Gabriel Butterfield was four years old when his father played the Woodstock festival. He grew up in this town through the 1970s, and on Wednesday, December 9, he returns to Colony Woodstock, with guitarist Murali Coryell beside him, to play the blues that shaped both of their lives before they were old enough to choose it.
About the Show
The Coryell/Butterfield Blues Project brings together two musicians whose last names carry an unusual amount of American music history. Murali Coryell, on guitar and vocals, is the son of jazz guitar legend Larry Coryell; he grew up in a household where Jimi Hendrix held him as a child, where he lived for a time with Carlos Santana, where Miles Davis came to dinner. Gabriel Butterfield, on drums and vocals, is the eldest son of Paul Butterfield, the legendary blues harmonica player and bandleader. Born in Chicago in September 1965, Gabriel was four when Paul played Woodstock. He grew up in this town through the 1970s, has gone on to perform and record with Charlie Musselwhite, Sam Lay, and Rick Danko, and is currently producing a documentary on his father’s life and career. At sixteen, Jaco Pastorius personally invited him into the studio to jam.
Murali graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 1992 and has spent more than thirty years making music in the Hudson Valley. He was inducted into the New York State Blues Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a 2014 Blues Music Award nomination. Rolling Stone, reviewing his Marshall Chess–produced album 2120, called him “one promising new hound.” He has performed internationally, across Europe, Russia, South Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean, and his work has appeared on NBC’s Crossing Jordan. Coryell has described the blues as “a large umbrella under which so many other types of music exist,” a frame that accounts for the funk and soul running through his catalog alongside the more rootsy material. His newest album, Soul of a Nation, twenty songs on streaming, download, and vinyl, releases November 18—a few weeks before this Woodstock date.
Venue & Logistics
Colony Woodstock, at 22 Rock City Road, opened in 1929, the tallest building in town at the time and a stopping point for visitors heading up to the Overlook Mountain House to dine and listen to big bands. After renovation, it reopened in 2017. At 150 capacity, it is the kind of room where the music has nowhere to hide, and the right place to hear two musicians with this much history in their names. Doors at 6 p.m.; show runs 7 to 10 p.m.
Tickets
Admission is a $20 suggested donation. Under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. No refunds. Buy tickets