Bloomfield was so good. What a loss. Somewhere I have bootleg recordings of him from the 1960s doing blues shows. His guitar work, as I remember, was mind blowing. The East West album with Paul Butterfield is amazing. There's also an album - Father and Sons - with him, Paul Butterfield and others sitting in with Muddy Waters that's good. It's on YouTube, as is the East-West album.

[www.loudersound.com]

Yes, I just read this too...on the Dylan Expecting Rain site.Thanks.
Another victim of the drugs scene...what a waste.

That's funny you should bring up Bloomfield. I'm just now discovering him. My local library, the wonderful Brand Library in Glendale, California, is devoted entirely to music and the visual arts. They have a Bloomfield collection titled 'From his Head to his Heart to his Hands'. The usual stuff is there, but so are lot of cuts from his many solo albums that had messy distribution.

After that I got the first two Paul Butterfield albums. (I listened to one after Bloomfield left and it doesn't hold up). Then I got Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. All of them are outstanding. I'm currently making CD compilations, alternating Bloomfield cuts with other mainly blues artists. I'm up to Volume 5 in a short time. There's one more Al Kooper/Bloomfield live album, and then I'll be hunting down those far flung solo works.


He sounds amazing on Janis Joplin's One Good Man, and the mentioned Dylan's Groom Still Waiting At the Altar. I feel much about Bloomfield as I did when I 'discovered' Bix Beiderbecke. You're amazed, and then wonder how you could go so long knowing next to nothing about these artists.

Bloomfield is definitely in the guitar god pantheon. In fact he's quite unique. He weaves all these different blues artist's style in and out in dizzying form. Although I'm still digging into, and digging, Bloomfield, I've got a sense that he was a chameleon. He was often at his best in the company of really good musicians like Al Kooper and Paul Butterfield.

Sometimes I'm in awe of stuff he's playing that is years before the British gunslingers got around to it. I'm surprised his name has never came up when the Stones talk about other musicians. Maybe it's because he was more or less a contemporary, and their influences preceded him. Then again, he wasn't a fame chaser, obviously. He mysteriously walked away every time it look like he had a chance to be a star. Having a $50,000 yearly draw from his wealthy parents probably influenced his actions too.

I would recommend anyone who hasn't looked into Bloomfield to start your own discovery. You'll find him playing with Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters (though the Father and Sons album is not Bloomfield's greatest hour). The aforementioned East-West thing is very Santana-esque on the title track, which was recorded long before Carlos made the national scene.

Yes, a somewhat tragic figure, like Beiderbecke, but a genius too. I'm so glad his music found me.