Mike Bloomfield Biography
Michael Bernard Bloomfield, 28 July 1943, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 15 February 1981, San Francisco, California, USA. For many, both critics and fans, Bloomfield was the finest white blues guitarist America has so far produced. Although signed to Columbia Records in 1964 as the Group (with Charlie Musslewhite and Nick Gravenites), it was his emergence in 1965 as the young, shy guitarist in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band that brought him to public attention. He astonished those viewers who had watched black blues guitarists spend a lifetime trying, but failing, to play with as much fluidity and feeling as Bloomfield. That same year he was an important part of musical history, when folk purists accused Bob Dylan of committing artistic suicide at the Newport Folk Festival. Bloomfield was his lead electric guitarist at that event, and again on Dylan's 60s masterpiece Highway 61 Revisited.
On leaving Butterfield in 1967 Bloomfield immediately formed the seminal Electric Flag, although he had left before the first album's release and their fast decline in popularity. His 1968 album Super Session, with Stephen Stills and Al Kooper, became his biggest-selling record. It led to a short but financially lucrative career with Kooper. The track "Stop" on the album epitomized Bloomfield's style: clean, crisp, sparse and emotional. The long sustained notes were produced by bending the string with his fingers underneath the other strings so as not to affect the tuning. He also contributed some inspired guitar to Nick Gravenites' My Labors in 1969. That same year his playing was much in evidence on Muddy Waters' Fathers And Sons. It was four years before Bloomfield's next satisfying work appeared, Triumvirate, with John Hammond and Dr. John. In the mid-70s Bloomfield became a virtual recluse. Subsequent albums were distributed on small labels and did not gain national distribution. Plagued with a long-standing drug habit he occasionally supplemented his income by scoring music for pornographic movies. He also wrote or co-wrote the soundtracks for The Trip (1967), Medium Cool (1969) and Steelyard Blues (1973). Additionally, he taught music at Stanford University in San Francisco, wrote advertising jingles and was an adviser to Guitar Player magazine. Bloomfield avoided the limelight, possibly because of his insomnia while touring, but mainly because of his perception of what he felt an audience wanted: "Playing in front of strangers leads to idolatry, and idolatry is dangerous because the audience has a preconception of you, even though you cannot get a conception of them". In 1975 Bloomfield was cajoled into forming the "supergroup" KGB with Ric Grech, Barry Goldberg and Carmine Appice. The resulting debut album was an unmitigated disaster and Bloomfield resorted to playing mostly acoustic music. He had an extraordinarily prolific period between 1976 and 1977, the most notable release being the critically acclaimed If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em As You Please, issued through Guitar Player magazine. A second burst of activity occurred shortly before his tragic death, when another three albums worth of material was recorded. Bloomfield was found dead in his car from a suspected accidental drug overdose, a sad end to a "star" who had constantly avoided stardom in order to maintain his own integrity.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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