Mike Bloomfield - The Gospel Truth Extended Liner Notes
MICHAEL BLOOMFIELD LONG LINER NOTES
If anyone was ever born to play a guitar, it was surely Michael Bloomfield.
Growing up in Chicago’s tony northern suburbs, Bloomfield wasn’t any too adept at sports. He showed no interest in following his fabulously successful father into manufacturing the dining implements that made him a fortune. The lad simply didn’t fit in with the local crowd.
But the spectacular sounds young Michael could coax from his axe once he delved deeply into the blistering electric blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf were truly otherworldly. A teenaged Bloomfield was welcome to sit in at their gigs in rough-and-tumble gin joints scattered across the Windy City’s South and West Sides. That rare honor was bestowed only on real bluesmen, not fakers--and virtually never on precocious Jewish kids from privileged backgrounds. Yes, he was that good from the outset.
The young Bloomfield occasionally even had a chance to record with his heroes. “Pleading Blues” and “Michigan Water Blues,” both on the first disc of The Gospel Truth, date from 1963, when Michael backed veteran pianist Eurreal “Little Brother” Montgomery, who first recorded in 1930 for Paramount, live at the Fickle Pickle on the near North Side. Bloomfield was booking a weekly blues showcase at the basement juice bar, bringing in a steady stream of grizzled legends that frequently included cantankerous guitarist Big Joe Williams. Fortunately, Michael’s friend Norman Dayron was usually on hand to record the proceedings.
Along with Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, and Elvin Bishop, Michael ushered in a new era of electric Chicago blues during the mid-1960s, adding bristling, rock-fueled energy as he eschewed idiomatic limitations. He was dazzling as the lead guitarist in Butterfield’s groundbreaking band before assembling his own horn-fueled Electric Flag. Then Bloomfield walked away from being a bandleader to do his own thing, selling tons of albums for Columbia Records. In the process, he became an icon and inspiration to a generation of young fretsmen.
Yet Bloomfield’s personal problems—severe insomnia, mounting drug addictions, an inability to head a band with the same efficiency that he displayed whenever he was peeling off killer licks on his axe, and a crippling aversion to touring—derailed his career. When he died at the tragically premature age of 37 on February 15, 1981, Michael had largely receded into the shadows. He stayed close to home for engagements, his last recordings emerging on specialist imprints with limited distribution. But despite basically walking away from the trappings of mainstream stardom, Bloomfield’s prodigious guitar chops never deserted him.
Other than those two 1963 collaborations with Little Brother, the first disc of The Gospel Truth is comprised of highlights from Michael’s four studio albums for the Takoma logo: Analine (1977), Michael Bloomfield (1978), Between the Hard Place & the Ground (1979), and Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’ (1981). In addition to emphasizing the crystalline brilliance of his fretwork, they underscore his esoteric taste in material, ranging from driving New Orleans rockers to down-in-the-alley blues, often soaked in pungent slide.
The late ‘50s rock and roll of his youth continued to intrigue Michael, judging from his blazing remakes of Jerry Byrne’s “Lights Out” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “It’ll Be Me.” A swinging “You Took My Money” and the swaggering “Guitar King” spotlight Bloomfield’s contemporary blues attack, while the funky “Papa-Mama-Rompah-Stompah,” a deliciously mellow “Hilo Waltz,” Duke Ellington’s languid “Mood Indigo” (given a slide-steeped interpretation), and the majestic title track display the mile-wide range of styles that Michael could summon up instrumentally at a moment’s notice.
Michael broke out his bottleneck for the strutting “My Children, My Children (I Call You)” and gave his revival of Champion Jack Dupree’s “Junker’s Blues” a pungent Crescent City flavor. His stunning solo acoustic treatment of the timeless “Frankie And Johnny” rolls along with an effortless swing and sports some of the toughest finger picking imaginable. The poignant disc closer “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” could be construed as a tragic peek into the all-too-near future.
Those four Takoma albums were produced by Bloomfield’s longtime friend Norman Dayron. The two first met in 1960 when Norman walked into the Fret Shop, a guitar store near the University of Chicago where Dayron was enrolled, and saw 17-year-old Michael already unleashing some amazing chops.
“We connected right away,” said Dayron. “He’s sitting on a metal chair, and he’s playing three-finger style guitar, the fastest and cleanest I’ve ever heard. To me, it was better than Merle Travis. And then he could switch on a dime and play the blues. And he could play southern Appalachian mountain music. And his taste was impeccable. He was fast, and he was clean. There was not an extra note in there.
“My jaw dropped, because all I had ever run into were folk musicians, and beginning to become aware of blues musicians. I had never seen anybody with this kind of talent. So I just like fell over. I said, ‘Hey, man, this is amazing!’ And we just became fast friends. I told him that I had actually started recording blues players around Chicago, and was interested in that. And he was vitally interested in that too. And at that moment, we became friends for life, and were friends until he died.”
Dayron allowed Michael free rein over his expansive muse in the studio. “It shows the facets of an original personality, a guy who came along and did things that nobody else had done before, that influenced the way every electric guitar player that plays rock and roll plays today,” he said. “There is some astounding guitar playing.”
Disc two showcases Bloomfield in all his fret-burning glory at a February 19, 1971 concert at spacious Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino, California. He roars through “If You See My Baby,” cools the tempo out for the lights-out slow blues “Poor Kelly,” and pours Blind Willie McTell’s thundering “Statesboro Blues” over the bass line from Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose.” Saxist Ron Stallings takes over vocal duties for a reprise of the Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me,” stomping treatments of Wilson Pickett’s “I Found A True Love” and Ray Charles’ “Come Back Baby,” and a slinky recasting of Charles’ Brown’s signature theme “Drifting Blues” draped atop a “Green Onions” groove.
Born July 28, 1943 in Chicago, Michael and his family relocated to wealthy north suburban Glencoe when he was 12 (his father’s Bloomfield Industries made a fortune manufacturing ketchup, salt, pepper, and sugar dispensers for restaurants nationwide). The family’s African-American maids helped to introduce the lad to rhythm and blues and jazz, and rock and roll was in the air as he grew up. Inspired by Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup, Michael began taking guitar lessons when he hit his teens. Sometimes his expanding musical exploits got him in trouble—New Trier High School expelled Bloomfield for taking an encore with his band at a school pageant after specifically being instructed not to.
That early love for rock and roll brought Michael into contact with future bandmate Barry Goldberg. “Michael Bloomfield and I had rival bands in high school, and we would compete for Sweet Sixteen parties, because those were the premier gigs because there were no other boys there. No other guys, so we had all the girls,” remembered Goldberg. “I usually went on after Michael. Of course we did ‘Tall Cool One,’ and there was no mic on the piano, so we had to really play hard for it to be heard. So his piano player, a guy named George Demos, would put Vaseline on the keys so he could do his Jerry Lee Lewis thing. So I would have to play with the Vaseline still on the piano!”
The two ended up attending high school together downtown at the Central YMCA. “We would see each other, and I would sort of know, ‘He’s the guy!’ Really immediately, we had something in common,” said Goldberg. “Rebels, but blues rebels, liking a different kind of music and not being understood, and having trouble fitting in. And our only common denominator was rock and roll. He was a rock and roller too, and blues, so we naturally bonded.
“He would say, ‘Why don’t you come down with me? I know Howlin’ Wolf!’ That was the first time I went down to Sylvio’s with Michael, about 17. And we walked into the club, and a hush came over the crowd. We were like freaks. No one ever saw little white kids play. Wolf knew Michael and called us up to the bandstand, and the first song we played was ‘Killing Floor,’ with Hubert and the whole band. And that was it for me and the blues. Like Charlie (Musselwhite) said, ‘The blues overtook me.’”
This next generation of Chicago blues players would largely congregate around the University of Chicago—a far cry from Muddy or Wolf migrating North in search of a more prosperous existence. “I introduced Michael to Paul Butterfield, and the two of those guys--we had sort of a Hyde Park mafia,” said Dayron. “It was led by Nick Gravenites, and it included Elvin Bishop, who was a student at the University of Chicago, myself, who was a student at the University of Chicago, Mark Naftalin from time to time, who was a student at the University of Chicago, and Paul Butterfield, who had gone to the lab school and hung out at the University of Chicago and was taking flute lessons at the time and beginning to play the harmonica.
“We would go hear Smokey Smothers at the Blue Flame, or we would go to Pepper’s Lounge. Michael had done this before any of us, with his friend Roy Ruby. He actually, at the age of 14, sat outside of Pepper’s Lounge with Roy, listening to the music because they wouldn’t let him in because he looked too young, even though he lied about it. So really, going out to the blues clubs in Chicago in those days was the main occupation he had. I mean, we went everywhere and met everybody, and Butterfield and Bloomfield and Elvin would all sit in. And they would hold their own. And people made them really welcome. We would go to Theresa’s. I saw Butterfield sit in with Little Walter there. We would go to Pepper’s and sit in with Muddy. We would go to Sylvio’s on the West Side and sit in with Wolf. I remember when we walked in at Lake and Kedzie to Sylvio’s, and Wolf stopped the music to say these were his white friends, and nobody should f**k with ‘em.”
When he wasn’t caressing his axe, Bloomfield was something of a musicologist, interviewing his heroes for posterity and embarking on a surreal road trip to East St. Louis with Big Joe that he later wrote about in hilarious depth. For a time in 1963, Michael was also something of a blues impresario, presenting a parade of sadly neglected greats from an earlier era to a mostly uninterested public. “Michael did an amazing thing. He got a job as the manager of a little café on North Clark Street, the Fickle Pickle,” said Dayron. “Susie, his wife, did the cooking–they would make hamburgers–and Michael, along with Pete Welding and myself and a guy named George Mitchell, instituted Tuesday night blues nights.”
Playing guitar always came first, however. Michael did a brief stint with Robby and the Troubadours, a Twist band popular on conventioneer-loaded Rush Street that included Goldberg on piano. As usual, the guitar wunderkind displayed his rebellious side. “There was a dress code that Robby had for the whole band, and we had to be with our cufflinks and our tight pants and everything pressed, just really neat,” said Barry. “Michael would roll up his sleeves and put a safety pin in his pants and completely disregard the whole thing. But he was so good that no one said anything. But that was Michael.”
Finally Bloomfield assembled his own electric blues band in 1964 with Charlie Musselwhite on harp that held down a regular gig at Big John’s on Wells Street in Old Town. They brought an exciting new brand of blues to the city’s North Side, and crowds of young white locals flocked to hear them—a new development in Chicago. After a year or so of commanding Big John’s proscenium, Michael’s crew defected to another nightspot that paid better, paving the way for Butterfield to bring his high-energy outfit (Bishop, pianist Naftalin, bassist Jerome Arnold, and drummer Sam Lay) into the club. They proved similarly sensational to the newly amassed demographic.
Elektra Records A&R man Paul Rothchild arrived in the Windy City from New York to check Butterfield out. He was thoroughly knocked for a loop by what he heard. Rothchild also caught Bloomfield’s group while he was in town and suggested bringing Michael, whose own ‘64 New York audition for revered Columbia Records producer John Hammond hadn’t led to anything immediately tangible, into the Butterfield Blues Band despite Bishop already holding down the guitar chair. Admittedly terrified of the streetwise Butter, Michael joined the ranks anyway, his scalding licks proving the perfect counterpoint to Paul’s darting amplified harp. Bishop stuck around too, providing a dual guitar attack that was extremely incendiary. It was one of those matches truly made in musical heaven.
The band’s eponymous 1965 debut album for Elektra was a blockbuster, though it took a couple of tries to perfect (the first version was already pressed and ready to ship when Rothchild killed it and summoned the band back to try again). If Butterfield’s sudden ascension wasn’t enough of a high-profile kick, Michael was summoned to New York by no less than Bob Dylan for the session that spawned his classic “Like A Rolling Stone.” What’s more, Butterfield’s sizzling band was booked for the prestigious 1965 Newport Folk Festival that summer.
Bob daringly utilized them (with Goldberg and Al Kooper sharing the keyboard action) to back him on a short set at the festival that generated an avalanche of controversy (longtime fans were appalled at Michael’s electric guitar blasting away behind traditionally acoustic folkie Dylan). All of a sudden, Bloomfield’s piercing guitar riffage was everywhere. He played on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album but refused Bob’s offer to go on tour as his lead guitarist, telling him he preferred to play the blues.
East-West, the Butterfield Blues Band’s ‘66 encore set for Elektra, was a genre-bending tour de force with Naftalin installed on keys and Billy Davenport taking over on drums from an ailing Lay. The title track was a mind-blowing 13-minute instrumental where Michael cut loose at length over a modal jazz structure, escorting Paul’s combo into climes previously uncharted. Despite the band’s pioneering excursions, Bloomfield quickly tired of touring. He quit Butterfield and relocated to San Francisco, assembling a much more esoteric new band of his own in 1967 christened the Electric Flag. Goldberg and Gravenites were involved, as was powerhouse young drummer Buddy Miles, who doubled on vocals, and a horn section.
The Electric Flag made its eagerly anticipated debut at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and released its soul-slanted first album, A Long Time Comin’, the following year on Columbia. Drug abuse within the ranks and Miles’ ballooning ego helped destroy the ambitious project in short order. Bloomfield didn’t much dig the pressures of being a bandleader. Instead, he teamed with producer Kooper for the aptly titled Super Session album, created as a studio jam and issued on Columbia in 1968. Typically, insomniac Michael only lasted one marathon day in the studio before exiting (Stephen Stills filled in for him on the second day). Nonetheless, the album was a mammoth hit, the biggest of Bloomfield’s career. A sequel, The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, was recorded at Fillmore West and also sold well for Columbia, the company unleashing Michael’s debut solo album, It’s Not Killing Me, in 1969.
Bloomfield’s Chicago blues roots weren’t being neglected. He and Gravenites produced southpaw guitarist Otis Rush’s ‘69 Cotillion album Mourning in the Morning, and Michael joined Butterfield and Lay as a guest star on Muddy Waters’ multi-generational Chess double album Fathers and Sons, produced by Dayron that same year. “I was germinating the idea of connecting older masters of the blues with younger performers who had learned from them, and that was quite successful,” said Dayron. “I had worked with both Bloomfield and Butterfield, and with Muddy. And it was in a studio that I was familiar with, which was Chess in Chicago. And we did it in Chicago, and we did the live concert, and there was this big audience of young people at the time who knew Butterfield and Bloomfield=s work and loved Muddy.”
The ‘70s weren’t as glorious for Bloomfield. Columbia wouldn’t release his 1973 album Try It Before You Buy It (the label did press up Triumvirate, his New Orleans-oriented collaboration with John Hammond, Jr. and Dr. John, that year) An Electric Flag reunion album, The Band Kept Playing, came and went without too many folks noticing in ‘74, and Michael publicly admitted his participation in the ill-fated supergroup KGB was a mistake in 1976, just as their debut album hit the racks. After that, Bloomfield largely concentrated on smaller recording projects with Dayron in charge.
“I had been wanting to make a record for a long time of Michael singing and playing with the small group of friends that he was really comfortable with, that would represent in one album the humor and the perversion and just having fun and being comfortable with his friends and recording in a relaxed atmosphere,” said Norman. “So between 1977 and 1980, we would go into a variety of small studios in the San Francisco area, and we would assemble what Michael would call the usual suspects--namely certain of his friends that he was really comfortable playing with who were pretty good players. The cast of characters would vary.
“The people who were in those bands were people like Nick Gravenites on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Bob Jones on drums, Roger Troy on bass, Mark Naftalin on piano, accordion, concertina, whatever. Michael would play 10 different kinds of guitars,” he continued. “Some of the other people who participated in those groups were Ira Kamin on piano, or Doug Kilmer or John Kahn on bass. David Shorey, who goes under the name of Gashouse Dave in L.A., played bass, and also was our roadie.”
Bloomfield left behind a vast blues guitar legacy that precious few came close to equaling.
“The original Blues Brothers were Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield,” said Dayron. “That’s who they were. Paul dressed that way. Michael didn’t, but Paul would wear these dark sport jackets and black shirts and black pants, looking very neat. Shades, and sometimes he would wear a little pork pie hat or a fedora. He didn’t carry his harmonica in a briefcase or anything like that. But I think it was modeled on them. There was nobody before them that did that. It was completely authentic. There was no pretense to it. The whole name of the game was, could you cut it? Could you play with enough authenticity and inspiration and technique that you could gain the respect of those people?”
It’s safe to say that Michael accomplished that lofty goal and a great deal more.
--Bill Dahl
SOURCES
Michael Bloomfield: If You Love These Blues—An Oral History, by Jan Mark Wolkin and Bill Keenom (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000)
Discogs website: HYPERLINK "https://www.discogs.com" https://www.discogs.com
Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Bloomfield
YouTube website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIc1dKhN7PQ