While bands like The Yardbirds, Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, John Mayall, and finally Led Zeppelin (except for Hendrix himself, all British fellas) are given credit for the "Blues revival of the late-60’s", it was actually The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (along with Charlie Musselwhite) who did so.
A Butterfield song was included on the 1966 Elektra Records sampler album entitled What’s Shakin’, and every good musician I knew had his head blown off by Paul and his band (which included Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop on guitars, and drummer Sam Lay and bassist Jerome Arnold, hired away from Howlin’ Wolf!), after which we all bought Butterfield’s 1965 debut album.
When Sonny Boy Williamson met and jammed with The Hawks (later known as The Band, of course) in 1965, he had just returned from a UK tour. For that tour, the promoter provided Williamson with local backup bands, one of which was The Yardbirds (of which Eric Clapton was at that time still a member). Sonny Boy told The Hawks: "They (the English musicians) want to play the Blues SO bad. And that’s just how they play them." ;-) But it isn't just English guys who can be faulted: for a great example of how NOT to play Blues, watch the Canned Heat's performance at Woodstock. Dreadful! If you're a glutton for punishment, follow that with Ten Years After's set. Oy!
Just for the record, it was not the entire Butterfield Band who backed Dylan at Newport, only Bloomfield and drummer Sam Lay. The bassist was Harvey Brooks, later in The Electric Flag with Bloomfield, keyboardist Mark Naftalin (another Bloomfield band member), and the mighty Buddy Miles.
