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)

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