The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was an American blues rock band from Chicago, Illinois. Formed in the summer of 1963, the group originally featured eponymous vocalist and harmonicist Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay. The band added guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Mark Naftalin before recording their eponymous debut album which was released in October 1965. The founding sextet were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, as was the second album (East-West) drummer Billy Davenport.

Blues rock is a fusion genre and form of rock music that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock. From its beginnings in the early to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal.