Electric Guitars

[harold heckuba]

In 76 or 77, I ordered, direct from the back pages of Guitar Player magazine
an album on vinyl called "If You Love These Blues, Play Em As You Please".
Probably his best work.

[Zappa74]

Butterfield Blues Band is the best.

That's all I have to add.

[Zappa74]

Butterfield Blues Band is the best.

That's all I have to add.

[RogerF]

I really dug Bloomfield's guitar playing on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album; his guitar solo on Tombstone Blues just smokes.

[RogerF]

I really dug Bloomfield's guitar playing on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album; his guitar solo on Tombstone Blues just smokes.

[valued customer]

Originally Posted by RogerF

I really dug Bloomfield's guitar playing on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album; his guitar solo on Tombstone Blues just smokes.

Absolutely. Bloomfield is ferocious, a force of nature. I think his playing doesn't necessarily open up for technical analysis, he's a pure feel dude, and the feeling is: blues and bennies, ptry much. Crank it up, drink eight cupsa cawfee, and you'll hear why Dylan hunted him down to put a stamp of no-doubt authority on his early electric stuff.

Bloomfield, Robby Robertson, and John Hammond Jr. played the nastiest tele shit imaginable back in the mid sixties. It's all worth digging into. They were all just trying to be Elmore James or Hubert Sumlin... Clapton and Beck raised the stakes a bit, sure, but there's a rawpowa with these guys that is ...I dunno, I'm gonna say indispensable and awe inspiring.

Oh yeah, wanted to add: first Butterfield Blues Album is just mindblowing. Bloomfield totally kills it on "Our Love is Drifting." Best tune on an album with NO duff cuts.

[valued customer]

Originally Posted by RogerF

I really dug Bloomfield's guitar playing on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album; his guitar solo on Tombstone Blues just smokes.

Absolutely. Bloomfield is ferocious, a force of nature. I think his playing doesn't necessarily open up for technical analysis, he's a pure feel dude, and the feeling is: blues and bennies, ptry much. Crank it up, drink eight cupsa cawfee, and you'll hear why Dylan hunted him down to put a stamp of no-doubt authority on his early electric stuff.

Bloomfield, Robby Robertson, and John Hammond Jr. played the nastiest tele shit imaginable back in the mid sixties. It's all worth digging into. They were all just trying to be Elmore James or Hubert Sumlin... Clapton and Beck raised the stakes a bit, sure, but there's a rawpowa with these guys that is ...I dunno, I'm gonna say indispensable and awe inspiring.

Oh yeah, wanted to add: first Butterfield Blues Album is just mindblowing. Bloomfield totally kills it on "Our Love is Drifting." Best tune on an album with NO duff cuts.

[tlbonehead]

as for the MB vs JW who's better thing? I just like them both.

[BlueJames]

I have lots of respect for Bloomfield, but I squirm when he plays slide out of tune, most of the time. I think Johnny was a better all around player, but Bloomfield at his best was amazing.

[brandass]

Originally Posted by tlbonehead

as for the MB vs JW who's better thing? I just like them both.

+1

[BeanoBoy]

When Mike was on, he was as good as anybody. Trouble is, he was erratic. Most of his recorded stuff doesn't come close to seeing him live on a good night. Totally agree with others, he and Clapton were THE early Les Paul guys.

[bluesnapper]

Johnny Winter is the whitest great blues guitar player.

[tim gueguen]

Bloomfield's time in the spotlight was fairly short, and he never reached the level of public attention and fascination that Hendrix did. Like many of his peers he developed a heroin addiction, and for a time around 1970 apparently stopped playing, killing the momentum of his career. It probably didn't help that he didn't get out of San Francisco much in the '70s. The last big label project he did, a band called KGB with bassist Rick Grech and singer Ray Kennedy, wasn't well received and sold poorly.

[aliensporebomb]

Just listen to "Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West" with Bloomfield. I heard that when I was 7 years old and have wanted to play guitar ever since - I'm pushing 50 now. Go get it. Don't listen to the naysayers.

[Virgman]

Bloomfield and Winter both had/have heroin addictions. Winter is still an addict but has been on methadone for decades. He is a crazy dude.

[scott944]

Little Steven tells a story on the Underground Garage about Bloomfield coming in out of the rain for the Dylan sessions with an uncased Tele, drying it off with a towel, plugging in, and warming up so ferociously that Al Kooper, who was under the impression that HE was playing on this session, put his guitar back in the case. Kooper then snuck onto the B3 and ended up playing the iconic organ part on "Like a Rolling Stone".

[straycat113]

It always puts a smile on my face when someone discovers the music of a great player that came before them or they never got into the first time around. I can remember wearing out "The Super Sessions" album. Bloomfield came from a privileged family in Chicago where he hung around with a lot of the black blues players cutting his teeth before heading for the west coast. It is a shame he got swallowed up into a heroin addiction that eventually took his life and as stated already made him quit playing for a couple of years. I think if he would of lived when SRV broke and raised the blues from the dead creating one of the best blues periods in history he would of revitalized his career and his legacy would be much stronger. Here is a very interesting interview from Rollingstone magazine from 1968 before it became the sh!t rag it is today- http://www.jannswenner.com/archives/...eld_Part1.aspx

[Angry Tele]

[valued customer]

Originally Posted by aliensporebomb

Just listen to "Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West" with Bloomfield. I heard that when I was 7 years old and have wanted to play guitar ever since - I'm pushing 50 now. Go get it. Don't listen to the naysayers.

makes me happy to read this.

[harold heckuba]

There was a great article in VG magazine years ago where a guy wrote the mag to tell
them of his story, and they saved it to when they were doing a history of Bloomfield.

It seems the guy had advertised his 72 Fender Tele in a trade paper (in CA I think) in
the late 70s or so. He gets a call and the guy says he is coming to buy the guitar. When the
guy meets him, to his surprise it was none other than Bloomfield.

As stated above, he came from a wealthy family. His father was the CEO (I think)
of a food equipment company in Chicago. So Mike had the funds to run all around town to the
blues clubs when he was teen.