Here you'll find news, events, CD releases, articles and other things that we think will be of interest to Bloomfield fans. As always, we welcome contributions to this page – if you know of any Michael Bloomfield-related items, please let us know.

• NOVEMBER 2008

Gibson to produce a Michael Bloomfield Signature Model Les Paul

The Michael Bloomfield Estate is happy to announce that a Michael Bloomfield signature 1959 Les Paul Standard Sunburst model is in the process of being created. An agreement has been signed by Gibson and the estate, and although Gibson has the right to postpone or cancel the project at their discretion, there is every reason to believe that they will proceed with the guitar's production. They hope to have a model ready by the NAMM show in January 2009. This was a long time coming, but well worth the wait. Watch this site for more news on this wonderful development!

• SEPTEMBER 2008

Michael Bloomfield: An American Guitarist

Below are links to a four-hour radio broadcast originally heard over WJFF 90.5 FM, Jeffersonville, NY, on July 27, 2008, in celebration of Michael Bloomfield's 65th birthday anniversary. The program was produced and hosted by David Dann and featured the voices of Allen Bloomfield, Toby Byron, Norman Dayron, Mark Naftalin and others, plus hard-to-find performances by Bloomfield, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bob Dylan and others. Listen to it on the Web by visiting the WJFF Archive or by connecting directly by using these links:

Part I / The Early Years:

http://www.wjffradio.org/parchive/m3u.php?mp3fil=5260325

Part II / Butterfield & The Flag:

http://www.wjffradio.org/parchive/m3u.php?mp3fil=5260002

Part III / Guitar God No More:

http://www.wjffradio.org/parchive/m3u.php?mp3fil=5260052

Part IV / The Last Years

http://www.wjffradio.org/parchive/m3u.php?mp3fil=5259725

Thanks to David Dann at Michael Bloomfield: An American Guitarist

• SEPTEMBER 2008

Witness to the Blues / Joe Louis Walker

Joe Louis Walker, a fine blues guitarist who as a teenager roomed with Michael Bloomfield in 1969, has just released this, his latest CD. Michael helped Joe get started in music by introducing him to the prominent blues players of the day. Joe has always graciously credited Michael as an early influence.

More information about "Witness to the Blues" can be found at Amazon.com.

• SEPTEMBER 2007

The Other Side of the Mirror / Bob Dylan

Filmmaker Murray Lerner has released this DVD of Bob Dylan's performances at the Newport Folk Festival from 1963-65. The disc augments material already available on Lerner's famed 1967 release on Newport called "Festival." Bloomfield fans will enjoy clips from the 1965 fest that show Michael playing with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and being interviewed about Butterfield, Son House and the blues. Of special interest is additional footage of Dylan's controversial electric set where Michael is prominently featured. Here's what Jonathan Cohen of Billboard magazine had to say about the film:

Directed by Murray Lerner, the film sports 80 minutes of performances, approximately 70% of which have never been released in any form.

Dylan's July 1965 performance at the Rhode Island festival has gone down in history as the moment when he "went electric," startling the crowd and prompting a negative reaction from fans accustomed to the acoustic music of the artist's early recordings.

The film includes Dylan's rehearsal with his electric band Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Sam Lay (drums), Jerome Arnold (bass), Al Kooper (organ) and Barry Goldberg (piano), plus two of the three songs they performed during their set ("Maggie's Farm" and "Like a Rolling Stone"; "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry" is omitted). Dylan then returned to the stage for solo versions of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."

Lerner eschewed narration and interviews with other artists (including Dylan himself) for "Mirror.". "[There's] nothing except the experience of seeing him," he says. "That to me is exciting. Just the clear experience gives you everything you need."

More information about "The Other Side of the Mirror" can be found at Amazon.com.

• FALL 2005

Remembering Bloomfield / Speedo "Harmonica" Jones

This release by Speedo Jones is offered as a celebration of the music of Mike Bloomfield. It features Jones' sympathetic harmonica wizardry with accompaniment by some of Sweden's finest blues players. Jones met Michael in 1977 during a Bloomfield & Friends gig in Roslyn, NY, and struck up a friendship with the guitarist that lasted until Michael's death in 1981. Here's what Speedo says about "Remembering Bloomfield:"

For those who loved Bloomfield's music, I hope this CD brings back happy memories. For those people who are discovering Bloomfield for the first time, I hope you try to find the originals of the music we are presenting to you. This was truly a labor of love and I felt the spirit of Bloomfield and Butterfield as I was making this record.

More information about "Remembering Bloomfield" can be found at CD Baby.

• 2004

Tell On It / David Randall Shorey

David Shorey is not only an accomplished musician and composer, he is also the author of several remarkable books. As Mike Bloomfield's bassist in later years, Shorey shared many memorable hours with the idiosyncratic guitarist. In this book, he shares some of those moments in his highly personal and inventive style. Says Shorey:

"Tell on it" was the expression Mike Bloomfield used to get us to open up and get to the present-tense reality and cut to the chase. I was in the Mike Bloomfield and Friends band off and on from '76-'81. I played and toured in all those configurations. Enjoy the photos from Tahoe to to Texas to San Francisco.

More information about "Tell On It" can be found at Xlibris.com.

• SUMMER 2003

"Like a Rolling Stone" named No. 1

Bob Dylan's groundbreaking composition, "Like a Rolling Stone," has been selected as the number one song in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Top Songs of All Time. The tune, recorded for Dylan's seminal "Highway 61 Revisited" release on Columbia, was waxed in Columbia's studios in New York in June of 1965 and featured the trend-setting guitar work of Michael Bloomfield. Al Kooper's organ part also helped shape the recording, a performance that critic Greil Marcus has called "an explosion of vision and humor that forever changed pop music."

Michael demonstrates his fire-breathing trick, a stunt he often performed while playing "East-West" with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1966.

Photo courtesy of

Deborah Chesher

Visitors since June 19th, 2002