Search - Mike Bloomfield :: Blues Gospel & Ragtime Guitar Instrumentals

Exquisite!

tin2x | Staten Island, NY USA | 12/15/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"So generally Michael Bloomfield is known for his fiery jaw-dropping electric guitar playing with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band or his projects with Al Kooper, Bob Dylan, and The Electric Flag.What you get here is not the fire in that sense. You get beauty. Michael Bloomfield loved the blues and here he shows off that love with some beautiful insrumentals. Some of them are reserved, some of them display the passion that inspired his most notorious fretwork. All of these instrumentals though just superbly played with a reverence for, and an understanding of, the blues. It's beautiful. Equally haunting and satisfying, especially when you consider that most of this stuff was recorded nearer the end of Bloomfield's life when he was often erratic as an artist due to chemical influences and depression. A few tracks here have appeared elsewhere and "Memphis Radio Blues" is alternately known as "WDIA" but this a really nice set although there are few details about the sessions involved. From what I've ascertained this a compilation of some previously released, and perhaps some unreleased, instrumentals he recorded from 1977 or so until his death in 1981.Melody is king here, as it should be with all great blues artists. This probably shouldn't be your first stop if you want to learn more about Bloomers (check out "Don't Say I Ain't Your Man!"), but it won't be a wrong one whenever you make it."

The man who died for the blues

Mad bin Tod | Ireland, TX USA | 04/10/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mike Bloomfield was one of the few truly inventive young blues players (the other is Peter Green) who powered the psychedelic revolution of the mid-60s. He pioneered the raga-inspired guitar jam with "east west" (with Paul Butterfield's band) as well as the hot-dog blues instrumental on "supersession" (with Al Kooper). Then he kind of lost it personally. This record, as I understand it, was made in his later years and though the jaw-dropping fluidity of his early playing had subsided, he more than makes up for it through a commitment to melody and stylistic diversity. From a surprisingly mournful slide workout on Leo Sayer's "When I need you" to his understated homage to Duke Ellington on "Mood Indigo," this disc is really superb. Beautiful electric and acoustic blues instrumentals with no additives or filler. Get it!"

Forever M B

D. Jackson | 07/27/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard MB on a sampler way back. Then I bought the Electric Flag stuff and we were off on a trail to here! What a trip! Buy ANYTHING that associates MB with the wealth of other "greats". Naftalin, Gravenites, ALL of the "Flag", Butterfield etc etc (oh and another etc just for good measure...Buddy Miles...and miles and miles!) These are the guys that "worked" so that blues could live on! Oh...and ignore the sound quality on the live stuff...if you can,t recognise the greatness you shouldn't be even bothering. Follow the trail like I did and the rewards will be SO satisfying. MB - you went too soon ...but what a legacy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"