Butterfield Creek, the band, hales from Chicago's southland. We're a compact 4-piece string band, so no drum kit. We feature solid musicianship on guitars, banjo, upright bass, and mandolin backing backing up the AMAZING Rachel Lewis on lead vocals and who adds some percussion. Under the umbrella of Americana music, we include acoustic renditions of rock/pop classics and off-the-beaten-track favorites. We add a few traditional bluegrass numbers, some new-grass and a few classic country songs. For good measure, we throw in a smattering of hooky originals that fans request the most.
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Butterfield Creek plays througout Chicagoland and the region, having played gigs in and around Rockford, north of Chicago, in northwest Indiana and central Illinois.
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Butterfield Creek, the waterway, is a 15.2-mile-long (24.5 km) trubutray of Thorn Creek near Chicago, IL. Via Thorn Creek, it is part of the Calumet River watershed flowing to Lake Michigan. It is at its widest around the towns of Homewood, Chicago Heights and Glenwood.
Meet the Band
Rachel:
Lead & Backing
vocals/ percussion
Larry:
Upright Bass
& Backing vocals
Mike:
Banjo Guitar,
Mandolin
Steve:
Guitar, mandolin, Lead & Backing vocals
Butterfield Creek History
A progression from two similar projects that Steve had going (Toad Shake and Said the Kat), he and Toad Shake singer, Meg, initiated this band in 2018 and named it after a creek that meanders through communities south of Chicago. They played fairly consistently with an evolving cast. By early 2020, with a new lead singer, they debuted the weekend before quarantine. This lineup with new bassist, Rob, were solid until mid 2022. In Oct 2022, with lead singer Maddie moving to the UK and then LA, and little bit later, singer/fiddler, Anastasia leaving band-life to be a mom, we shuffled around with some very talented temporary replacements, until we setled on Rachel who brought Chrysta. Larry too replaced Rob, as Rob went and became the director of some highfalutin church music program. To honor the past, below you will find a couple pre and during pandemic videos with past BC iterations.
Butterfield Creek's BC plays the first gig with the new solid line-up in March 07, 2020
With some early members filling in and some COVID adapting we produced this pandemic video.