[Aykroyd] The origins of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band

go back to Saturday nights in the dorm lounge

at the University of Chicago

with Butterfield at first on solo harp,

but soon joined on guitar by his pal, Elvin Bishop.

- Wolf's rhythm section, well, they were backing up

Junior Wells at The Blue Flame lounge.

Junior sees Paul and he's-- introduces him to the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have down here

Paul Butterfield, who's a great harmonica player.

Why don't ya have him come up here

and have him do a tune for you."

Fine, they applaud, he goes up there,

one and a two and a boom, they hit something really hot.

And the people went nuts,

they loved that, they were applauding.

Well, Junior Wells got so pissed off at the crowd's reaction,

that he left.

[harmonica music]

- The beautiful thing about Butterfield was

he was so strong and so dynamic,

but he didn't play anybody's licks.

Butterfield was just him right from the get go.

- All the stuff that Paul does, he's taken from the groups

and the records that right from the Chicago area

Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf,

Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson

and Otis Rush.

And Paul's taken them and reworked them

with his own style, you know,

and it's Butterfield, it's pure-D Butterfield.

[blues music]

[Aykroyd] What happened next

could never have been predicted.

The blues moved across town to the North Side,

the Old Town neighborhood

around the famous improv theater, Second City,

was studded with small clubs and bars

that catered to the college crowd.

Although it was only across town,

it was a million miles from the South Side.

Big John's was a Wells Street club,

first mapped out by Mike Bloomfield

and Charlie Musselwhite.

- The Bloomfield band, the band I was in,

when we left Big John's,

Butterfield took our spot.

[Aykroyd] When Butterfield was offered

a spot at the club,

he borrowed Howlin' Wolf's rhythm section,

Jerome Arnold on bass and Sam Lay on drums,

and started The Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

[upbeat harmonica music]

- Big John's was great, man.

It was sold out all the time.

It was running seven days a week.

It was Butterfield's home base,

and they were the center of that scene.

[harmonica blues music]

[Aykroyd] Almost immediately,

the place was packed with young white college students.

It was 1964, the year The Beatles

were breaking big in America.

And the blues was suddenly coming to life

with the frat crowd.

♪ Yeah, you know I'm a hoochie coochie man ♪

♪ Everybody knows I am

- You know, we told the owners of the bar,

you know, you should get other blues bands in here.

Get Muddy Waters, get Little Walter, Otis Rush.

And so they started booking blues

at this little bar on the North Side.

There hadn't been blues on the North Side.

And then the other little bars on the North Side

started seeing what great business

Big John's was doing, so

they wanted to book blues too.

- ♪ Lead me by my hand ♪

♪ Then the world'll know

[Aykroyd] Big John's started bringing in

the other blues men.

Muddy Waters never thought he would live long enough

to work on the North Side.

- ♪ Everybody knows I'm him ♪

- We were all in Chicago at the same time.

That era between 1964 and 1966.

Musselwhite, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield,

Corky Siegel, James Schwall, Barry Goldberg, Steve Miller.

White kids, all of 'em about the same age,

nuts for blues.

- I remember Steve Miller, he would come into Big John's.

I think he had gigs there.

- And there were fights at Big John's

and the Blue Flame and Pepper's.

And wherever you went, you know,

there was always trouble, and you know,

somebody being beaten with a pool cue

or something, you know, a lot of times,

you'd have to kind of get off the stage

and sort of let things cool off, and then come back in and play.

- Well, at one point, him and Barry had a band together.

It was called The Miller Goldberg Blues Band.

- The way I met Steve was he was playing

at a place down the street about two blocks from here.

And I was walking by one day

and I heard this amazing guitar playing

coming out of the storefront.

And I said, man, it sounds just like T-bone Walker to me.

So I said, "Steve, I heard that

The Butterfield Band was leaving Big John's

to go to New York and they need a band in here,

why don't we get a group together,

I play the keyboards."

And he said, "Great!"

We got the gig,

and we played there for about a year.

- As far as I was concerned, as soon as I met Barry

and we played together,

I had found like a soul brother,

because Barry was brilliant on keyboards, man.

He was something else.

And he and I just hooked up [fingers snapping]

just like that.

- Barry Goldberg was more of a get-along kind of guy,

the rabbi type.

But under that rabbi look,

he was very fierce.

Fierce blues man.

- Writing tunes with Barry was just phenomenal.

I mean, I'd sit down and say,

"You know, Barry, I got this one lick, what do you think?"

And he'd go, "Yeah, how 'bout this lick?"

And then, "How about that?" And then we'd go,

"Okay, that one's done, let's do another one."

[upbeat blues music]

- ♪ All right!

♪ Ow! Hey!

[music continues]

- You know everybody talks about it like

we were these little white boys.

We were competing with Howlin' Wolf

for his gig at his club.

There were about five or six clubs,

there were about five or six bands.

And boy, the minute they weren't in that club,

we were in that club.

So we had, it was like business.

It wasn't like we were getting a free pass for anything.

- It's like that saying when the water goes up,

all the boats go with it, you know?

We were doing things for and with each other

and we're all part of the scene

and anything one of us did was helpful to the other one too.

[blues music]

[Aykroyd] Guitarist Harvey Mandel

was a teenager from Detroit when he found his way into

the South Side blues clubs.

- Sammy Fender took me down to Twist City,

where I got to meet all the famous blues people,

BB King and Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.

The biggest influence of all was Buddy Guy,

'cause he was a regular that played there weekly.

Being influenced by him transformed my playing

because I went from a very beginner

playing Venture music and all of a sudden

I'm seeing the real blues, and it was like

watching him up close was like going to college

for playing guitar.

[blues guitar music]

- Harvey had his own identity.

He wanted to be in those clubs,

playing in the meanest, toughest places,

holding his own.

- Harvey was real cool and playing all this

incredible guitar, you know?

Just totally in control and totally cool all the time.

- If you go into any club, no matter where,

if you can play, you're halfway home.

- Harvey was one of the first white guitar players

that was coming in the Black club.

Great guitar player, man.

We used to have Sunday and Monday evenin',

what they called Battle of Guitars.

You'd have to play to come there.

[blues guitar music]

- Buddy Guy used to come tearing out here

with his guitar and his hundred-foot cord,

and literally go out in the middle of the street here

and stop traffic everywhere and be blasting

on the guitar and stuff.

I've seen guys out here get knifed,

giant fights, unbelievable, but I used to come park my car,

be carrying this big amplifier, my guitar,

and everything, no one ever bothered me though.

- One of the things about Chicago

that was really interesting

was that every band was a little bit different.

[upbeat blues music]

- ♪ You say I'm mad

♪ I got priorities

[Aykroyd] The Siegel-Schwall Band was

another group of young white musicians

who popped up on the Chicago scene

gigging regularly on the South Side at Pepper's Lounge

in between the old guard bands.

- We didn't think we were a blues band,

but we were intensely influenced by the blues.

We also had other influences that changed the music,

so it didn't sound exactly, you know, like other stuff.

We were hired by Johnny Pepper at Pepper's Soul Lounge,

and I just thought it was a bar

on the South Side of Chicago, I had no idea.

And then some guy walks up to the stage

the first night and says, "I'd like to sit in."

He was a little drunk, and so I didn't think,

you know, I wanted him to sit in and I said,

"Nah, maybe later" or something,

and one of the people in the audience said,

"No, no, no, come on! Let him sit in, that's Little Walter."

[laughing]

And so, Otis Spann, you know, came and sat in with us

and Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf showed up

and Muddy Waters, you know, and Hound Dog Taylor.

You know, so what's happening is,

we're playing this club

that's sort of the center of the blues scene.

Howlin' Wolf asked us to go on the road with him,

so we went on the road with him and we played

The Café Go-Go together.

And he used to knock on my door every morning

and say, "Come on, we're gonna go take a walk,"

and I'd take a walk with him every morning

through the village for like, a couple of hours,

you know, me and the Wolf, and it was just, it was amazing.

[Radio Announcer] Well, let's hear that number

now that's shooting up the charts,

called "Little Red Rooster"!

[girls screaming]

[blues music]

[Aykroyd] Across the Atlantic ocean,

an unexpected development took place.

The old Howlin' Wolf song, "Little Red Rooster,"

hit number one on the British charts,

courtesy of a young group of Brits

called The Rolling Stones.

- ♪ I am the little red rooster ♪

♪ Too lazy to crow for day

[Aykroyd] Chicago blues was always the foundation

of the Stones' music.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards famously met

when Richard spied Jagger getting

on a London underground train carrying a couple of Chess LPs.

- And I must say, we must have been wearing

brass balls that day when we decided to put that out

as a single, right?

We knew it was kind of a bold move.

"Let's see if we can actually spin it back around

and make American white kids listen

to 'Little Red Rooster,'" but it worked.

- ♪ Dogs begin a-barkin' ♪

♪ Hounds begin to howl

- Felt it was a privilege to be the conduit.

It was our job to pay back.

[harmonica music]

[Aykroyd] Inspired almost exclusively by precious records

from exotic Chicago, Illinois,

The Stones arrived in town

on the band's first tour in 1965.

About the same time The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

was packing out Big John's.

But they made a beeline for

the Chess Records Recording Studio

where their heroes made all their records.

- Here's The Rolling Stones story,

my uncle called me on the intercom and said,

"Marshall, there's a call, white guys

with a strange accent, something about

recording in the studio, take it and see what they want."

And it was Andrew Oldham, the Stones manager.

He introduced himself to me,

and I knew who The Rolling Stones were.

So I set it up with Andrew Oldham,

the Stones arrived and we had never seen

hair like that, especially Brian Jones.

It was shocking!

- My brother looked at me and I looked at him

and I said, "Who are they?" - [laughing] That's true.

Who are those freaks?

[laughing] - They looked like freaks!

[Richards] That was '64,

when I first got here to America

and I got the chance to sit around

with Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf,

and they were all just wanting to share ideas.

They wanted to know like how we were doing it,

and why we wanted to do it.

It didn't take long for us all to become friends.

♪ Well I was doing right

♪ You couldn't believe a word I say ♪

[Aykroyd] In fact, when The Rolling Stones

were asked to star in the prime time American

teen dance show, Shindig, the Stones only agreed

if producers also booked Howlin' Wolf,

in what would be the only nationally televised appearance

he would ever make.

♪ You think I'm crazy ♪

♪ But I can't let you have your way ♪

[blues music]

- ♪ Well, you pretty women

♪ Stand in a line

[Aykroyd] But The Stones were far from

the only young British musicians

inspired by the blues.

The music had been welcomed since Big Bill Broonzy

first brought the blues to Europe in the mid 1950s.

- ♪ A boom, boom, boom, boom,

♪ Shoot you right down

♪ Right off of your feet

♪ Take you home with me

♪ But you're in my house

♪ Making love

[Aykroyd] These young, largely working class

British youth identified with the alienation and anger

they heard on the Black American records.

- ♪ You knock me out

[Aykroyd] Eric Burdon, of the Animals,

remembered seeing Muddy Waters

on the American Folk Blues Tour in his native Newcastle.

- The first time I was really aware of Chicago blues

as a sort of powerful entity unto itself,

was Muddy Waters at City Hall in Newcastle.

As I was coming home from night school,

my rucksack on my back,

doors were open, it was a hot night

and I was two blocks away, and I could hear his voice,

and I thought, that's where I want to be.

- ♪ Got my mojo working ♪

♪ But it just don't work on you ♪

[audience clapping]

[slow harmonica music]

[Aykroyd] Back in Chicago, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

was poised to burst onto the national scene.

It was producer Paul Rothchild who suggested

adding Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar

to The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,

and then signed the group to Elektra Records,

a hip New York City label specializing in folk music.

He also brought in another University of Chicago grad,

Mark Naftalin on keyboards.

The new Paul Butterfield Blues Band

entered the studio to record

its first album in December, 1964.

- That album to this day,

is something that should not be ignored

because it was a great contribution

to bringing back the Blues into the mainstream.

After a while, "Satisfaction" and "Gloria"

were kind of corny to us.

This was the new anthem, or the new thing,

"Born in Chicago."

Man, people would be--

[imitating guitar] That's it.

[blues harmonica music]

[Aykroyd] Growing interest in the band

led to an invitation to play the prestigious

Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in July, 1965.

Following in the footsteps of Muddy, Wolf,

and other Chicago blues artists who have played the festival,

The Butterfield Band unknowingly

set forth on a date with destiny.

- One, two, one, two three.

[high-energy blues music]

♪ Look over yonder's wall

♪ And hand me down my walkin' cane ♪

♪ Well I got my sugar woman

♪ Yonder come your man

♪ Well I love you baby

♪ Can't treat me right

♪ Take all my money, walk the streets at night ♪

♪ Look over yonder's wall

♪ Hand me down my walkin' cane

♪ Well I got my sugar woman

♪ Yonder come your man

[music continues]

[music continues]

♪ Look over yonder's wall

♪ And hand me down my walkin' cane ♪

♪ Look over yonder's wall

♪ And hand me down my walkin' cane ♪

♪ Well I got my sugar woman

♪ Yonder come your man

- Oh!

[slow music]

[Aykroyd] Also appearing at Newport that summer

was folk music's number one attraction, Bob Dylan,

who was about to turn a corner in his career

from protest songs into something altogether larger.

[Dylan] Hey! - [hand knocking]

[woman] Okay.

[crowd cheering]

[Aykroyd] He had already drafted Mike Bloomfield

to play on sessions in 1965

that produced the classic song, "Like a Rolling Stone."

[Dylan] When it was time to bring in

a guitar player to play on my record,

I couldn't think of anybody but him.

[Aykroyd] The next month at Newport,

members of The Butterfield Band and Dylan

would combine in one of the most historic performances

in rock history.

- It is essential that you get your levels for your,

for your instruments and for your amplifiers

and get them into your heads.

- Of course, Bloomfield was playing there

with The Butterfield Band,

then they decided to have The Butterfield Band

backup Dylan and Michael got Barry Goldberg

to play, also.

- Michael said, "Hey, this is my buddy,

he can play the keyboards, man, he's really good, you know?"

And Bob said, "Hey man, do you want to play with me?"

And I said, "Yeah!"

That's how I wound up, you know,

playing in Bob Dylan's first electric band.

- ♪ I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more ♪

[blues guitar]

[crowd applauding]

- You could hear Michael, he was almost like,

assaulting people with his guitar,

saying, okay take this, take that, with his licks,

and overpowering Bob a little bit.

[crowd cheering]

- People were shocked, you know, the folk crowd.

They felt really sold out and betrayed.

But Bob had created something really different.

From my recollection of the concert,

a lot of people did get it, and a lot of people loved it.

I mean, it was like a really inspired,

intense performance, like, and--

but most of the people booed.

- They came out and played three burning electric tunes

and then came out and sang "It's All Over Now Baby Blue."

I mean, that's the thing they should've

paid attention to, not that stupid booing thing.

I had been at the festival,

I knew other people played electric,

Chambers Brothers played electric,

Butterfield played electric,

so, you know, big deal.

- I didn't see it because I was a blues guy.

I was hangin' out the other side of the fairgrounds

with Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi John Herd

splitting a half pint of whiskey.

[Aykroyd] Meanwhile, in Chicago,

other folk music labels took note

and went looking for a blues band of their own,

thinking this might be the beginning of a new trend.

[harmonica blues music]

They found Charlie Musselwhite.

- Sam Charters, he was producing for Vanguard.

Sam would say, "Well, Elektra's got Butterfield,

let's do Charlie Musselwhite."

When Sam Charters wanted me to make this album,

I got Harvey and Barry and I got Fred Below

and Little Bob on bass.

Stand Back, my first album,

if I remember right, we cut the whole album

in about three hours.

There's people that still bring that album

to gigs to have me sign.

And a lot of Vietnam veterans had that album in Vietnam

and they would tell me how much it,

the music had meant to them.

That's 'bout as good as it gets.

But that record put me on the road and it gave me a career,

and I've been on the road ever since.

- They call him Memphis Charlie,

he's Chicago's adopted son, Charlie Musselwhite!

[harmonica blues music]

- We started playing college gigs

and traveling, gettin' out of town

and playing concerts in East Coast, West Coast.

[Aykroyd] In March 1966, The Butterfield Band

exploded on the psychedelic rock scene

only just emerging in San Francisco.

- We had been playing at a club called

The Trip in Los Angeles.

Grossman, our manager, said there's a hip place to play

called The Fillmore.

And at that time Chet Helms, who owned The Avalon,

was partners with Bill,

and they said, "Okay, we'll get this Butterfield Band."

- Part of the magic of that weekend was

how well the first night went

and the success of that first night,

just packed the next two nights.

- The impact of The Butterfield Blues Band,

their first time here, was awesome.

Just a driving groove, it made you wanna move.

They just took the town by storm.

- Michael Bloomfield, he and Elvin Bishop

played so well together.

Just to see that kind of virtuosity and power,

it was a real epiphany for me.

- Very structured, tight, all the players could play,

there wasn't no fuckin' around.

- I remember talking to Paul and Mike,

when they came back from California,

and they were talkin' about how great it was,

and there was plenty of places to play,

and they were talkin' about how the musicians

in California really weren't much.

- But they had this social thing going on,

and the acid thing was going on,

so that was all a big revolution that was happening.

- California was great, man, I loved it,

immediately, as soon as I got off the plane,

I knew this was for me.

Such freedom and open-mindedness.

There's like room for everybody.

There's room for every kind of music,

and they actually paid good money.

- I was remembering

seeing The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,

Butter was a great harmonica player,

and Elvin, he was great.

One of the greatest blues bands I had ever seen before,

but Michael, shit!

Man! That guy!

[blues electric guitar music]

- We were all just awestruck.

Not only did he up the ante

in terms of musicianship for the San Francisco scene,

he was also sort of a teacher

because we'd all go and watch him,

and within about six months, everybody copped

all his licks and stuff like that.

[upbeat music]

- Paul Butterfield's band, by the time East-West came out,

it was like another band.

- This was in the full bloom of psychedelic experimentation,

where we had encountered what was represented

as being Leary acid.

[psychedelic rock music]

- Some people will say, well it has to be

like Muddy Waters to be the blues.

And some people say that you have to have

a certain kind of instrumentation for the blues,

and it's all bullshit, man.

The word means as much as saying greens and reds

or, ya know?

[blues electric guitar music]

- East-West was based on gettin' high

and listening to Ravi Shankar a lot,

and Bloomfield was the main instigator on that.

And he used to kill 'em at the bar with that

because he did a fire eating act in the middle of that,

and that music was going on behind him.

Boy, you talk about some people losing their minds

watching that.

[Aykroyd] Bill Graham, who knew little

about the music scene before he started promoting

shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium,

quickly turned to Mike Bloomfield for advice.

Bloomfield told him to book the older blues guys.

- And right then, you know, I started talkin' to Bill.

I said, listen if you like us, man,

you've gotta get these other cats in here,

you gotta get the real cats down.

You've gotta get Muddy Waters.

You've got to get BB King because you know,

I mean, this is the real thing, man.

The kids didn't dig us, man,

they're going to have to dig these people.

You know and by God, the kids did have enough taste

and they do have enough taste

to dig the real thing, you know?

- Michael and Butter were really my teachers

as far as who they thought I should also

bring into the Bay Area,

and to expose to the predominantly white audience

that came to rock and roll shows.

- As a result we were, between Bill and I,

we kind of created, we resurrected careers

of a lot of, at that point,

somewhat obscure Black artists,

who are not obscure any longer.

- A lot of doors was then opening up

that had not been open for us.

And this was a great big push

in the right direction for blues.

Then finally, one day I was booked

into The Fillmore, where we used to play

before Bill Graham had bought it.

Now, when I get there this day,

I see a young crowd, white kids.

I start to think then I'm in the wrong place.

Bill Graham came out and said,

this is where you're supposed to play right here.

I get in the dressing room, I'm real nervous.

Go get Bill Graham, tell him I want a drink.

And he came back and I had a couple of slugs of that,

and I remember this, when he got to the stage, he said,

"Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you

the Chairman of the Board, BB King."

All of a sudden, all of the kids stood up.

[audience applauding]

I cried, 'cause I'd never had this happen before.

[crowd applauding]

[Aykroyd] The torch had been passed.

[upbeat music]

At the same time, the relationship

between Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield fractured.

- I think what led up to Mike's leaving

The Butterfield Band was a dissatisfaction

with the lifestyle of the band on the road

and itchiness to do his own thing.

- ♪ Groovin' is easy, baby

[Aykroyd] Bloomfield followed Nick Gravenites

out to Marin County in California,

across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco,

where, along with Barry Goldberg,

they put together a new band they called

The Electric Flag.

- ♪ You don't have to keep yourself forever slavin' ♪

- In short order, they would be joined in the Bay Area

by Steve Miller, Charlie Musselwhite,

Harvey Mandel and Elvin Bishop.

For Electric Flag, Goldberg and Bloomfield

found a 19-year-old drummer who could sing

his ass off, named Buddy Miles.

[slow blues music]

- ♪ I've just got in from Texas, babe ♪

♪ You didn't even know I was around ♪

- We had two great singers, we had Nick,

who was like the consummate like, blues band singer,

we had Buddy Miles, man, a tremendous soul singer

who could rock the place like no one could with his drums.

We had the horn section,

and then we had Michael Bloomfield as a guitar player.

When he was on, there was no one that can touch him.

[Aykroyd] The Electric Flag made the band's

highly anticipated live debut

at the historic Monterey Pop Festival in June, 1967,

topping the Saturday afternoon bill

over the new Steve Miller Blues Band

and the revised Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

- ♪ Does that little girl even think of me ♪

♪ Do you think of me

♪ Yeah!

♪ Oh!

[crowd cheering]

- We really mean this, we love you all, man,

'cause this is very groovy, man.

Monterey is very groovy, man!

This is something, man,

this is our generation, man,

all you people, we're all together, man, and it's groovy.

- Michael was so intense and so high-strung and up,

that he counted off the songs at twice the speed that,

you know, we normally did them.

[upbeat blues music]

- ♪ Down in New Orleans where everything fine ♪

♪ All them people just buy that wine ♪

♪ Drinking wine is their delight ♪

♪ And when they get drunk they start fighting all night ♪

♪ Knockin' down windows, breakin' down doors ♪

♪ Drinking half gallons and calling for more ♪

♪ You got a nickel and I got a dime ♪

♪ Let's get together and buy some wine ♪

♪ Some buy a pint, some buy a quart ♪

♪ But if you're buying half gallons ♪

♪ You're playing it smart

♪ Drinking wine, wine, wine

♪ Hey buddy!

♪ Pass that bottle to me

♪ Everybody

♪ Port or sherry

♪ Sweet Lucy

♪ Find a good wine

♪ Hey buddy, pass that bottle to me ♪

[music continues]

[music continues]

♪ Hey da hadie

♪ Yo da yodie

[scatting]

♪ Hey!

[slow blues music]

[crowd cheering]

[Aykroyd] The blues had been rescued.

With the explosion of music that happened

in the wake of the Monterey Pop Festival,

the blues was carried into the mainstream.

[slow blues music]

[Aykroyd] The original masters, such as BB King,

Muddy Waters and the others,

lived out their lives in prosperity

and acclaim they couldn't have imagined

when the music was only to be found

in a couple of small Chicago neighborhoods.

- ♪ Rhythm and blues had a baby ♪

♪ And they named the baby rock and roll ♪

[blues guitar solo]

[Aykroyd] Mike Bloomfield played the blues

the rest of his life and died in 1981 at age 37.

[slow blues guitar music]

Paul Butterfield never quit playing.

He passed in 1987 at age 44.

- ♪ Oh, the sky is crying ♪

♪ People look at the tears roll down the street ♪

♪ Mmmmm

♪ Yeah ♪

- Mike Bloomfield was like a son.

We lost him too early.

[harmonica music]

[Aykroyd] Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop

continue to play the blues to this day.

- Oh yeah, it's been really interesting times,

I feel real fortunate.

[train horn blows]

[chuckles]

The world just agreed with me.

- When you're a kid, you think that stuff's gonna last forever

and you know, it was just this perfect storm.

[upbeat blues music]

[Aykroyd] Steve Miller went on to become

one of the leading rock stars of the seventies,

plays Chicago blues in every concert he performs.

- ♪ I love you in the morning and in the nighttime too ♪

♪ You know, every time you leave me baby ♪

♪ I get fed up with you

♪ Cause I'm tore down

- I was in Chicago just at this peak period

of time where Butterfield bloomed

and where Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters

came over to the North Side and started playing.

It couldn't have happened anywhere but Chicago.

♪ When I feel like this

♪ My baby can't be found

[blues guitar]

♪ Yeah, yeah

[soft piano music]

[Aykroyd] Today, the blues stands at the heart

of American music.

The original masters have been recognized and honored,

many inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame,

including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf,

Little Walter, Buddy Guy, BB King,

and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

[upbeat blues music]

- I ended up in a band with Paul Butterfield,

Michael Bloomfield and Mark Naftalin and Sam Lay

and Jerome Arnold.

That was a butt-kicking band,

and we helped blues cross over to the regular public.

[audience cheering]

And we set an example which was badly needed in those days,

that people of different races can work together

and do good.

[crowd cheering]

[upbeat blues music]

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪

♪ Fantasy world, hey, hey

♪ Fantasy world, hey-ey-ey

♪ Fantasy world, hey, hey, hey-ey-ey-ey ♪

♪ Fantasy world, bet you can't figure it out ♪

♪ You're livin' in a fantasy world ♪

[Aykroyd] For the 21st century, Nick Gravenites,

Barry Goldberg, Harvey Mandel,

and Corky Siegel came together

to form the Chicago Blues Reunion,

to celebrate the music they all started out playing.

- This band is loaded with artists that have a history

and want people to know about it.

It wasn't all The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton,

it was the Chicago blues guys.

[upbeat blues music]

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Born in Chicago

♪ Things don't seem the same though ♪

♪ No

[crowd cheering]

[slow blues music]

♪ Had a sweet little girl

♪ I lose my baby, boy, ain't that bad ♪

♪ Had a sweet little girl

♪ I lose my baby, boy, ain't that bad ♪

♪ Well you know, you can't spend what you ain't got ♪

♪ You can't lose some little girl you ain't never had ♪

♪ Had money in the bank

♪ I got busted, people ain't that sad ♪

♪ I had some money in the bank ♪

♪ I got busted, people ain't that sad ♪

♪ Well you know you can't spend what you ain't got ♪

♪ You can't lose some little girl you ain't never had ♪

[music continues]

♪ Had a sweet little home

♪ And it got burnt down, people ain't that sad ♪

♪ Yeah, you know it was my own fault ♪

♪ People, ain't that bad

♪ Well you know you can't spend what you ain't got ♪

♪ You can't lose some little girl you ain't never had ♪