Talk about impact . . . ! Talk about influence and inspiration! We’re talking Bloomfield: Mike Bloomfield, guitarist and stylist extraordinaire. From distant observer to distinguished performer, Mike B. and his guitar ran the gamut, traversing all there was and would be within his vision, where guitar inventiveness became trademarked in his all-too-brief career.
Yes, we’re talking the one-and-the-same Bloomfield whose blues bloomed and boomed under the dexterous developments that dealt his hand and landed him in the game where he knew he wanted to be.
Sounding familiar . . . ? Perhaps so with the Bloomfield we came to know seemingly appearing from out of nowhere fast. Yet the overnight sensation was a long time in the making. Starting with that pawnshop six-string, the unraveling of the alluring mystique of sounds abounding all around in his very hometown began to make sense once the pieces to that powerful puzzle, them blues, began to gather. And it was this allure that became the stepping-stone to take his curiosity to the street. Although a stranger now frequenting those strange outposts of that strident sound, he was not alone. Several like-minded individuals were similarly drawn to the task of attempting to emulate the basics of that thing they were after.
So, banding together as newfound souls with a friendly sort of mutual bond was the obvious way in to getting way out, way outside any notion whatsoever of creating something predictable. Rather, some very unpredictable expressions began to emerge between Bloomfield and the aggregation with the likes of Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Nick Gravenites, Norman Dayron, guitarist Elvin Bishop, Barry Goldberg, and the fashionable Mark Naftalin. These were the guys surging toward forming this nucleus actually expressing something not only believable—they began laying down sound that was solid . . . sounds that were standing up to a stiff legion of loyalists not necessarily impressed with anything less than what the head honchos of the day were laying down with the late-night crowd. Muddy Waters had it, Jimmy Reed had it, Howlin’ Wolf more than had it . . . hell, it seemed like everybody on the South Side of Chi-Town either had it or was bound and determined to get it, and here Bloomfield was smack-dab in the midst of gettin’ it. And gettin’ down pretty hard.
Keep in mind this was mid-’60s stuff. A time when people were waiting to get what they were wanting, waiting to feel what they all wanted to feel, and all of a sudden, all of it managed to find its way to wax. Bloomfield, wringing out his tasty additions for Butterfield and band, hit the mark. Mike’s presence heard on those superb entries into the field are what we came to know and admire and ultimately have come to miss. This is where we might best leave it for now. There’s certainly a somewhat vague awareness of what came after right up to the end, yet Mike’s legacy of tantalizing and tasteful tags on “them blues” luckily lingers on. Yes, we’re talkin’ Bloomfield.