Below, check out some high-quality footage of late guitar legend Mike Bloomfield performing with the Electric Flag at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967.
The clip—which represents Bloomfield's...
Below, check out some high-quality footage of late guitar legend Mike Bloomfield performing with the Electric Flag at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967.
The clip—which represents Bloomfield's debut gig with his new band (which followed his tenure in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band)—is from a fairly recent documentary, Sweet Blues: A Film About Michael Bloomfield, which combines vintage audio interviews and performance footage with new interviews with Bloomfield’s friends and bandmates.
If not for two famous Fender Strats—the one Jimi Hendrix burned and the one the Who's Pete Townshend smashed to bits—at the fest, at least some of the Electric Flag's set might've appeared in Monterey Pop, D.A. Pennebaker's 1968 concert film. Alas, it did not happen. Some of the set is, however, available on YouTube.
Although he often is overshadowed by Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, Bloomfield—with his Sunburst 1959 Gibson Les Paul—set the pace for the disruptive fervor of the Sixties youth revolution with his greasy mix of Chicago blues and freak-out frenzy.
As Brad Tolinski wrote in 2013, "In many ways, [Bloomfield] accomplishes what Eric Clapton tried to do with Cream in the Sixties: he expands on the vocabulary of his blues heroes, but does it with just a bit more restraint, taste and style."
Below, check out "Drinkin' Wine" and "Over-Lovin' You" from the Electric Flag's electrifying June 17, 1967, set. He uses his Les Paul in the former and his Tele in the latter. That's Buddy Miles on drums, by the way.