Michael Bloomfield: If You Love These Blues: An Oral History

by Jan Mark Wolkin, Bill Keenom

Guitarist Michael Bloomfield shot to stardom in the '60s with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bob Dylan, The Electric Flag and on Al Kooper's “Super Session.” His story is told in the words of his brother, musicians such as B.B. King, producer Paul Rothchild and dozens of others – including Bloomfield himself. Features a foreword by Carlos Santana, and audio of unreleased early studio tracks. “(This book) is a look inside the psyche of a musical innovator who deserves a posthumous Nobel Prize and a statue on Rush Street in Chicago. If you love his blues, you'll love this book.” – Al Kooper

Genres: Music, Biography

296 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Michael Arden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Bloomfield was one of the most accomplished electric guitar players in the history of popular music. Not as well known today as his contemporaries Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, his spectacular blues-based fretwork still amazes to this day. In fact, he could play electric guitar exquisitely in any genre of music. Coming to prominence in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965, he inspired Bob Dylan to select him for lead guitar chores on his album “Highway 61 Revisited.” Along with two other members of the Butterfield Band and two keyboardists he notably backed up Dylan when he “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, recently immortalized in the film “A Complete Unknown.” When the Butterfield Band played at the Fillmore in San Francisco all the lead guitarists from the emerging psychedelic rock bands who had traded their acoustic guitars to plug in considered Bloomfield a major influence on their playing, as recorded in this superb oral history.

Hailing from the Chicago North Shore suburb of Glencoe, Bloomfield was the scion of a wealthy family whose fortune was made in the restaurant service business. Unfortunately, he literally ran away from success throughout his on again, off again career because he was horrified that he could enrich himself by bringing his gifted talent to the marketplace. He famously walked out on Al Kooper as they were half way through recording “Super Session,” causing Kooper to replace him with Stephen Stills. Worse yet, he developed a serious heroin habit that started his downward trajectory that led to his death at the age of 37 from an accidental overdose in 1981. Dozens of voices, many of whom are well known blues and rock musicians, walk the reader through every phase of the short but remarkable life of a guitarist whose legacy lives on in his recordings, just like the classic Chicago blues artists he so admired.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this book as a friend. I was pretty much unfamiliar with Michael Bloomfield but I still really enjoyed the book for the inside look at the music scene in blues-era Chicago, and the late sixties scene as folk went electric. Eye opening what a bunch of scumbags the music execs were!

[furious · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've been really digging the "oral biography" thing lately (Miki Dora, HST, SNL) & this was one was no exception. there's such a limited amount of Bloomfield material out there that this didn't have to be of exceptional quality for me to love it. and it isn't, there are some sizable holes. but it is exceptional in its very existence. plus, it came with a CD of early Bloomfield recordings that i believe were previously unavailable anywhere.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much like Tommy Bolin's bio, this is really more a series of interviews and recollections than an actual biopic. But that's all we get out of the greats who pass away too early like both Bolin and Bloomfield. Bloomfield's odd-yessey was a highly improbable one. Rich Jewish kid from the Chicago suburbs sits in with BB King and other blues royalty on the wrong side of town... And tears it up... But it all really happened.