Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Live double CD: Mike Bloomfield show from 1974


MIKE BLOOMFIELD

Bottom Line Cabaret 31.3.74

(Klondike Records)


VENUE: The Bottom Line, New York City, March 31st, 1974


SOUND QUALITY: Fair to middlin’ radio broadcast, probably second-generation tape, with frequent loss of the lower frequencies and bouts of distortion and occasional feedback. Slightly muddy sound overall, but in no sense a ‘deal killer’ as the vocals are mostly legible, Bloomfield’s guitar cuts through the muck, and the piano playing is easily discernable. Given the age and provenance of the recording, it’s quite listenable. 


COVER: Eight-page booklet features sepia-toned photo of Bloomfield on front with red title banner, action photo of the guitarist on the back on the CD booklet. Inside offers cool color pics and a couple pages of anonymous yet informative liner note. The CD tray card duplicates the back insert photo and includes the tracklist and the European label’s bloato-hype about Bloomfield.


TRACKLIST: 

Disc One: 1. Band Introduction • 2. Don’t You Like To Me • 3. Linda Lou • 4. Sweet Little Angel • 5. Unchain My Heart • 6. Inside Information • 7. Tryin’ To Find the Door • 8. Glamour Girl


Disc Two: 1. Heartbreak • 2. Imagination • 3. Let Them Talk • 4. Trouble Ahead of Me • 5. If I Get Started All Over Again


COMMENTS: 

The history of rock ‘n’ roll is littered with guitar heroes, godly fretburners like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, and Stevie Ray Vaughan that redefined the instrument for a new generation. There also exists a slate of minor deities, influential axe-wielders that, while not worshipped as ardently as the aforementioned top tier of guitarists, were nevertheless influential, consequential, and often times as talented as their better-known peers. Count artists like Rory Gallagher, Peter Green, Roy Buchanan, Robin Trower, Kim Simmonds, Tommy Bolin, and Mick Ronson among these ranks. Then there’s guitarist Michael Bloomfield, who stands in a class entirely his own…


Born in Chicago in 1943, just prior to the post-war “Baby Boom,” Bloomfield caught the ‘blues bug’ at the age of 14 after seeing folk-blues artist Josh White perform. He began hanging around the blues clubs on Chicago’s South Side and sat in with Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson at the age of 16 years. Bloomfield made his bones playing with giants like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, who demanded a high level of virtuosity from their associates. Before long, Bloomfield hooked up with singer and harmonica player Paul Butterfield, fellow guitarist Elvin Bishop, and a monster rhythm section in bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, who came from Howlin’ Wolf’s band. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band would bring the blues to white audiences with a pair of groundbreaking mid-‘60s albums.


But first, Bloomfield made a splash playing behind Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and appearing on the Scribe’s 1965 LP, Highway 61 Revisited. It was during these sessions that Bloomfield met and befriended musician Al Kooper, who would become an integral part of the guitarist’s career. Bloomfield soon tired of the Butterfield Band’s rigorous touring schedule and left the band after those first two albums, relocating to San Francisco and forming Electric Flag with his old Chicago buddies Barry Goldberg and Nick Gravenites. Bloomfield would leave the Flag after the band’s debut album, A Long Time Comin’, subsequently lending his talents to recordings by artists like Chuck Berry, Mother Earth, Mitch Ryder, James Cotton, and Janis Joplin, among others, while weighing the options of his solo career. 


Bloomfield reunited with Muddy Waters (and Butterfield) to record the revered 1969 Chess Records LP Fathers and Sons, and released two critically-acclaimed collaborations with Kooper in 1968 – Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper – that were modestly successful and seemed ready to launch the guitarist into the stratosphere. Flash forward to 1974, and Bloomfield’s career opportunities are, in a word, uncertain. His solo debut, 1969’s It’s Not Killing Me, was poorly-produced by his buddy Gravenites and underperformed on the charts. Bloomfield tried to self-medicate his problems away, and his heroin addiction worsened to the point where he stopped playing guitar altogether for a while in 1970. It took a letter from his idol B.B. King (who was asked to intervene by Bloomfield’s mother) to motivate him to pick up his instrument and play again.  


Bloomfield recorded his second solo album, 1973’s Try It Before You Buy It, which the label subsequently refused to release at the time (it finally saw the light of day in 1990). Columbia Records forced the guitarist into an odd creative marriage – the Triumvirate album with Dr. John and bluesman John Hammond, Jr. – which was poorly reviewed and barely sold, and Bloomfield would reunite with his Electric Flag cohorts for a single 1974 album, The Band Kept Playing, that was equally troubled. Although Bloomfield preferred to play shows close to his West Coast home, the IRS came calling with a huge tax bill for the years 1968-1972. As such, tours to distant locations like Miami, Boston, Toronto, and Buffalo followed. March 1974 found Bloomfield in New York City, where he performed a two-night stand at The Bottom Line club. 


The first of these two concerts – the night of March 31st – was broadcast live by WNYU-FM radio and now finds its semi-legit release on CD as Bottom Line Cabaret 31.3.74. For this particular show, the guitarist fronted a band that included Al Kooper and Barry Goldberg on keyboards, bassist/vocalist Roger Troy (from Electric Flag), and drummer George Rains (who had played with Mother Earth and Boz Scaggs). It’s a fairly spirited show, the guitarist leading his talented crew through a strong set of classic blues tunes with a handful of original songs. Tampa Red’s Chicago blues gem “Don’t You Lie To Me” kicks off the show, a rowdy up-tempo song with plenty of honky-tonk piano-play and ferocious guitar playing. The similarly-jaunty “Linda Lou” suffers from some muddy sound, but the song’s rowdy country-styled arrangement shines (as does Bloomfield’s stinging guitar).


A cover of the B.B. King classic “Sweet Little Angel” (also recorded by the aforementioned Tampa Red) features plenty of Bloomfield’s scorching fretwork and Troy’s bluesy vocals riding atop squalls of piano notes. The vocals nearly disappear during a cover of Ray Charles’ “Unchain My Heart,” but the song’s innate soulfulness rises to the top in a sonic stew of raging piano keys and fluid, funky guitar. Bloomfield’s guitar jumps right into Electric Flag’s “Inside Information,” suggesting an odd tape edit, but Troy’s vocals here – which mimic Otis Redding’s earthy tones – strike home as the band shuffles along behind him. The Chicago-styled “Glamour Girl” is plagued with some feedback and distortion, but Bloomfield’s guitar rings clear, as does the passionate piano playing behind him.


The second disc “joins the show already in progress” as the band is already jukin’ its way through “Heartbreak” when you hit ‘play’. No worries, though, as the song is a rockin’ blues tune that, while the performance is somewhat fuzzy sonically, the band’s rowdy intent jumps out of the grooves nonetheless. The liner notes say that Kooper sings “(I’ve Got To Use My) Imagination” (listed as “Imagination”), but I believe that it’s actually Barry Goldberg, who wrote the song and recorded it for his self-titled 1974 album. Regardless, it’s a great blues-rock tune with chiming keyboards and a deep rhythmic groove with subtle, sparing guitarplay by Bloomfield.


The pace slows down drastically for “Let Them Talk,” a R&B gem that was a hit for Little Willie John in 1959. Troy’s emotional vocals are paired with Bloomfield’s elegant fretwork, Gospel-toned organ, and tasteful piano accompaniment. Bloomfield recorded the song for his shelved Try It Before You Buy It album and it’s Columbia’s loss that it didn’t release the track as a single as the guitarist’s performance and tone here are incredible. A red-hot cover of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “I Smell Trouble” (listed here as “Trouble Ahead of Me”) is delivered as a scorching blues-rock tune with a shuffling Chicago-styled rhythm and ferocious guitar playing and an extended jam that features dueling keyboards. The concert closes out with the up-tempo “If I Get Started All Over Again,” a sort of R&B-tinged pop song with high-flying fretwork and an undeniable melodic hook.       


Bloomfield’s career would teeter on throughout the decade until his death under mysterious circumstances in 1981. The guitarist allegedly provided music for the Mitchell Brothers’ adult films for $1,000 an hour. With his old pal Goldberg in tow, Bloomfield hooked up with singer/songwriter Ray Kennedy as KGB, which released a single self-titled album in 1976 (the band also including Blind Faith’s Ric Grech and Carmine Appice of Cactus). Bloomfield recorded an instructional album for guitarists titled If You Love These Blues, Play ‘Em As You Please, which was underwritten by Guitar Player magazine. Bloomfield released a handful of solo albums for fellow guitarist John Fahey’s independent Takoma Records label, including the acclaimed 1977 set Analine and 1979’s Between A Hard Place & the Ground. Bloomfield’s final solo album, Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’, would be released the same day as his death.


Klondike Records is no newcomer to “copyright gap” albums, the Cyprus-based semi-bootleg imprint releasing live recordings by artists as diverse as Bloomfield, the Patti Smith Group, Blue Öyster Cult, Burning Spear, Tom Waits, Sun Ra, and Talking Heads, among many others, concerts dating from the early 1970s through the early ‘90s. This particular Bottom Line show has been previously-released on both vinyl and CD as More Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper, and has been readily available in tape-trading circles and on torrent streams for decades. 


In the years since his death, a handful of live Bloomfield albums have been released legitimately, most notably Live At the Old Waldorf (1998), Fillmore East: The Lost Concert Tapes (2003, with Al Kooper), and Live At McCabe’s Guitar Workshop (2017), all of which are worth adding to your collection. All of these live discs display Bloomfield’s incredible talents and virtuosity, his skills influencing a generation of guitar-slingers to follow. With his status growing in the decades since his death, Bloomfield was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2012 and into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 as a founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Bottom Line Cabaret 31.3.74 provides a glimpse at the talents upon which Bloomfield’s legend continues to grow. Grade: B (Rev. Keith A. Gordon)


Bonus view: 



 

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Live CDs from Santana, Dio, Traffic and more

 


[In the sense that the same shows often appear on a variety of labels, the rash of broadcast loophole recordings of recent years is no different than the tsunami of copyright gap CDs of the 1990’s. Here are a few short reviews of some of the latest examples, along with some similarly short reviews from the back pages of the Live! Music Review print editions.]

Dio: Live In Santa Monica 1983 (Klondike 5073)

Venue: Santa Monica, Ca 10/7/83

Sound Quality: very good to excellent radio broadcast, a little compressed.

Cover: 8-page insert and tray card in standard jewel case.

Track Listing: Station Introduction/ Stand Up And Shout/ Straight Through The Heart/ Shame On The Night/ Stargazer/ Guitar Solo/ Heaven And Hell/ Holy Diver/ Rainbow In The Dark/ Man On The Silver Mountain> Starstruck

Comments: Bootlegs of this King Biscuit Flower Hour radio broadcast go back to numerous vinyl releases (mostly of European manufacture) in the 1980s. 5 tracks appear on the official deluxe edition of Holy Diver (2012).

The tour was the first for the debut album (Holy Diver) of Ronnie James Dio (more accurately, the band Dio named after himself). By 1983 Dio was a well-known commodity in the world of hard rock, having previously fronted the bands Elf, Black Sabbath, and Rainbow. Dio brought along former Sabbath bandmate, Vinny Appice, former Rainbow mate, Jimmy Balin, and unknown guitarist (at the time)Vivian Campbell, to take the album charts by storm. The band would go through numerous line-up changes through the years, but never recapture the sales that Holy Diver enjoyed. As a bootleg, Live In Santa Monica serves little purpose these days, as the bulk of the material has been released officially.

Santana: Live At The Bottom Line, New York 1978 (Boiling Point 003)

Venue: Bottom Line, NYC, NY 10/16/78

Sound Quality: very good to excellent broadcast recording from low generation source

Cover: Single panel insert and tray card in slimline double jewel case. Bare basics and does not list recording date

Track Listing: (disc 1) Intro> Well Alright/ Black Magic Woman/ Gypsy Queen/ Dance Sister Dance/ Europa/ Dealer/ Spanish Rose/ Incident At Neshabur/ Victory Is Won/ Move On/ Batuka/ No One To Depend On/ (disc 2) One Chain/ Toussaint L’Overture/ She’s Not There/ Open Invitation/ Jungle Strut/ Transcendance/ Evil Ways

Comments: As FM radio made its move from free-form to AOR formats, Santana moved in the opposite direction, moving deeper into albums with jazz stylings and spiritual concepts. They would find themselves absent from the Top 40 charts for 5 years before releasing the part live/ part studio album, Moonflower. With that release, a much more accessible album, they finally returned to high rotation radio play with a pop cover of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There.” In 1978 they released the follow-up, Inner Secrets, once again with an eye toward the more narrow formats radio had taken. The result was another Top 40 hit, “Stormy,” and two other singles that cracked the Top 100, the disco-ish “One Chain” and a remake of another radio classic, Buddy Holly’s “Well Alright” – modeled after Blind Faith’s hit version. Columbia Records must have been thrilled as sales skyrocketed. Fans favoring Santana’s more adventurous work, not so much.

Live At The Bottom Line features the band touring in support of that album which would be followed by another crack at the charts with 1979’s Marathon, another Top 40 hit, “You Know That I Love You,” and a new singer (Alex Ligertwood) that sounded an awful lot like the previous one (Greg Walker). By 1981’s Zebop!, the commercial move was in full flower and the Latin rhythms most favored by fans of the Woodstock-era almost entirely absent. What we get from this 1978 performance is a last-look at a smoking band on the verge of a complete overhaul. Not entirely for fans of earlier days, but fans of the more pop-oriented Santana should love it.

Traffic: Live In London (London Calling LCCD5062)

Venue: Paris Theatre, London, UK 4/30/70 (BBC broadcast)

Sound Quality: Excellent broadcast recording, most likely from a pre-broadcast transcription disc of one of the many BBC re-broadcasts of the show.

Cover: Nice graphics in cardboard digipak containing 8-page booklet inside with period photos and an article from the 5/29/70 issue of Friends magazine. But you have to wonder if there is any fan involvement here when the title of one of their most famous albums (John Barleycorn Must Die) is wrongly titled on the back cover as “John Barleycorn Is Dead.”

Track Listing: Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring/ Every Mother’s Son/ No Time To Live/ Medicated Goo/ John Barleycorn/ Pearly Queen/ Stranger To Himself/ Empty Pages/ Glad/ Freedom Rider

Comments: Part of the agreement to allow Steve Winwood to record for a competing label (the Blind Faith album) was for Winwood to record two additional albums in the future for Island Records. Island would accept either newly recorded solo albums or new Traffic albums. With the quick break-up of Blind Faith, Winwood would begin work on a new solo album. As the sessions proceeded, Traffic bandmates Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi would become involved and the result was a new Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. Before the album was completed, the trio would appear on the Beeb’s In Concert series. This is the result – a stripped down Traffic performing old favorites and new songs not yet familiar to the public. It’s magnificent. Highly recommended for folks that missed the earlier versions.

Various Artists: Anti-Nuclear Disarmament Rally Central Park NYC ’82 (Rox Vox RVCD2090)

Venue: Central Park, NYC, NY 6/12/82

Sound Quality: Good radio broadcast with flaws reminiscent of a multi-generational source 

Cover: 8-page booklet with liner notes and tray card in slimline double jewel case

Tracklist: (disc 1) For Everyman (Jackson Browne/ The Pretender (Jackson Browne & Gary U.S. Bonds)/ Imagine (Joan Baez)/ Promised Land/ Running On Empty/ Backstage (Jackson Browne & Bruce Springsteen)/ Tumbling Dice/ Blue Bayou/ It’s In His Kiss/ Desperado/ Heatwave/ Back In The USA/ Backstage (Linda Ronstadt) (disc 2) That Lonesome Road/ You’ve Got A Friend/ Band Introductions/ Up On The Roof/ Stand And Fighr (James Taylor)/ No More Nukes (Joy Ryder & Avis Davis)/Plutonium Is Forever (John Hall)/ Power/ Get Together Finale (John Hall with Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, & Carly Simon)

Comments: Not a lot to recommend this one - some tape-fluctuation and thin sound. While the performances are generally fine, they are incomplete. Plus, there’s a lot of DJ blabber throughout. Still, if you desire a companion piece for the No-Nukes official release, this might suffice until a better recording comes along.

Back Pages: (more short reviews from the August 1997 print edition of Live! Music Review, available on the Internet for the first time)

AC/DC: Hola Madrid (MM 002)

Venue: The Main Bullring, Madrid, Spain 7/4/96

Sound Quality: excellent broadcast recording

Cover: 2-panel insert and 2-sided tray card

Tracklist: Back In Black/ Shot Down In Flames/ Thunderstruck/ Girls Got Rhythm/ Hard As A Rock/ Shoot To Thrill/ Boogieman/ Hail Caesar/ The Jack/ You Shook Me All Night Long/ Whole Lotta Rosie/ Highway To Hell/ For Those About To Rock

Comments: AC/DC hasn’t messed with their formula for 20+ years and it still works. This broadcast has appeared on a number of other releases.

The Doors: Wanted (Sugarcane Records SC 52016)

Venue: The Coliseum, Vancouver, Canada 6/6/70

Sound Quality: Compressed radio broadcast, badly eq’d

Cover: One picture of Morrison’s face made to look like a wanted poster

Tracklist: Roadhouse Blues/ Backdoor Man/ Five To One/ When The Music’s Over/ Who Do You Love?/ Light My Fire/ The End

Comments: Just another version of one of the most bootlegged radio broadcasts, and not a very good one at that.

Foo Fighters: Brixton (KTS 518)

Venue: 1-11 The Brixton Academy, London, UK 11/14/95; 12-13 The Lowlands Festival, Holland 6/27/95; 14 NYC, NY 7/95; 15 London, UK 11/16/95

Sound Quality: excellent broadcast recordings

Cover: 12-panel insert and 2-sided tray card. Lots of pictures of Dave Grohl on stage, possibly from video

Tracklist: Enough Space/ This Is A Call/ Winnebago>Watershed/ For All The Cows/ Weenie Beenie/ Big Me/ I’ll Stick Around/ Alone And Easy Target/ Up In Arms/ Gas Chamber/ Exhausted/ My Hero/ Ho, George/ This Is A Call/ Winnebago>Watershed

Comments: Typical of any number of other high quality Foo Fighters broadcasts, Brixton comes highly recommended only if you haven’t already got two or three other bootlegs featuring the same or similar material. And if you haven’t yet, you haven’t been looking. Grohl & company deliver with the usual high energy, but the seasoned collector will probably want to wait for something featuring material from the latest album. The final track is a specially recorded studio version for the BBC.

Elton John: Rocket Man (Live Line 15460)

Venue: Worceter, MA 1983

Sound Quality: Excellent broadcast recording

Cover: Generic 1-piece front cover & tray card

Tracklist: Tiny Dancer/ Rocket Man/ Daniel/ Candle In The Wind/ The Bitch Is Back/ Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me/ Who Wears These Shoes/ I’m Still Standing/ Goodbye Yellow Brick Road/ Your Song/ Philadelphia Freedom/ Saturday Night’s Alright/ Crocadile Rock

Comments: There’s a few fade-outs at the end of songs in this highly circulated recording. This disc contains the kind of sound quality that will please the person that buys 20 CDs a year, but a recording that every serious Elton John fan already has.

[All reviews by Bill Glahn]