Sam Lay, a strong and virtuosic drummer who performed and recorded with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, was a founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and backed Bob Dylan when he went electrical on the Newport People Pageant in 1965, died on Jan. 29 at a nursing facility in Chicago. He was 86.
His daughter, Debbie Lay, confirmed the loss of life however mentioned she didn’t know the trigger.
Mr. Lay’s exuberant, idiosyncratic drumming was recognized for its double-shuffle groove, which he tailored from the rhythms of the hand claps and tambourine beats he heard within the Pentecostal church he attended whereas rising up in Birmingham, Ala.
“The one manner I can describe it’s, you’ve received three completely different drummers enjoying the identical beat however they’re not hitting it on the identical time,” Mr. Lay mentioned in “Sam Lay in Bluesland,” a 2015 documentary directed by John Anderson that took its title from an album Mr. Lay launched in 1968.
The harmonica participant Corky Siegel, a longtime collaborator, mentioned the double-shuffle groove was a part of Mr. Lay’s broader means to do greater than preserve the beat.
“He simply made you fly,” Mr. Siegel mentioned in a telephone interview. “He wasn’t held again by the idea of groove and time.” He added: “Individuals suppose he performed loud. No, he performed delicate, however he used the total dynamic vary, and if you do this, and also you get to a crescendo, it’s highly effective, like a locomotive coming towards you. However with Sam, it was like 5 locomotives.”
After arriving in Chicago in early 1960, Mr. Lay performed in bands led by the harmonica participant and singer Little Walter and the singer Howlin’ Wolf, with whom he recorded songs that grew to become blues requirements like “Killing Flooring,” “The Crimson Rooster” and “I Ain’t Superstitious.”
As soon as, after being fined by Howlin’ Wolf for sporting pants with no black stripe on them, Mr. Lay argued that nobody may see his pants behind his drum equipment. When their dispute continued, Mr. Lay pulled a Smith & Wesson gun and held it to Howlin’ Wolf’s face.
Mr. Lay left Howlin’ Wolf to affix the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1963, lured by the prospect of constructing $20 a gig, almost thrice what he had been incomes. Led by Mr. Butterfield on harmonica and vocals, the band — which additionally included the guitarists Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield, the bassist Jerome Arnold and the keyboardist Mark Naftalin — was racially built-in, a rarity on the time, and acquired the blues to a white viewers throughout an intense interval within the civil rights motion.
The band performed on the Newport People Pageant on July 25, 1965. Hours after their set, Mr. Lay, Mr. Arnold and Mr. Bloomfield had been a part of Mr. Dylan’s backup band when he surprised the viewers by performing an electrical set, which started with a bracing model of his music “Maggie’s Farm.”
Quickly after that, Mr. Dylan requested Mr. Lay to again him on the title observe of his album “Freeway 61 Revisited.” Along with enjoying drums, Mr. Lay performed a toy whistle on the music’s memorable opening. (The organist Al Kooper has mentioned he was the one who introduced the whistle to the studio).
“I blew it and it appeared like a siren,” Mr. Lay advised The Chicago Solar-Occasions in 2004. “Bob mentioned, ‘Try this once more.’ So I did it once more.”
Later in 1965, the Butterfield band’s first album, referred to as merely “The Paul Butterfield Blues Band,” was launched. One observe, “I Obtained My Mojo Working,” featured Mr. Lay on lead vocal.
An sickness induced Mr. Lay to go away the band in late 1965.
Samuel Julian Lay was born on March 20, 1935, in Birmingham. His father, Foster, a Pullman practice porter who performed banjo in a rustic band, died when Sam was 17 months outdated. His mom, Elsie (Favors) Lay, cleaned Pullman vehicles.
Rising up, he listened to nation music; as a youngster, he took drumming classes from W.C. Helpful Jr., the son of the composer. He dropped out of highschool (which ended his dream of attempting to run quicker than the Olympic champion Jesse Owens) and in 1954 moved to Cleveland, the place he labored in a metal mill and began to find his musical path.
Sooner or later, he stopped right into a wine bar after listening to the sound of a harmonica being performed by Little Walter, who requested him to take a seat in when he realized that he performed drums. Within the late Fifties Mr. Lay joined the Thunderbirds, a blues and R&B group.
When Little Walter was shot, Mr. Lay helped nurse him again to well being. As soon as in Chicago, he joined Little Walter’s band. However he didn’t keep lengthy; he was quickly employed by Howlin’ Wolf.
Mr. Lay was a slick dresser who wore elaborate capes and hats and carried a strolling stick. He styled his hair for some time after Little Richard’s. And he introduced his windup eight-millimeter digital camera to golf equipment within the Sixties. It didn’t have sound, however he captured photographs of Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Albert King, Buddy Man and others onstage.
“As quickly as Howlin’ Wolf knew {that a} digital camera was watching him, you’d suppose he was possessed in some form of manner,” Mr. Lay mentioned in Mr. Anderson’s documentary.
Footage he shot was utilized in Mr. Anderson’s movie and in Martin Scorsese’s 2003 public tv collection, “The Blues.”
In 1966, after he had begun to play with the harmonica participant and singer James Cotton, Mr. Lay heard from Muddy Waters that an enemy of Mr. Cotton’s, who had shot him years earlier than, had simply been launched from jail and was going after him. Mr. Lay rushed to his home, received his Colt .45, drove to the membership and ready to defend Mr. Cotton.
However whereas Mr. Lay waited for the gunman (who by no means got here), his gun went off, he advised Phoenix New Occasions in 1999. He shot himself within the groin.
“I’m nonetheless recuperating,” he mentioned within the interview.
In 1969, Mr. Lay was a part of the all-star band, which additionally included Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield, that recorded the album “Fathers and Sons.” It reached No. 70 on the Billboard chart.
Over the following 50 years, he carried out with Mr. Siegel’s ensembles the Siegel-Schwall Band, Chamber Blues and Chicago Blues Reunion, in addition to main his personal blues band.
However the blues didn’t pay all of Mr. Lay’s payments. For a few years, he moonlighted as a safety guard.
Mr. Lay was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 2015, as a part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and into the Blues Corridor of Fame three years later.
Along with his daughter, he’s survived by 4 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His spouse, Elizabeth (Buirts) Lay, died in 2017. His son Bobby died inn 2019, and his son Michael died final month.
Mr. Lay didn’t lack self-confidence.
“I don’t know no one on this planet who can comply with a band nearly as good as I can, particularly if it involves blues and that old-time rock ‘n’ roll,” he mentioned in Mr. Anderson’s documentary.
“The key,” he added, “is taking note of what everybody else is enjoying and protecting your eyes open, and your thoughts.”
