Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
guitarist and composer. Born in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, he became one of the first popular music stars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, as he rarely sang before 1969.
Respected for his guitar playing, Bloomfield knew and played with many of Chicago's blues musicians before achieving his own fame and was instrumental in popularizing
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
music in the mid-1960s. In 1965, he played on
Bob Dylan's ''
Highway 61 Revisited'', including the single "
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhauste ...
", and
performed with Dylan at that year's
Newport Folk Festival.
Bloomfield was ranked No. 22 on
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003 and No. 42 by the same magazine in 2011. He was inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame in 2012 and, as a member of the
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...
in 2015.
Early years
Bloomfield was born in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
into a wealthy
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family. Bloomfield's father, Harold, was born there in 1914. Harold's father, Samuel Bloomfield, started Bloomfield Industries in the early 1930s. After Samuel passed away, Harold and his brother, Daniel, inherited the company. Bloomfield's mother, Dorothy Klein, was born in Chicago in 1918 and married Harold in 1940. She came from an artistic, musical family, and worked as an actress and model before marrying.
Bloomfield's family lived in various locations around Chicago before settling at 424 West Melrose Street on the North Side. When he was twelve his family moved to suburban
Glencoe, where he attended
New Trier High School for two years. During this time, he began playing in local bands, then put together one called the Hurricanes, named after Ohio rock band
Johnny and the Hurricanes. New Trier expelled Bloomfield after his band performed a raucous rock and roll song at a 1959 school gathering. He attended
Cornwall Academy in Massachusetts for one year and then returned to Chicago, where he spent his last year of education at a local Central YMCA High School.
Bloomfield had attended a 1957 Chicago performance by blues singer
Josh White, and began spending time in Chicago's
South Side blues clubs and playing guitar with such black bluesmen as
Sleepy John Estes,
Yank Rachell, and
Little Brother Montgomery. He first sat in with a black blues band in 1959, when he performed with
Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson at a Chicago club called the Place. He performed with
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chica ...
,
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...
, and many other Chicago blues performers during the early 1960s. In 1962 he married Susan Smith.
Writing in 2001, keyboardist, songwriter and record producer
Al Kooper said Bloomfield's talent "was instantly obvious to his mentors. They knew this was not just another white boy; this was someone who truly understood what the blues were all about."
Among his early supporters were
B.B. King, Muddy Waters,
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
and
Buddy Guy. "Michael used to say, 'It's a natural. Black people suffer externally in this country. Jewish people suffer internally. The suffering's the mutual fulcrum for the blues.'"
The Butterfield Blues Band (1965–1967)
In the early 1960s he met harmonica player and singer
Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a Western concert flute, classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored ...
and guitarist
Elvin Bishop, with whom he would later play in
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
He also began friendships and professional associations with fellow Chicagoan
Nick Gravenites and
Bronx
The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
-born record producer
Norman Dayron, who was attending the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. He developed a friendship with blues singer
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby, Pl ...
. In 1963 Bloomfield and his two friends
George Mitchell and
Pete Welding ran a weekly blues showcase at the Fickle Pickle.
He subsequently built up his reputation in two Chicago clubs, Big John's and Magoo's. With help from his friend Joel Harlib, a Chicago photographer who became Bloomfield's de facto manager, he became a
recording artist. In early 1964 Harlib took an audition tape by Bloomfield to Columbia producer and talent scout
John Hammond, who signed him to Columbia's
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), cong ...
label.
Bloomfield recorded a few sessions for Columbia in 1964 that remained unreleased until after his death. In early 1965 he joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which included Elvin Bishop and keyboardist
Mark Naftalin, along with drummer
Sam Lay
Samuel Julian Lay (March 20, 1935January 29, 2022) was an American drummer and vocalist who performed from the late 1950s as a blues and R&B musician alongside Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and many others. He was inducted int ...
and bassist
Jerome Arnold, who had previously worked in Howlin' Wolf's band.
Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...
producer
Paul Rothchild recorded the band in spring 1965, but the majority of the tracks were not released until the 1990s. However, one of the tracks Rothchild recorded during his first pass at producing the group, a Nick Gravenites song titled "Born in Chicago", was included on the Elektra album ''Folksong '65'', which sold two hundred thousand copies when it was released in September 1965. "Born in Chicago" became an underground hit for the Butterfield Band. Their debut album, ''
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band'', was recorded in September and released the following month.
In June 1965, Bloomfield had recorded with
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
, whom he had met in 1963 at a Chicago club called the Bear. The club was bankrolled by future Dylan and Butterfield manager
Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman (May 21, 1926 – January 25, 1986) was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music and rock and roll scene. He was famous as the manager of many of the most popular and successful performers of folk and folk ...
, who would play a major part in Bloomfield's career. Bloomfield's
Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele (), is an electric guitar produced by Fender (company), Fender. Together with its sister model the Fender Esquire, Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes ...
guitar licks were featured on Dylan's "
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhauste ...
", a single produced by Columbia Record's
Tom Wilson. Bloomfield would play on most of the tracks on Dylan's 1965 ''
Highway 61 Revisited'' album, and he appeared onstage with Dylan in July at the
Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan used Bloomfield and the Butterfield Band—minus Paul Butterfield—along with keyboardists Al Kooper and Barry Goldberg.
The show marked Dylan's first use of an electric band in a live performance, and Bloomfield's playing on the songwriter's "
Maggie's Farm" is considered a landmark electric-guitar performance. After the Newport Folk Festival ended, Bloomfield helped Dylan complete the sessions for ''
Highway 61 Revisited'', and Dylan asked Bloomfield to join his touring band. Bloomfield demurred, preferring to continue playing with the Butterfield Band.
When Sam Lay fell ill after a series of dates in November 1965, the Butterfield Band brought Chicago-born drummer
Billy Davenport into the group. During the first part of 1966, the band played in California, and they recorded their second album, ''
East-West'', that summer. The record's title track found the band exploring
modal music, and it was based upon a song Gravenites and Bloomfield had been playing since 1965, "It's About Time".
Bloomfield played on recording sessions between 1965 and 1967. His guitar playing had a huge impact on San Francisco Bay Area musicians after playing with the Butterfield band at Bill Graham's Fillmore in March 1966, San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom and also in the Los Angeles area due to the storied two-week run at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. He became a mentor and inspiration for many guitarists, especially in the SF Bay Area. He did a 1965 date with
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American Contemporary folk music, folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival. The trio consisted of Peter Yarrow (guitar, tenor vocals), Paul Stookey (guitar, baritone vocals), ...
that resulted in a song called "The King of Names", and he recorded in 1966 with pop group Chicago Loop, whose "When She Wants Good Lovin' (My Baby Comes to Me)" made ''
Billboard Magazine
''Billboard'' (stylized in lowercase since 2013) is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events and styles related to th ...
s chart that year. He also played guitar on recordings by
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...
,
Mitch Ryder and
James Cotton
James Henry Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career.
...
.
The Electric Flag (1967–1968)
Bloomfield tired of the Butterfield Band's rigorous touring schedule, relocated to San Francisco, and sought to create his own group. He formed the short-lived
Electric Flag in 1967,
with two longtime Chicago collaborators, Barry Goldberg and vocalist Nick Gravenites. The band featured a horn section. The band's rhythm section was composed of bassist
Harvey Brooks and drummer
Buddy Miles. Miles had previously played in
Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American singer and songwriter.
A major figure in the development of soul music, Pickett recorded more than 50 songs that made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the '' ...
's touring band, while Brooks had performed with Al Kooper in bands in New York City, and had played with both Kooper and Bloomfield on
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
's ''
Highway 61 Revisited''. The group's first effort was the soundtrack for director-producer
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he w ...
's 1967 movie ''
The Trip'', which was recorded in the spring of that year.
The Electric Flag debuted at the 1967
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16-18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Ex ...
and issued an album, ''
A Long Time Comin''', in April 1968 on
. Critics complimented the group's distinctive, intriguing sound but found the record itself somewhat uneven. By that time, however, the band was already disintegrating, with rivalries between members, shortsighted management, and heroin abuse all taking their toll. Shortly after the release of that album, Bloomfield left the band, with Gravenites, Goldberg, and bassist Harvey Brooks following.
Work with Al Kooper
Bloomfield also made an impact through his work with
Al Kooper, who had played with Bloomfield on Dylan's "
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhauste ...
". Kooper had become an
A&R man for Columbia Records, and Bloomfield and Kooper had played piano
robably just Kooper on pianoon
Moby Grape
Moby Grape is an American rock band founded in 1966. Part of San Francisco's psychedelic music scene, the band merged elements of rock and roll, folk music, pop, blues, and country. They were one of the few groups of which all members were lea ...
's 1968 ''
Grape Jam'', an instrumental album that had been packaged with the group's ''Wow'' collection.
"Why not do an entire jam album together?" Kooper remembered in 1998, writing the booklet notes for the Bloomfield anthology ''
Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man: Essential Blues, 1964–1969''. "At the time, most jazz albums were made using this modus operandi: pick a leader or two co-leaders, hire appropriate sidemen, pick some tunes, make some up and record an entire album on the fly in one or two days. Why not try and legitimize rock by adhering to these standards? In addition, as a fan, I was dissatisfied with Bloomfield's recorded studio output up until then. It seemed that his studio work was inhibited and reined in, compared to his incendiary live performances. Could I put him in a studio setting where he could feel free to just burn like he did in live performances?"
The result was ''
Super Session'', a jam album that spotlighted Bloomfield's guitar skills on one side.
Bloomfield, who suffered from insomnia, left the sessions after the first day. Guitarist
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Manassas (band ...
completed the album with Kooper. It received excellent reviews and became the best-selling album of Bloomfield's career.
Its success led to a live sequel, ''
The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper
''The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper'' is a double album recorded at the Fillmore West venue; the album is a successor to the studio album '' Super Session'', which included Stephen Stills in addition to Bloomfield and Kooper, ...
'', recorded over three nights at
Fillmore West
The Fillmore West was a historic rock and roll music venue in San Francisco, California, US which became famous under the direction of concert promoter Bill Graham from 1968 to 1971. Named after The Fillmore at the intersection of Fillmore ...
in September 1968.
Solo work
Bloomfield continued with solo, session and back-up work from 1968 to 1980. He played guitar on
Mother Earth's cover of Memphis Slim's "Mother Earth", a track from their 1968 ''Living with the Animals'' album, and on two albums by Texas-born soul singer Wayne Talbert. With Mark Naftalin, he produced the 1968 sessions for James Cotton's 1968 album ''Cotton in Your Ears''. He released his first solo album, ''
It's Not Killing Me'', in 1969. Bloomfield also helped
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful Rock music, rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her "electric" ...
assemble her Kozmic Blues Band (for the album ''I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues, Again Mama!'') in 1969, co-wrote "Work Me, Lord" for the album, and played the guitar solo on Joplin's blues composition "One Good Man". Columbia released another 1969 album, a live concert jam, ''Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West'', including Mark Naftalin, former Electric Flag bandmates Marcus Doubleday and Snooky Flowers, and a guest appearance by
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...
. In the same year he reunited with Paul Butterfield and Sam Lay for the
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock an ...
album ''Fathers and Sons'', featuring Muddy Waters and pianist
Otis Spann
Otis Spann (March 21, 1924, or 1930April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.
Early life
Sources differ over Spann's early years. Some state that he was born in Jackson, Mississippi, ...
. Bloomfield composed and recorded the soundtrack for the film ''
Medium Cool'', directed by his second cousin,
Haskell Wexler. The film includes footage shot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. With Nick Gravenites, he produced blues guitarist
Otis Rush's 1969 album ''Mourning in the Morning'', recorded at
FAME Studios
FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios is a recording studio located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, United States, an area of northern Alabama known as the Shoals. Though small and distant from the main recording l ...
in
Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located on the left bank of the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 census, its population was 13,146. The estimated popula ...
with a band that included keyboardists Mark Naftalin and
Barry Beckett
Barry Edward Beckett (February 4, 1943 – June 10, 2009) was an American keyboardist, session musician, record producer, and studio founder. He is best known for his work with David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, and Roger Hawkins, his bandmates in the ...
, along with guitarist
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman (November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971) was an American rock and blues guitarist and the founder and original leader of the Allman Brothers Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fam ...
.
During 1970 Bloomfield gave up playing because of his heroin addiction:
He recorded his second solo album, ''Try It Before You Buy It'', in 1973. Columbia rejected it; the complete version of the record would not appear until 1990. Also in 1973, he cut ''Triumvirate'' with
Dr. John and guitarist and singer
John Hammond Jr. In 1973 he teamed up with Mark Naftalin, at a studio in
Sausalito, to produce a one-off live album, ''Live at the Record Plant 1973''. In 1974, he rejoined the Electric Flag for an album titled ''The Band Kept Playing''. In 1975 he recorded an album with the group KGB. The group's name is an acronym of the initials of singer and songwriter
Ray Kennedy
Raymond Kennedy (28 July 1951 – 30 November 2021) was an English Association football, footballer who won every domestic honour in the game with Arsenal F.C., Arsenal and Liverpool F.C., Liverpool in the 1970s and early 1980s. Kennedy playe ...
,
Barry Goldberg and Bloomfield. The band also included
Ric Grech and drummer
Carmine Appice
Carmine Appice ( ; born December 15, 1946) is an American rock drummer. He is best known for his associations with Vanilla Fudge; Cactus; the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice; Rod Stewart; King Kobra; and Blue Murder. He is the older brother ...
.
Grech and Bloomfield quit shortly after its release. As the record hit stores in 1976, Bloomfield told journalists that the group had been an ill-conceived moneymaking project. The album was not well received by critics,
but it did contain the standout track "Sail On, Sailor". Its authorship was credited to "Wilson-Kennedy", and had a bluesy, darker feel, along with Ray Kennedy's original cocaine-related lyrics. In the same year, he performed with
John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...
on Cale's soundtrack for the film ''
Caged Heat''. In 1976 he recorded an instructional album for guitarists, ''If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em as You Please'', which was financed through ''
Guitar Player
''Guitar Player'' was an American magazine for guitarists, founded in 1967 in San Jose, California
San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francis ...
'' magazine.
In the 1970s Bloomfield played in local
San Francisco Bay area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
clubs, including the
Keystone Korner
The Keystone Korner was a jazz club in the North Beach, San Francisco, North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California, which opened in 1970 and continued operation until 1983. Many live recordings were made at the club. In the 1970s, Jessi ...
, and sat in with other bands. In 1977, Bloomfield was selected by
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
to do the soundtrack for the pop artist's last film, ''
Andy Warhol's Bad
''Bad'', also known as ''Andy Warhol's Bad'', is a 1977 comedy film directed by Jed Johnson and starring Carroll Baker, Perry King, and Susan Tyrrell. It was written by Pat Hackett and George Abagnalo, and was the last film produced by Andy ...
'' (also known as BAD). An unreleased single, "Andy's Bad", was also produced for the project. During 1979–1981 he performed often with the King Perkoff Band, sometimes introducing them as the "Michael Bloomfield and Friends" outfit. Bloomfield recorded "Hustlin' Queen", written by John Isabeau and Perkoff in 1979. He toured Italy and Sweden with guitarist
Woody Harris and cellist
Maggie Edmondson in the summer of 1980. He sat in with Bob Dylan at San Francisco's
Warfield Theatre on November 15, 1980. Bloomfield played on Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar". He continued to play live dates, with his performance at
San Francisco State College
San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is part of the Califor ...
on February 7, 1981, being his penultimate appearance. His final performance was at
Mission Ranch,
Carmel, CA, approximately 48 hours before his death.
Bloomfield came from a wealthy family, and received annual income from a trust created by his paternal grandfather, which gave him $50,000 each year.
Death
Bloomfield died in San Francisco on February 15, 1981. He was found seated behind the wheel of his car, with all four doors locked. According to police, an empty
Valium
Diazepam, sold under the brand name Valium among others, is a medicine of the benzodiazepine family that acts as an anxiolytic. It is used to treat a range of conditions, including anxiety, seizures, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, muscle spas ...
bottle was found on the car seat, but no suicide note was found. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy ruled the death accidental overdose, due to
cocaine
Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...
and
methamphetamine
Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug use, recreational or Performance-enhancing substance, performance-enhancing drug and less commonly as a secon ...
poisoning. Bloomfield's last album, ''Cruisin' for a Bruisin, was released the day his death was announced.
His remains are interred in a crypt at
Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
The Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Culver City, California, United States. Many Jewish people from the entertainment industry are buried there. The cemetery is known for Al Jolson's elaborate tomb (designed by Los Angeles ...
, in
Culver City
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights to the ea ...
, near Los Angeles.
Style
Bloomfield's musical influences include
Scotty Moore
Winfield Scott Moore III (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016) was an American guitarist who formed The Blue Moon Boys in 1954, Elvis Presley's backing band. He was studio and touring guitarist for Presley between 1954 and 1968.
Rock critic ...
,
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...
,
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Ar ...
,
B.B. King,
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby, Pl ...
,
Otis Rush,
Albert King
Albert King ( Nelson; April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992), was an American guitarist and singer who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists of all time. He is perhaps best known for his popular and ...
,
Freddie King
Freddie King (born Fred Christian; September 3, 1934December 28, 1976), also billed as Freddy King, was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King a ...
and
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential musicians in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Gen ...
.
Bloomfield originally used a
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele (), is an electric guitar produced by Fender (company), Fender. Together with its sister model the Fender Esquire, Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes ...
, though he had also used a
Fender Duo-Sonic while recording for Columbia following his 1964 signing to the label. During his tenure with the Butterfield Blues Band, he used that Telecaster on the first Butterfield album and on their earliest tours in the fall of 1965. By November he had swapped that guitar for
International Submarine Band
The International Submarine Band (ISB) was a country-rock band formed by Gram Parsons in 1965, while a theology (?) student at Harvard University and John Nuese, a guitar player for local rock group, The Trolls. Nuese is credited with having pe ...
guitarist
John Nuese’s 1954
Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, acquired in Boston and used for some of the ''East-West'' sessions.
In 1967, Bloomfield swapped the Goldtop for guitar repairman/musician Dan Erlewine's 1959
Les Paul Standard and $100. The Standard had proven unpopular in the late 1950s because it was deemed too heavy and expensive by rock and roll guitarists. Gibson discontinued manufacturing the model in 1960. Bloomfield used the Standard in the Electric Flag and on the ''Super Session'' album and concerts. He later switched between the it and the Telecaster, but his use of the Les Paul inspired other guitarists to use the model and spurred Gibson to reintroduce the Standard in 1968.
Bloomfield eventually lost the guitar in Canada when a club owner kept two he had left behind as partial compensation after Bloomfield cut short a round of appearances. He had been booked at the Cave in Vancouver, from Tue. Nov. 12th, 1974, for five days, until Sat. the 16th. The band played the first night but the next day Bloomfield boarded a plane and flew home to San Francisco with virtually no notice to the club, hotel, or band members; his friend Mark Naftalin found a note on a torn piece of paper in the hotel room that read, "bye bye, sorry".
Unlike contemporaries such as
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...
and
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023) was an English musician. He rose to prominence as the guitarist of the rock band the Yardbirds, and afterwards founded and fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, ...
, Bloomfield rarely experimented with feedback and distortion, preferring a loud yet clean, almost chiming sound, with a healthy amount of
reverb
In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then decay as the sound is a ...
and
vibrato
Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...
; this approach would strongly influence
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...
, who segued from a career in acoustic-based music to electric rock at the height of the Butterfield Band's influence in 1965. One of his amplifiers of choice was a 1965
Fender Twin Reverb. His solos, like those of most blues guitarists, were based in the minor
pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to heptatonic scales, which have seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale).
Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient ci ...
and the
blues scale
The term blues scale refers to several different scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. A blues scale is often formed by the addition of an out-of-key " blue note" to an existing scale, notably the flat fifth additio ...
. However, he liberally used
chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...
notes within the pentatonic framework, and integrated Indian and Eastern influences in his solos.
Gibson has since released a Michael Bloomfield Les Paul, replicating his 1959 Standard—in recognition of his impact on the electric blues, his role in the revived production of the guitar, and his influence on many other guitarists. Because the actual guitar had been unaccounted for so many years, Gibson relied on hundreds of photographs provided by Bloomfield's family to reproduce it. The model comes in two configurations—a Vintage Original Specifications (VOS), modified by Bloomfield's mismatched volume and tone control knobs, missing toggle switch cover, and kidney-shaped tuners replacing the Gibson original, and a faithful process-aged reproduction of the guitar as it was when Bloomfield last played it, complete with the finish smudge below the bridge and various nicks and smudges elsewhere on the body.
Selected discography
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
*''
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band'' (1965)
*''
East-West'' (1966)
*''The Original Lost Elektra Sessions'' (unreleased recordings from 1965)
*''East–West Live'' (three live versions of the track "East–West", recorded 1966–1967)
The Electric Flag
*''
The Trip'' (1967)
*''
A Long Time Comin''' (1968)
* ''The Band Kept Playing'' (1974)
*'' Groovin' Is Easy'' (Released 2002)
Solo
*''
It's Not Killing Me'' (1969)
*''Try It Before You Buy It'' (1973) (Not released until 1990. Additional recordings from these sessions were released on "Bloomfield: A Retrospective" in 1983)
*''If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em as You Please'' (1976; reissued on CD with ''Bloomfield-Harris'')
*''Andy's Bad'' (1977; unreleased title soundtrack to ''Andy Warhol's Bad'')
*''Analine'' (1977)
*''
I'm with You Always'' (Recorded 1977)
*''Michael Bloomfield'' (1978)
*''Count Talent and the Originals'' (1978)
*''Between a Hard Place and the Ground'' (1979)
*''Bloomfield-Harris'' (1979)
*''Cruisin' for a Bruisin'' (1981)
Collaborations
*''Blueskvarter'' (recorded 1964, released 2007), many Swedish CDs, recordings on Swedish radio. Bloomfield plays guitar with
Little Brother Montgomery,
Sunnyland Slim,
Yank Rachell,
Eddie Boyd and others.
*''
Super Session'', Bloomfield, Kooper and Stills (1968). This album has been remastered, with new editions featuring several Bloomfield performances not included on the original album, including "Blues for Nothing" and "Fat Gray Cloud".
*''
The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper
''The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper'' is a double album recorded at the Fillmore West venue; the album is a successor to the studio album '' Super Session'', which included Stephen Stills in addition to Bloomfield and Kooper, ...
'' (1968)
*''Fillmore East: Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield – The Lost Concert Tapes 12/13/68'' (recorded 1968, released 2003)
*''Two Jews Blues'' (1969), with
Barry Goldberg (uncredited because of contractual constraints)
*''Fathers & Sons'' (1969), with Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Paul Butterfield, Donald Dunn, Sam Lay, Paul Asbell, Buddy Miles, Jeff Carp, & Phil Upchurch. Part live, part studio recordings.
*''My Labors'' (1969), with
Nick Gravenites
*''Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West'' (1969), with Nick Gravenites,
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...
,
Mark Naftalin. Some of the performances at the same concerts that yielded this album were included on ''My Labors''. Those performances, except for "Winter Country Blues", are now part ''Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West 1969'', released in 2009 and credited to Michael Bloomfield with Nick Gravenites and Friends.
*''
Medium Cool'' (1969), original film soundtrack featuring Bloomfield and others
*''
Steelyard Blues
''Steelyard Blues'' is a 1973 American comedy crime film, directed by Alan Myerson, and starring Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda and Peter Boyle.
Plot
A group of misfits tries to find a happier life against the norms of society. Donald Sutherla ...
'' (1973), original film soundtrack, with Nick Gravenites and others
*''Mill Valley Bunch – Casting Pearls'' (1973), with
Bill Vitt, Nick Gravenites and others
*''
Triumvirate
A triumvirate () or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs (). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are notionally equal, the actual distr ...
'' (1973), with
John Hammond and
Dr. John
*''KGB'' (1976),
Ray Kennedy
Raymond Kennedy (28 July 1951 – 30 November 2021) was an English Association football, footballer who won every domestic honour in the game with Arsenal F.C., Arsenal and Liverpool F.C., Liverpool in the 1970s and early 1980s. Kennedy playe ...
(vocals),
Barry Goldberg (keyboards), Mike Bloomfield (guitar),
Ric Grech (bass),
Carmine Appice
Carmine Appice ( ; born December 15, 1946) is an American rock drummer. He is best known for his associations with Vanilla Fudge; Cactus; the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice; Rod Stewart; King Kobra; and Blue Murder. He is the older brother ...
(drums)
Selected session work
*''
So Many Roads'' –
John P. Hammond (1965)
*''
Highway 61 Revisited'' –
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
(1965)
*''
The Peter, Paul and Mary Album'' –
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American Contemporary folk music, folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival. The trio consisted of Peter Yarrow (guitar, tenor vocals), Paul Stookey (guitar, baritone vocals), ...
(1965)
*''
Fresh Berry's'' –
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...
(1965)
*''
Chicago Loop
The Loop is Chicago's central business district and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized Community areas in Chicago, community areas. Located at the center of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is the second-largest busi ...
'' (1966)
*''
Cherry Red'' –
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (BluesWay, 1967)
*"Carry On"/"Ronnie Siegel from Avenue L"
5rpm single– Barry Goldberg, with
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...
- guitar, produced by Tom Wilson
*''
Grape Jam'' –
Moby Grape
Moby Grape is an American rock band founded in 1966. Part of San Francisco's psychedelic music scene, the band merged elements of rock and roll, folk music, pop, blues, and country. They were one of the few groups of which all members were lea ...
(1968) - Played piano
*''Living with the Animals'' –
Mother Earth (1968) (credited as "Makal Blumfeld" due to contractual constraints)
*''Dues to Pay'' – Wayne Talbert & the Melting Pot (1968)
*''Lord Have Mercy on My Funky Soul'' – Wayne Talbert (1969)
*''
Fathers and Sons'' –
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...
(1969)
*''
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!
''I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!'' is the debut solo and third studio album overall by American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin, released on September 11, 1969, by Columbia Records. It was the first album which Joplin recorded after leavin ...
'' –
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful Rock music, rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her "electric" ...
(1969)
*''
Weeds
A weed is an unwanted plant of any species.
Weed or weeds may also refer to:
Places
* Weed, Arkansas, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Weed, California, a city in the United States
* Weed, Kentucky, an unincorporated communit ...
'' –
Brewer & Shipley (1969)
*''Moogie Woogie'' – The Zeet Band (1970) (credited as "Fastfingers" Finkelstein)
*''Sam Lay in Bluesland'' –
Sam Lay
Samuel Julian Lay (March 20, 1935January 29, 2022) was an American drummer and vocalist who performed from the late 1950s as a blues and R&B musician alongside Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and many others. He was inducted int ...
(1970)
*''Gandharva'' –
Beaver & Krause
Beaver & Krause were an American musical duo comprising Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause. Their 1967 album ''The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music'' was a pioneering work in the electronic music genre. The pair were Robert Moog's sales representat ...
(1971)
*''Brand New'' –
Woody Herman and His Orchestra (1971)
Posthumous releases
*''Living in the Fast Lane'' (1981)
*''Bloomfield: A Retrospective'' (1983)
*''
I'm with You Always'' (Live 1977 recordings from McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA)
*''Between the Hard Place and the Ground'' (Different from the original 1970s LP; containing further selections from McCabe's Guitar Shop)
*''Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man: Essential Blues, 1964–1969'', an anthology that includes five songs from Bloomfield's original 1964 Columbia sessions.
*''Live at the Old Waldorf'' (Recorded live in 1976 and 1977 by producer Norman Dayron at the Old Waldorf nightclub)
*''Barry Goldberg & Friends – Live'' (Features Bloomfield on guitar on most tracks)
*''Michael Bloomfield, Harvey Mandel, Barry Goldberg & Friends'' (with
Eddie Hoh on drums) – Solid Blues (1995, St.Clair Entertainment Group)
*''The Holy Kingdom: Music of the Gospel'' (1998) Bloomfield performed two songs: "Wings of an Angel" and "You Must Have Seen Jesus". Other artists on the album included the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, The Cavaliers, and The Swan Silvertones.
*''If You Love These Blues'' by Wolkin & Keenom (Miller Freeman Books, 2000) contains a CD of 1964 recordings made by Norman Dayron
*''From His Head to His Heart to His Hands: An Audio-Visual Scrapbook'' (2013); a Columbia Legacy career retrospective, produced by Al Kooper, including tapes from Bloomfield's original audition for
John Hammond at Columbia Records in 1964, previously unissued live performances, and a DVD that includes the documentary film ''Sweet Blues: A Film About Mike Bloomfield'', directed by Bob Sarles and produced and edited by Bob Sarles and Christina Keating. The film premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2013.
References
Sources
*Michael Bloomfield – ''Me and Big Joe'', Re/Search Publications, 1st edition 1980, . Last éd. V/Search, December 1999,
*Jan Mark Wolkin & Bill Keenom ''- Michael Bloomfield'' – ''If You Love These Blues: An Oral History'' Backbeat Books, 1st edition September 2000 – (with CD of unreleased music – early recordings made by Norman Dayron )
* Ken Brooks – ''The Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and
Al Kooper with
Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a Western concert flute, classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored ...
and
David Clayton Thomas'' Agenda Ltd, February 1999,
*Al Kooper – ''Backstage Passes: Rock 'N' Roll Life in the Sixties'' – Stein & Day Pub (1st edition February 1977)
*Al Kooper – '' Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock 'N' Roll Survivor'' Billboard Books (Updated Edition – September 1998)
*Al Kooper – ''Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards'' – Hal Leonard Corporation, new edition February 2008,
*Ed Ward – ''Michael Bloomfield, The rise and fall of an American guitar hero'', Cherry Lane Books (1983),
*Ed Ward – ''Michael Bloomfield, The rise and fall of an American guitar hero'', Multiprises, LLC (updated edition – 2016), (print) (PDF edition) (epub) (Kindle)
*David Dann – ''Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield's Life in the Blues'', University of Texas Press (2019), (print) (ebook)
External links
Official Mike Bloomfield Siteby Michael Bloomfield (1980)
*
*
*
by Al Kooper
Michael Bloomfield Chronology & Analysis*
Gibson's Replica of Mike Bloomfield's 1959 Les Paul Standard GuitarSweet Blues: A Film About Mike Bloomfield
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloomfield, Mike
1943 births
1981 deaths
American lead guitarists
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues pianists
American male pianists
20th-century male pianists
Blues musicians from Illinois
Singers from Chicago
Chicago blues musicians
People from Glencoe, Illinois
American session musicians
Deaths by heroin overdose in California
Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
20th-century American singers
Jewish American rock musicians
The Electric Flag members
Guitarists from Chicago
Paul Butterfield Blues Band members
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American Jews
Takoma Records artists