Témoignages, interview, articles divers (anglais)

[Bloomers]

Interview du Butterfield Blues Band pour le magazine Crawdaddy 1966



The Butterfield Blues Band was formed in Chicago in 1964 and has developed into one of the finest small bands in the country in any field. The present members are: Paul Butterfield, harmonica and vocal; Mike Bloomfield, guitar; Elvin Bishop, guitar; Jerome Arnold, bass; Mark Naftalin, organ and piano; and Billy Davenport, drums. This interview, which concentrates on the more vocal members of the band, was recorded June 24, 1966, at Cambridge’s Club 47; Daniel Alexander; Pamela Matz, transcriber; Paul Williams, interviewer and editor. The assistance of Mark Dorenson, road manager for the Butterfield Band, was extremely valuable in conducting the interview.

Crawdaddy!: The question is, basically, what do you call yourself now? Electric blues? Do you think you’re in some sort of bag?

Mike Bloomfield: We used to be in what you would call an exclusively Chicago blues thing, but we’ve come out of it in the last few months and we’re gradually working into the establishment of possibly a new idiom. Who knows?

Crawdaddy!: You’re not moving in any specific direction, it’s just what you want to do now?

Bloomfield: It’s just what’s coming out of us.

Bloomfield: Everybody in the group’s got a different background, a different thing. And everybody also, with the different backgrounds, has a very much mutual background due to the heterogeneous nature of our organization—you know, we get out own uniquely musical blend on certain numbers. And I’ll say this, the level of musicianship of our group is higher than almost any group of this nature that I’ve heard in the country. Almost any rock band that I’ve heard. Paul’s the best in his field; there’s not a person living the world today that can cut him.

Crawdaddy!: What is your personal background? I know you had a contract with Columbia for a while...

Bloomfield: I’ve been playing professional rock ‘n’ roll since I was 15.

Crawdaddy!: What sort of stuff were you doing before you got together with the band?

Bloomfield: Working with a guy named Nick Gravenites, a band with him.

Crawdaddy!: You had a rock band then?

Bloomfield: Well, no, it was a band sort of like this, but not nearly as tight or as good. But it was mostly Nick’s tunes, he’s a songwriter.

Crawdaddy!: What’s he doing now?

Bloomfield: He’s running a club in Chicago. Nick Gravenites in Chicago is one of the greatest singers and composers in the folk idiom, in the blues idiom, in the last five or 10 years. And B. B. King is one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, and more people should listen to B. B. King’s records and his band work and his guitar playing, ‘cause he’s one of the greatest ones of all. Percy Mayfield too

Crawdaddy!: About this new electric blues business…

Bloomfield: The blues has been electric since the ‘40s. Most blues guitar players, even the old country cats, have electric guitars. They all do. They record for Folkways and Prestige without electric guitars, but they have them. Electric is ethnic, man, electric is where it’s at, it’s old as can be... and I think electric is really the music of the future. You’ll find that all music will be amplified one day. It’s a new type of musicianship. It’s a musicianship of this generation.

Crawdaddy!: Is the band pretty much open to doing any kind of music?

Bloomfield: No, different cats are purists, different cats simply refuse to do certain kinds of music. There’s music that I just can’t get interested in. We have our hang-ups, but there’s tunes we agree upon. Besides, we play blues, blues-based music, best.

Crawdaddy!: A number of people are interested in a particular style of yours, the slide guitar.

Bloomfield: I don’t play slide but very seldom.

Crawdaddy!: Yeah, I noticed you did more earlier this year than you do now.

Bloomfield: Right, because my main style is playing the slide guitar with my fingers, not using the slide, you know, doing it by tremeloing your fingers. Slide guitar was put on the record. It’s bottleneck. I don’t use it much, just for certain tunes, and for certain effects which I can get much clearer with my fingers than I can with a slide.

Crawdaddy!: Are you familiar with other people who are playing this sort of electric guitar?

Bloomfield: The masters I’m familiar with: Elmore James and Muddy Waters. And I’m familiar with a few other cats in the country who play guitar in my style and are my equal or better—Harvey Mandel in Chicago; Eliot Ingberton [spelling uncertain] in Los Angeles; a very good cat, Robbie Robertson, from Canada, who plays with Bob Dylan; and uh, there’s me; and a cat named John DeWeiss who isn’t quite where those other cats are, but he’s very good. He’s right here from Boston. And Jeff Beck, who’s one of the finest modern blues guitar players strictly in the blues idiom that I’ve ever met in my life. It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t play that way on the Yardbird records. But I’ve had the privilege, the stone privilege of hearing that dude play blues. He’s number one out of sight, a great guitar player. And there’s a guy named Alexis Korner that’s very good; he’s been around for many years in England.

Crawdaddy!: What do you think of your new album?

Bloomfield: Well, there’s one very long piece that I like. And Elvin sings a tune I’m very fond of on the album. I like it, it’s more modern than our other album, but I still don’t think it’s as good as us in person. And I thought that first album was one of the poorest production jobs, in terms of sound… but it was my fault, too, ‘cause I was there at the editing and I didn’t take care of business as well as I should have.

Crawdaddy!: What’s your opinion of the Elektra recording studios?

Bloomfield: I don’t think Elektra is as good as you’ll find. I don’t think Elektra holds a candle to Motown, the Motown sound. The Beach Boys and the Beatles on Capitol, their sound is far superior to Elektra’s [editor’s note: neither group, however, has ever actually recorded in Capitol’s studios].

les interventions du reste du groupes sont ici : http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Article.aspx?id=4524&page=1&cpage=1

[Bloomers]

Carlos Santana interview 2008
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/21004540/secrets_of_the_guitar_heroes_carlos_santana
As a teenager in San Francisco, you went to many early Fillmore shows. Who were some of the guitarists you first saw there?

Carlos Santana : The same people Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were into — Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Freddie King and Albert King — and Michael Bloomfield and [Fleetwood Mac's] Peter Green. Even before Jimi Hendrix came out in '67, Bloomfield was hitting it hard with Paul Butterfield's band on things like East-West. It was a different kind of blues, even for white people. When you closed your eyes, it did not sound white.

[Bloomers]

http://www.blueswalker.com/mycustompage0009.htm
Derrick Big Walker's souvenirs...

[Bloomers]

A ne pas manquer !

Michael Bloomfield: An American Guitarist

His Life and Legacy, Parts 1-4

*PART I • THE EARLY YEARS
1. Introduction
2. Beginnings: Allen Bloomfield / “Roy’s Blues”
3. Meeting Mike: Norman Dayron / “Bullet Rag”
4. John Hammond: Norman Dayron / The Group /
“I’ve Got You in the Palm of My Hand”
5. Butterfield: Mark Naftalin / “Nut Popper #1” / “Thank You Mr. Poobah”
6. Dylan: Michael on Bob Dylan / “It Takes a Train to Laugh”
7. Newport: “Born in Chicago” / “Like a Rolling Stone”
8. Joining Butter: “I’ve Got a Mind to Give Up Living”

*PART II • BUTTERFIELD & THE FLAG
1. Introduction
2. Creating East-West: Mark Naftalin / “East-West”
3. Michael on East-West: Michael Bloomfield / Toby Byron
4. San Francisco: Toby Byron / “Willow Tree”
5. Leaving Butterfield: Forming the Electric Flag
6. The Flag: Norman Dayron / “Peter’s Trip”
7. Monterey: Norman Dayron / “The Night Time Is the Right Time” / Toby Byron
8. A Long Time Comin’: Toby Byron / “Texas”

*PART III • GUITAR GOD NO MORE
1. Introduction
2. Another Country: “Another Country”
3. Super Session: Toby Byron / “Albert’s Shuffle”
4. Leaving the Flag: Toby Byron / Michael Bloomfield
5. Fillmore: Forming & Friends / “Born in Chicago”
6. Fathers & Sons: “Blow Wind Blow” / “The Ones I Loved Are Gone”
7. Getting Rusty: Michael Bloomfield / Mark Naftalin
8. MB & Friends: “Sweet Little Angel”

*PART IV • THE LAST YEARS

1. Introduction
2. Side Projects: Triumvirate / Flag Reunion
3. Try It Before You Buy It: Toby Byron / “When It All Comes Down”
4. Duets: Mark Naftalin / “At the Cross”
5. If You Love These Blues: Michael Bloomfield / “Death in My Family” /
“Thrift Shop Rag”
6. Takoma Sessions: Norman Dayron / “Mr. Johnson & Mr. Dunn”
7. Old Waldorf: Michael Bloomfield / Norman Dayron / “Kid Man Blues”
8. Acoustic Playing: “I’m Glad I’m Jewish” / “Greatest Gifts from Heaven”
9. Bloomfield / Harris: “Have Thine Own Way”
10. Dylan Calls: “Like a Rolling Stone”
11. Farewell: “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” / Allen Bloomfield

la story de Mike est à downloader integralement avec la bénédiction de Allen Bloomfield et Norman Dayron !!!

http://www.mikebloomfieldamericanmusic.com/mbshow.htm

n'hésitez pas

[Bluesboy]

Merci beaucoup pour ce lien !

[Bloomers]

Merci beaucoup pour ce lien !

bonne écoute !
n'oublie pas de donner tes impressions...

[Bloomers]

Your Mike Bloomfield experience!
http://forums.wolfgangsvault.com/forums/thread/10869.aspx

témoignages exclusifs de certains concerts de Bloomfield par ceux qui les ont vécus !

[Bloomers]

http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/Mike_Bloomfield_Part1.aspx

interview rolling stone 6 avril 1968

[Ayler]

Il préfère God au Stones !

[Ayler]

La suite :

http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/Mike_Bloomfield_Part2.aspx

Plus admiratif de Buddy Miles que Purple Jim l'ami Bloomfield !

[Bloomers]

La suite :

http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/Mike_Bloomfield_Part2.aspx

Plus admiratif de Buddy Miles que Purple Jim l'ami Bloomfield !

Bloomfield s'entendait encore bien avec Buddy...en quelques mois tout va se dégrader


question à 0,50 euro...devinez qui fut interviewé le mois suivant ???

- réponse

[Bloomers]

May 2009

Rolling Stone Interview - Bob Dylan's America by Douglas Brinkley

I ask whether, as a bandleader, Dylan had ever played a set with the perfect guitarist. Dylan jumps at the opportunity to answer rather reminiscently. "The guy that I always miss, and I think he'd still be around if he stayed with me, actually, was Mike Bloomfield," Dylan says of his collaborator on Highway 61 Revisited (who also famously played electric guitar with him at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965). "He could just flat-out play. He had so much soul. And he knew all the styles, and he could play them so incredibly well. He was an expert player and a real prodigy, too. Started playing early. But then again a lot of good guitarists have played with me. Freddy Tackett, Steve Ripley - Mick Taylor played with me for a minute." Full of memory lane, Dylan goes on to tell a story about first meeting Bloomfield in Chicago at a headhunt on the South Side. A social misfit, Bloomfield was the rare white guitarist who had recorded with the likes of Sleepy John Estes and Big Joe Williams. "He could play like Willie Brown or Charlie Patton," Dylan says. "He could play like Robert Johnson way back then in the Sixties. The only other guy who could do that in those days was Brian Jones, who played in the Rolling Stones. He could also do the same thing. Fingerpicking rhythms that hardly anyone could do. Those are the only two guys I've ever met who could...from back then...the only two guys who could play the pure style of country blues authentically."