"THE BEST"
TAKOMA RECORDS
Hidden behind the Godlike frenzy of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page in the late 60s, and then tragically dying of drug overdose in the early 80s, before we really could examine just where he’d been and where he was going, Mike Bloomfield is truly one of the finest guitarists to come down the pike. More than any others, he managed to merge the fields of rock and blues, thereby exposing much of middle class, white America to players like B.B. King and Muddy Waters, which, in a weird way, may end up being his legacy.
Bloomfield started out in the early to mid Sixties with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, truly one of the, if not the, pioneering groups of that time period. It was also during that time that he was "discovered" by Bob Dylan, and made a name for himself, both in the studio during the recording of the seminal "Highway 61 Revisited," and as Dylan’s lead guitarist during the infamous Newport and Forest Hills shows with the troubadour "went electric" and thereby officially ended the folk movement in this country. Later, he joined with Al Kooper on the "Super Session and "Live Adventures" albums to showcase his incredible style.
Bloomfield spent a number of years in drug-hazed, relative obscurity, which many of his contemporaries felt was his way of fending off what he saw as a privileged past, and truly an emulation of his Chicago forbearers. It was during that time that many of these sides were recorded for the small Takoma label, songs that run the gamut from country-folk-blues performed on acoustic guitar, to sidework with jazz clarinetist Woody Herman, to leader of his own dates with a bonafide blues/rock band with rhythm section.
It is clear from this collection that Bloomfield pulled back after his days with Dylan and Kooper. Perhaps he felt he had to, or simply wanted to. Maybe he couldn’t take anything else, but this collection is a good cross-section of his later recording years.
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