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Mark Naftalin, (August 2, 1944), is a blues keyboardist
Keyboardist

A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either piano or organ ....
, composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, and producer
Record producer

In the music industry, a record producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, Audio mixing and audio mastering processes....
.

He is known for his role, from 1965-1968, in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was an United States blues vocalist, harmonica player who gained international recognition in part, as one of the early acts performing during the Summer of Love, in Woodstock, New York....
. On certain albums by this group he is credited as "Naffy Markham".

Born in Minneapolis, Naftalin moved to Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1961 and attended at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
, where he performed on piano at campus "twist parties," popular at the time. It was at these parties that Naftalin first played with blues harmonica player Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was an United States blues vocalist, harmonica player who gained international recognition in part, as one of the early acts performing during the Summer of Love, in Woodstock, New York....
 and guitarist Elvin Bishop
Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop is an United States blues and rock and roll musician and guitarist....
, the nucleus of what was to become the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

In the late '60s, after the first four Butterfield albums, Naftalin went out on his own, settling in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, or the Bay, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay Bays in Northern California....
.






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Mark Naftalin, (August 2, 1944), is a blues keyboardist
Keyboardist

A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either piano or organ ....
, composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, and producer
Record producer

In the music industry, a record producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, Audio mixing and audio mastering processes....
.

He is known for his role, from 1965-1968, in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was an United States blues vocalist, harmonica player who gained international recognition in part, as one of the early acts performing during the Summer of Love, in Woodstock, New York....
. On certain albums by this group he is credited as "Naffy Markham".

Born in Minneapolis, Naftalin moved to Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1961 and attended at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
, where he performed on piano at campus "twist parties," popular at the time. It was at these parties that Naftalin first played with blues harmonica player Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was an United States blues vocalist, harmonica player who gained international recognition in part, as one of the early acts performing during the Summer of Love, in Woodstock, New York....
 and guitarist Elvin Bishop
Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop is an United States blues and rock and roll musician and guitarist....
, the nucleus of what was to become the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

In the late '60s, after the first four Butterfield albums, Naftalin went out on his own, settling in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, or the Bay, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay Bays in Northern California....
. There he put together the Mark Naftalin Rhythm & Blues Revue and has been active in blues and rock recording sessions, solo gigs and revue shows, and as a producer of concerts, festivals and radio shows. He also played with Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield

Michael Bernard Bloomfield , an United States musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation entirely on his instrumental prowess....
 as a duo and in a band (most often called Mike Bloomfield & Friends) from the late '60s through the mid-'70s, and hosted Mark Naftalin's Blue Monday Party, a weekly blues show (1979-1983) that featured over 60 blues artists and groups and was the scene of 86 live radio broadcasts and three TV specials.

Naftalin has produced the Marin County Blues Festival (1981-2000) and has been the associate producer of the Monterey Jazz Festival's Blues Afternoon (1982-1991). His weekly radio show, Mark Naftalin's Blues Power Hour has been on the air almost continuously since 1979 on San Francisco's radio KALW-FM.

Naftalin co-founded the Blue Monday Foundation and, in 1988, started his own label, Winner Records, which has issued classic era recordings by artists including Paul Butterfield and Percy Mayfield. He continued to perform, both solo and in an ensemble, in the Bay area and elsewhere, often with longtime associate slide guitar virtuoso Ron Thompson.

Naaftalin has also recorded with many famous blues players including John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an influential United States post-war blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County, Mississippi near Clarksdale, Mississippi....
, Otis Rush
Otis Rush

Otis Rush is a blues music musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound, jazz-style arpeggios and long bent notes....
, Percy Mayfield, Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson

Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma....
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner

Big Joe Turner was an United States blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri....
, James Cotton
James Cotton

James Cotton , is an United States blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter who is the bandleader for the James Cotton Blues Band. He also writes songs alone, and his solo career continues to this day....
, Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield

Michael Bernard Bloomfield , an United States musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation entirely on his instrumental prowess....
, Jake Walker
Jake Walker

Jake Walker was a fictional character in UK soap opera Family Affairs, played by Seb Castang. He was initially seen in Charnham from February to December 2003, when he was sentenced to two years in a young offenders institute after accidentally killing Fern Farmer and Robert Davenport ....
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison

George Ivan Morrison Order of the British Empire is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, author, poet and multi-instrumentalist, who has been a professional musician since the late 1950s....
, and dozens of others -- and as a sideman on over 100 albums.

He is the son of former Minneapolis mayor Arthur Naftalin
Arthur Naftalin

Arthur Naftalin was an United States of America political scientist and politician. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party DFL, he served as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnesota from 3 July, 1961 to 6 July, 1969....
; he is married to third wife Ellen Naftalin. His son (by second marriage to Kathryn Ballentine) is San Francisco Bay Area artist David Normal.

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