There are 10 youtube clips of Mike Bloomfield which in part to be turned into a documentary and published in 2012. It will be called : "If You Love These Blues" - The Life and Music of Mike Bloomfield," a Ravin' Films production.

"Jann Wenner (interviewing Mike Bloomfield in Febr. 68): "You were telling me that Eric Clapton was a perfect guitarist. What makes you think that?"

Mike Bloomfield: "His attack is flawless, that's one of the things. A perfect musician is dedicated. He has ideas, attack, touch, ability to transmit emotion and ability to transmit his ideas. His ability to logically transmit his ideas and his emotion is kineticism; he can build. Eric does all of these about as well as you can do them. It shows in the area that he plays that his attack is perfect. His tone is vocal; his ideas are superb; he plays almost exclusively blues - all the lines he plays in the Cream are blues lines. He plays nothing but blues: he's a blues guitarist and he's taken the blues guitar to its ultimate thing. In that field he's B.B. King $@! the Freddie King and Ernie Cahill style of guitar playing. Eric is the master in the world. That is why he is a perfect guitarist. Eric plays in bad taste when he wants to. He can play crappy. But, like, Eric plays almost exclusively perfect."

Agree or disagree, but Mike was an articulate as well as an enthusiastic guy...

Here's the link to all 12 videos :
http://www.youtube.com/user/bloomsdisco

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Thanks for the link Mike. Can't get enough Bloomfield. Big influence to me.

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

I have one of his best albums-It's Not Killing Me-on vinyl.I haven't seen it in CD format but it's a fabulous album.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Any serious fan or student of the blues should have some Mike Bloomfield in his CD collection.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I remember having an eight-track tape (remember those?) and it had some
killer playing by Bloomfield. It was his modernized phrasing of old standard
blues riffs and licks that drew me to his style.

When I finally got to see him (with Paul Butterfield, Elvin Bishop and Mark Naftalin) and
they did the whole 'East-West' material, it just floored me!

http://www.mikebloomfield.com/bio.htm

Michael Bloomfield was found dead in his car of a drug overdose in San Francisco, California on February 15, 1981.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

+1 Bloomfield is essential listening as is Peter Green.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

A fan, but not a huge fan. I still have a copy of from 1976. It was recorded for Guitar Player Magazine, with a booket that you had to send away for thru the mail. I still have the booket as well.

A CD of this album is on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Love-These-Blues-Play-Please/dp/B00064VQQM/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1310424235&sr=8-8.

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Tony Houston

Part 2 shows a still photo of "Bloomfield's Telecaster."

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Mucho Thanks for the link Mike. Mike Bloomfield was my very first guitar "hero". I don't know how many copies of the first two Butterfield LPs I've worn out over the years, not to mention Super Session and Live Adventures of. Hopefully the documentary will include lots from the PBS special with Johnny Winters. I was also fortunate enough to see the Butterfield Band with Elvin and Mike in a small coffee house type joint and a few months later as the opening act for Wilson Pickett who was riding the charts with Midnight Hour.

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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancin'

Yer welcome my friend!

If he was still alive, his birthday would be this month.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I usually end up playing "Born in Chicago" when I pick up a guitar. Mike has alway been one of my absolute favorites.

A 1959 Les Paul Standard was a dog in the used guitar market until Mike Bloomfield picked one up and made it popular.

His playing on the Dylan sessions with that '59 gave him some visibility.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Bloomfield shows some really tasty chops on the Muddy Waters disc, "Fathers and Sons".

Very true. I believe his playing was far cleaner when he backed Dylan, as would be appropriate for Dylan's material.

Here is a paste from George Gruhn's Newsletter No. 1, 2002:

When I first started out there was a demand for vintage fretted acoustic instruments but virtually no market for vintage electric guitars. It was not until about 1965 that I encountered any people looking for specifically for used and vintage electric guitars. In fact, the first band I encountered using such instruments was the Butterfield Blues Band with Mike Bloomfield. When I first met Mike he was strictly an acoustic player, but it was not long before he joined the Butterfield Band and played an old Telecaster. 1950's Teles, particularly those with the black pickguards, went almost overnight from $75 items which were not in demand to $600 which at that time was an astronomical amount since it was much more than the cost of a new one. Mike amply demonstrated, however, that the old Telecaster was a remarkably different instrument from the new one. Soon thereafter Mike switched to a 1954 Gold top Les Paul, and these instruments promptly went from being $75 used guitars for which there was no demand to selling for $500 to $800. At that time there were no new Les Pauls. This was the first time I had seen players going out of their way to find electric guitar models which were out of production. I can vividly remember that during the period when Mike was playing his 1954 Gold Top, the demand for these instruments not only skyrocketed but players were looking specifically for one like Mike's rather than any other variation. When I found gold tops with the stud mounted bridge, I could sell them or trade them readily for acoustic guitars which were of interest to me, but if I found a sunburst Les Paul with humbucking pickups and the tune-o-matic bridge, I was told that that was the wrong color, that humbucking pickups sounded syrupy and sickly sweet, and that the tune- o-matic bridge killed sustain. It was not long after that, however, that Mike switched to using a sunburst, and the players who had claimed that those were the wrong instruments could not remember having said such a thing within a few weeks after Bloomfield had made the transition. In my opinion, Mike Bloomfield did more than anyone else to start the vintage electric guitar market. Although he never made a hit record which sold millions of copies to the public and was no longer particularly influential after the late 1960's, he was idolized by guitar players of the day and did more than anyone else I know to introduce R&B and vintage electric guitars to the white audience. I feel privileged to have known him well.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/?q=ele ... FORM=VIRE6

Remember Electric Flag ?