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An Interview with Allen Bloomfield
Allen Bloomfield is Michael
Bloomfield's younger brother. He and Michael grew up together in Chicago and
Glencoe, IL, and Allen later worked with Al Kooper and then lived with Michael
in the 1970s in Mill Valley. In the mid-'70s, he joined his father Harold
Bloomfield's food service business as manager of the company's warehouse on the
Bowery in Manhattan. He eventually became the Bloomfield Distribution Center’s
national sales manager. After twenty years in that business,
Allen realized a life-long dream and purchased the farm in northeastern
Pennsylvania where he currently resides with his family and keeps horses. He has
been the conservator of the Michael Bloomfield Estate since his brother's death
in 1981. The following conversation with David
Dann took place on February 19, 2008. Well, we lived several places in
Chicago when we were young – the last being at 424 Melrose. Michael was about
12 years old when we left there for Glencoe. I was 10. We were very happy on
Melrose – lots of friends and cool places to go. We were just a block off the
Gold Coast, Chicago's Lake Shore Drive where all the rich folks lived. The other
direction was rough-and-tumble working class, and we went to Nettlehorse Public
School just a block over. We loved that school – it was filled with all kinds
of kids from all kinds of backgrounds. Down the street was ABC Toyland, a
fantastic store, and another block over was the Clark Movie Theater. One of the
highlights of my youth was the start of the Christmas season at that theater –
they would have an all-day show with like a hundred cartoons, and then they
would bring out a Duncan yo-yo champion resplendent in his embroidered jacket
and he would demonstrate all those fantastic tricks you'd see on TV. Then the
feature movie would start. Michael and I would sit together, and he'd grab my
hand, you know, to reassure me during the scary parts of "War of the
Worlds." It was just incredible! On our excursions to the movies, we'd
buy BBQ beef sandwiches and make Lime Rickeys in the vending machines in the
lobby of the theater. One time, after we saw Tony Curtis in "Houdini,"
we were walking down Broadway to Melrose and there were these smudge pots out
around a ditch with all this construction stuff lying around. Suddenly Michael
says, "I'm Houdini! Bury me!" So we loaded him up with all this dirt
and gravel and just walked away. When he didn't show up at home and it was
getting dark, we went looking for him and there he still was, only now he was
hollering, "You motherfuckers! Get me outta here!" Some Houdini – he
was still buried under all that stuff. Another time I remember Michael
elaborating on "Harvey" – you know, the movie with Jimmy Stewart
about a guy who has a six-foot-tall imaginary rabbit. The story goes that one
day Michael was playing hooky and the school called to check on him. He answered
the phone and told them he was very ill and could hardly speak. Then he said,
"If you have any other questions, could you please speak to my rabbit? He
would be very happy to answer them." Those were indelible memories! Oh, my parents wanted us to go to
better schools. My uncle had built a home in Glencoe, and my parents went up
there and found this huge house and that was that. Michael and I had these
fat-tired Schwinn bikes on Melrose. Within a week of getting to Glencoe we had
these skinny-tired English bikes – I couldn't even reach the pedals on mine! I
had to have blocks put on them. We wrecked those bikes in no time, we hated them
so much. It was just a totally different environment than in Chicago. Suddenly
it mattered what you wore, who you were. We went to Glencoe's Central Elementary
first and then to New Trier High School in Winnetka – the Harvard of high
schools. It was a total college-prep scene. Michael was in sixth grade and I was
in fourth when we moved there. It was right around this time that our
cousin, Chucky Bloomfield, got a guitar and when we saw it we each wanted one
too. Chucky's was unlike any guitar we'd ever seen – it was similar to one of
those National steel guitars, the kind Son House played. It had a big
hubcap-type resonator over the sound hole. No kid could resist something like
that. Michael wound up getting a conventional guitar for himself, and my mom's
beautician, a guy named Tony Carmen, gave him lessons. He played all the time. I don't think
he did it just to practice – it was more like the way he entertained himself.
Here he was, this somewhat heavy kid whose hair had suddenly gone kinky, a guy
who walked like a duck, in a strange neighborhood, feeling like a real misfit.
So the guitar became his solace. He reconstructed his persona with the sounds he
could make, and with the sounds made by all the great musicians he was hearing
and taking to be his own. He was into Bill Broonzy, Josh White, the Weavers and
those people. And he found a group of friends just like himself – misfits,
rebels, guys who didn't quite fit in to the New Trier scene. They included Roy
Ruby, a really sweet guy, and Fred Glaser. When Michael had his Bar Mitzvah, it
was a real blowout. Tons of gifts. He even got a periscope from a tank from our cousin Haskell Wexler [later the film director who
made "Medium Cool"]. I was really envious, and Mike saw that and said,
"Allie, take whatever you want of this stuff." The one thing he got
that later turned out to be really important to him was a transistor radio. With
that, he started hearing all the amazing music coming out of the black
neighborhoods on Chicago's south side, and from stations down south. He began to
connect to the whole gestalt of black music.
To run the household in Glencoe, my
folks would hire a husband-and-wife couple as staff. The couple that provided
Mike with his first real connection to live black music was Mary and Dewey. Mary
was a long-time, personal friend of Josh White and she arranged for Michael and
a friend to see him perform at The Gate of Horn in Chicago. She later introduced
Mike to him. Roy Ruby also had a maid, but she didn't live with the Rubys –
she had an apartment on the south side. She was the one who carried Mike and Roy
along with her to clubs she frequented. It's important to mention here that
these people who took care of our house were the first African-Americans that we
were exposed to in an intimate, family setting. They became a natural extension
of who we were and a deep love was established without judgment. They really
were family. Michael was in all accelerated classes.
They had a tracking system at New Trier and the smart, college-bound kids got
into the upper tracks. He was a voracious reader – he read every one of Frank
Baum's "Wizard of Oz" books when he was a kid. He devoured books –
literally. He'd eat the edges of the pages as he read. The books would look like
these expensive first editions when got through with them – with deckle-edged
pages. I remember one time he got into a heavy discussion about gerunds with my
father, also a real intellect. And Michael could hold his own with him – no
easy thing. He was articulate with words as well as with music. But in school, he was a disaster.
Michael had an acid wit and a highly acerbic tongue. And he could really
provoke! The teacher would ask, "What's Moby Dick?" and he say,
"It's a disease," and – pow! – he would be booted. New Trier put on a big show every year,
a talent show called "Langiappe." Michael was scheduled to play with
his band, and he was told, "No encore!" So, of course, he did an
encore and that, along with many other offenses, got him kicked out. Irv
Weingarten, the vice principal, had had enough. Funny thing though. I didn't see that
show for some reason – I don't remember why. But cousin Chucky did and he said
afterward, "That's what Michael's going to be doing," meaning playing
music. Right he was. So after New Trier they sent Michael to
Cornwall Academy in Cornwall, MA. Put him right in there with all the other
fuck-ups. It was definitely not the best place for him to be. I believe that's
where he first encountered drugs. You know, Michael loved thrills, and I
think that's why drugs attracted him. When we were kids we'd go every other
summer to a dude ranch, like Bishop's Lodge in Santa Fe. We had this thing we'd
do – each of us would hyperventilate and then have another kid grab us around
the chest and squeeze. You'd nearly pass out – a cheap high! Mike loved that.
And we'd go to Riverview, Chicago's big amusement park, and get on the Silver
Streak rollercoaster. Michael would insist on sitting in the front car and he'd
give the guy five tickets so we could ride the thing non-stop for five trips! Was there music in your family? We really didn't have much music around
the house. It was there – we had a piano, and there were the usual pop
records. My dad actually played pretty good piano when he sat down to it –
he'd do show tunes, stuff like that. But the men in the family – our
father and his father before him, our uncles – they all lived and breathed
business. That was their music. And they were very good at it. But Michael was completely the
opposite. He was no businessman. When he discovered black music and began making
his pilgrimages to see Odetta and Josh White, he got into that music's total
otherness. It was as different from the world we were living in as you could
get. Michael gave himself over to a deep exploration of the blues, and by doing
that created a separate identity for himself. My father had been a boxer in his early
days, and was a fine, fine athlete. He was a no-bullshit, physical kind of guy.
Michael, on the other hand, had no aptitude for sports and was not at all
athletic. That always irritated my father. But Michael did accomplish some
remarkable physical things. Even though he was left-handed, he taught himself to
play guitar right-handed. Why? Because everybody played guitar that way. He
never got credit for that amazing accomplishment. He also had fabulous endurance. My dad
was very proud of the fact the Mike could swim and swim. He wasn't a
particularly graceful swimmer, but he could go forever. And he could ride horses
pretty well. He might be rocking from side to side, his shirt tails flapping,
but he could stay on and keep the horse between his legs. Dad also really liked Michael's passion
for food. We'd be at a restaurant and Michael would say, "I want some
oysters! Can I have oysters?" and Dad would reluctantly order him some.
He'd eat them all and then Mike'd say, "Can I have some more?" Our
father loved that about him. Of course, Michael was always trying to
get Dad's approval, and he never really did. Dad could be very physical with
Michael when Michael provoked him. I don't think Mike ever made it through one
family meal without being sent away from the table. They had good moments,
though. I remember my father sitting in my parents' big bedroom, and Michael was
sitting across the way playing guitar. He'd brought his amp in and was playing
all these show tunes, like from the "Hit Parade" – just a kid
playing for his pop. Dad knew that Michael had real talent, and later even went
to see him perform a few times. By that time, Mike was persona-non-gratis at home, and I didn't really know much about
what he was up to. He was gone much of the time, and things weren't too good
when he was home, so I didn't really find out about that trip until later. I do
know that he was very defiant in those days and was trying hard to develop a
sense of self. He had a real impulsive side, and spending a good portion of the
summer bumming around Colorado seems like it must have come from that aspect of
his personality. I also know that when he married Susan
[Smith] and came home to tell our parents, there was a huge blowout. Dad really
beat him up, and I remember Michael yelling. He would never raise a hand to his
father, but he shouted, "I'm outta here, you motherfuckers!" Weird
thing was, a month later my parents gave a huge party for the newlyweds. That
was the way it was – Michael desperate for approval and never really getting
the real thing. Just the appearance of it. That's the funny thing about my
brother. So many people found him so electrifying as a personality and as a
player. And he was a risky player and could really push the limits, but it
became harder and harder for him to deal with people's expectations. He would
really take it to heart if they were critical, and after a while he just shunned
the spotlight. Oh, he had an ego, and loved to be the center of attention, but
once people expected him be a certain way or to perform at a certain level –
that was a real problem for him. I don't really recall anything about
him playing there, but I did see Mike perform with that Jerry Lee Lewis guy –
Hayden Thompson. I think I went with my cousin because I would have been too
young to drive. The club was in Highwood, near the military base there. They
were doing rock'n'roll stuff – you know, "Great Balls of Fire,"
tunes like that. It was kind of funny seeing my brother up there with a working
band, but it really didn't really crystallize for me until I saw Michael a few
years later with Paul Butterfield. I was a freshman in college, and they
were at Big John's, with Elvin, Jerome Arnold and, I think, Billy Davenport. It
was amazing! I sat really close and was just knocked out by Paul's playing. I
had never seen or heard anything like what he was doing with the harmonica. Mike
was there too, a part of it, and he sounded great, but it was seeing Butterfield
play that got to me. The whole band was amazingly woven together, loud and
tight, right within the form. Later on they stretched out a lot more, but then
they were pure Chicago in their approach. I was so inspired, I started playing harp myself. Just like a
thousand other kids after seeing Paul. Later I saw Michael with Butterfield in
Detroit. I drove there with a friend from our dude ranch days who lived in the
city. I remember them playing "East-West," the first time I'd ever
heard that tune. Paul just strolled away from the stage and let the band go on
and on. Another time I was with Mike at a club
in Greenwich Village, and in walked Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They got to
talking with Michael – he could talk to anybody – and later he said to me,
"That Joanne Woodward is really something!" He was very impressed with
her. And Paul Newman? "What a putz." I also was there at the first
Butterfield reunion [in 1971 at the Fenway Theater in Boston]. That was a
fantastic show. Norman Dayron did the sound and they had a scrim hanging in
front of the band with backlighting so all you could see were their silhouettes.
When the music started, the lights came up and the scrim was raised – it was
fabulous! Then I saw the Electric Flag open for
the Band at the Nassau Coliseum [probably on August 30, 1974]. That was a tough
gig. Buddy [Miles] started in with his schtick, "Everybody clap your
hands!," you know, that whole bit. The audience wasn't into it, of course
– they were there to see the Band. Michael was just embarrassed by all his
showboating. Al and Michael were doing this gig at a
university in Chicago – not a Super Session show, but something else – and I
got involved taking photos of the performance. I was into taking pictures at the
time, so I got hired on as their photographer. The shots I got weren't all that
great, but Kooper said to me, "Why don't you come work for my manager,
Stanley Polley? He needs an assistant." So I went to New York and hooked up
with Stanley. He was a remarkable character, the best in the business, and I
learned an immense amount about the music industry from him. I worked for him
for a total of 18 months. One time, around 1971, I was given the
opportunity to negotiate a deal with Columbia Records for a band called Southern
Comfort. Michael, who was in Mill Valley at the time, asked me to pick up the
band’s demo at Albert Grossman's place because they were just sitting on it.
Mike had endorsed them and the head of A&R at Columbia was hot to sign the
band. I got introduced to Albert Grossman, who was managing them, and to Vinnie
Fusco, Grossman’s assistant. I go in and there’s Albert sitting behind this
huge desk, just like a king on a throne. I’m in this low, tiny chair and
he’s looking down on me, a Ben Franklin look-alike character with little
granny glasses. Very far from my picture of a businessman! Mike called him “Cumulus Nimbus.”
“Just like Daddy,” he would say. So after a lot of haggling with
Grossman, I negotiated an unbelievable deal for Southern Comfort. They got
everything they wanted, made one record and totally bombed with the follow
through. Well, he worked with Norman Dayron on
his last recordings. Norman was really like a companion for Mike. Alan [Kooper]
provided real structure when they recorded together and that's why he got the
results he did. But Norman was like heroin for Mike – he made my brother feel comfortable.
He is exceedingly bright and a very good producer, but Norman had a fan's
adulation for Michael. The two of them were like schemers, cooking up ways to
beat the music business at its own game. As a result, their judgment sometimes
wasn't the best. And after a while Norman began taking
on many of Michael's mannerisms. The two of them looked very much alike and
eventually they began to sound alike! But, you know, I don't believe anyone was
as close to my brother as Norman was. Well, I'm working on a screenplay about
Michael for a British production company. Any possible movie is years and years
away, but there is real interest. The Michael Bloomfield box set that has
been in the works for a number of years now is kind of in limbo because of a
change of management at Sony/Legacy. We hope to have it back on track before too
long. It's not the greatest time to be putting out expensive CD packages, what
with downloading and file sharing, but hopefully when it comes out it will
include selections done for other companies and a DVD. We'll see! I'd like to end by saying that there is
no person on earth that I'd rather hang with than Michael. If you took J.D.
Salinger and added a pinch of Bukowski, a dash of Terry Southern and a sprinkle
of Oscar Levant – you would have an approximation of what he was like. A wit
like Lenny Bruce and the persona of a gangster with a rose tattoo. The best gift for the future? That
would be to preserve the memory of Michael as truly he was. Clearly, to know him
was to love him. © 2008 David Dann |
