Chicago blues drummer and vocalist Sam Lay, who performed and recorded with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Bob Dylan, has died at age 86.
Lay died of natural causes in a nursing facility near his Chicago home on Saturday, said independent blues label Alligator Records on its website on Monday.
"An era is over," Corky Spiegel, a longtime friend and bandmate of Lay's, told Reuters in an interview.
"He just made you fly, he sucked you into the music. Sam wasn't about a groove or time, he went wherever the music went."
Lay is survived by his daughter Debbie, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.