Santa Cruz Mountains locals Michele Murphy, Diane Bock, and Ramon Marc Butler share a love of the blues. The spark for their group, the Buffalo Blues Trio, was struck in 2018 when Michele and a girlfriend went to see the Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical, A Night With Janis Joplin at the Santa Cruz Civic. “I was on the edge of my seat with tears running down my face at the story of Janis’ life,” Michele recalls. She approached her friend Ramon, an experienced slide guitar player and former bandmate from the band Sleepless Nights, about putting together a group that would pay homage to Janis’ raw, soulful sound and other female singer-songwriters who influenced the blues. Then Michele met jazz vocalist and bass player Diane Bock at open mic night at Michael’s on Main, and the three musicians hit it off, spending the ensuing years coalescing their chops diving deep into the music of notable blues divas from the 1920s through the 1960s.