Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Watersand other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.

In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco; the Fillmore East, in New York City; the Monterey Pop Festival; and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. After the breakup of the group in 1971, Butterfield continued to tour and record with the band Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, with his mentor Muddy Waters, and with members of the roots-rock group the Band. While still recording and performing, Butterfield died in 1987 at age 44 of an accidental drug overdose.

Music critics have acknowledged his development of an original approach that places him among the best-known blues harp players. In 2006, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Butterfield and the early members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Both panels noted his harmonica skills and his contributions to bringing blues music to a younger and broader audience.

Beginning in 1980, Paul Butterfield underwent several surgical procedures to relieve his peritonitis, a serious and painful inflammation of the intestines. Although strongly opposed to heroin as a bandleader, he developed an addiction to it, which, according to Steve Huey in AllMusic’s Butterfield biography, led to “speculation that he was trying to ease his peritonitis symptoms”. The financial strain of supporting his drug habit was bankrupting him, and the deaths of his friend and one-time musical partner Mike Bloomfield, and manager Albert Grossman had shaken him.^[3] On May 4, 1987, at age 44, Paul Butterfield died at his apartment in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles. An autopsy by the county coroner concluded that he was the victim of an accidental drug overdose, with “significant levels of morphine (heroin), … codeine, the tranquilizer Librium and a trace of alcohol.