Music Room

Sit back and enjoy some light reading while listening to Michael live in concert. Although taped by audience members where sound quality sometimes suffers, this music is amazing and vitally alive with the spirit of Michael Bloomfield. We hope you will enjoy it. Keep checking back as the content will change periodically. If you or anyone you know owns tapes and/or posters of Michael in concert, we'd love to hear from you! Please contact us here.

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Bob Jones often played in the Mike Bloomfield Band throughout the 70's. He has produced a record as a tribute to Michael and Dave Shorey and those wonderful days. Aptly titled 'Michael and Me', listen to a sample of this great work. Mark Naftalin, another Bloomfield Band mainstay, is also featured on this track ('Women Loving Each Other'). What you're hearing now is Mike Bloomfield & Friends (with Bob, Mark and Dave) playing the same song at the infamous Antone's in Austin, Texas in 1978.

'Women Loving Each Other', originally titled 'Bad Girl Blues', was written by Delta bluesman William Borum, aka Memphis Willie B. Michael would occasionally tell audiences that almost half a century before he is shocking people with the tune, an old blues guy was writing this very song about lesbians cutting in on his action. Bob Jones explains, "Mike basically thought it was silly (and an indication of the repression and denial rampant in American culture) that something as old and natural to the mammalian population as lesbianism should still invoke shock. He used the tune to illustrate the point. Michael was always teaching in a gentle and sometimes not so gentle way. Also, Mike and I were big devotees of the African tradition of 3 against 4 polyrhythm, as expressed in Delta Blues. So in this slow shuffle (which is basically a 3 base time, like a waltz), we switched into a straight 4 beat on our way to the next chord change. This is just the way the Delta bluesmen would do it but they were playing solo. We organically fell into doing it in the band context. We literally shifted into the 4 in the same place at the same time during a performance of the song one night on stage. We were so delighted that we kept doing it. I expressed my desire to my fellow players to do this same thing in our modern album version. The band understood and executed it perfectly."

MIKE BLOOMFIELD & FRIENDS

Antone's

Austin, Texas

Sept. 8, 1978

Michael Bloomfield, guitar, vocals

Bob Jones, drums

Mark Naftalin, piano

Dave Shorey, bass

Women Loving Each Other

BOB JONES AND THE DRIVE

Michael and Me

Recorded in 2009

Bob Jones, vocals, guitar

Nils Rosenblad, lead guitar

Tim Hackbarth, bass

Greg Marsh, drums

Mark Naftalin, piano

Women Loving Each Other

To order Michael and Me, click here

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THE ELECTRIC FLAG

Northern Calif Folk-Rock Festival

Santa Clara Fairgrounds

San Jose, California

May 18, 1968

Michael Bloomfield, guitar - Harvey Brooks bass - Buddy Miles, drums, vocals - Barry Goldberg, organ - Peter Strazza, tenor sax - Marcus Doubleday, trumpet - Nick Gravenites, vocals, percussion - Herbie Rich, baritone sax

Pop/Rock Magazine

Photo by Peter Martin

Sweet Home Chicago

David Dann's review here

click to enlarge

Rock and Roll Songs Magazine

March 1968

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