Mark Naftalin

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Mark Naftalin, (August 2, 1944), is a blues keyboardist, composer, and producer.

He is known for his role, from 1965-1968, in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. On certain albums by this group he is credited as "Naffy Markham".

Born in Minneapolis, Naftalin moved to Chicago in 1961 and attended at the University of Chicago, 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 and guitarist Elvin Bishop, 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. 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 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 to the present) 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, Otis Rush, Percy Mayfield, Lowell Fulson, Big Joe Turner, James Cotton, Mike Bloomfield, and dozens of others -- and as a sideman on over 100 albums.

He is the son of former Minneapolis mayor Arthur Naftalin; he is married to Ellen Naftalin.