"...Hope Y'all Dig Some Blues!"
Recorded across three nights
at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on the 26th, 27th and
28th of September 1968 - this warts 'n' all Live 2LP set has been a touchpoint
for Bloomfield fans for over five decades.
Mike did the Blues-Rock
guitar-wielding business for the first two nights of mostly R&B cover
versions by the likes of Ray Charles, Frank Wilson, Arthur Crudup, Sonny Boy
Williamson and Albert King alongside contemporary versions of big tunes by The
Band ("The Weight"), Traffic ("Dear Mr. Fantasy") and Jack
Bruce of Cream writing a 1967 HMV UK 45 B-side with Paul Jones of Manfred Mann
("Sonny Boy Williamson").
But famously hospitalized due
to insomnia, the mercurial axeman no-showed for gig-number three. So help was
called in in the shape of Elvin Bishop (Guitarist and Vocalist in The Paul
Butterfield Blues Band) and a young axe-slayer Bloomfield used to nickname
Carlito - Carlos Santana. This was half a year before Carlos would enter the
studios and record the "Santana" debut album and then slaughter all
in his path at Woodstock in August 1969, a month before the debut hit the shops
and virtually launched Latin-Rock across the world. Live Adventures is one of the
very few occasions where you hear Carlos playing the Blues – though if you ask
me, he wasn't very good at it on this night!
So you get a lot of cool axe
wielding types here ably supported by John Kahn on Bass and Skip Prokop on
Drums. Al Kooper sings and plays Hammond Organ and other keyboards and the
singing is shared between both leads. Roosevelt Gook plays keyboards on the
Frank Wilson cover "Together 'Til The End Of Time" and none-other
than Paul Simon was said to have been so taken aback by their live cover of the
Simon & Garfunkel hippy anthem "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin'
Groovy)" that he offered and laid down harmony vocals in the studio after
the gigs – so PS is supposed to be on there, only uncredited as such. Which brings
us to this reissue in Sony's 'Live From The Vaults' Series…
This Columbia/Legacy 2CD
reissue from 1997 doesn’t unfortunately feature any juicy outtakes or
rehearsals – but it has new and improved audio for the notoriously rough and
rolling live double courtesy of two hugely talented Audio Engineers – BOB IRWIN
and VIC ANESINI. Both of these men have handled huge swathes of Sony's
catalogue – Elvis Presley, Santana, Simon and Garfunkel, Mott The Hoople,
Nilsson, The Byrds and loads more.
UK released March 1997 -
"The Live Adventures Of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper" by MIKE
BLOOMFIELD and ALL KOOPER on Columbia/Legacy COL 485151 2 (Barcode
5099748515124) is a 2CD Reissue and Remaster in Columbia's Live From The
Vaults Series and plays out as follows:
CD1 (44:23 minutes):
1. Opening Speech [Side 1]
2. The 59th Street Bridge
Song (Feelin' Groovy)
3. I Wonder Who
4. Her Holy Modal Highness
5. The Weight [Side 2]
6. Mary Ann
7. Together 'Til The End Of
Time
8. That's All Right
9. Green Onions
Track 2 is a Simon &
Garfunkel cover, Tracks 3 and 6 are Ray Charles covers, Track 4 is a MB and AK
song,
Track 5 is a Band cover,
Track 7 is a Frank Wilson cover, Track 8 is an Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup cover
Track 9 is a Booker T &
The MG's cover
Tracks 1, 3, 6 and 8 - Lead
Vocals by Mike Bloomfield - Tracks 2 and 7 - Lead Vocals by AL KOOPER
Track 2 features an
uncredited Backing Vocal from PAUL SIMON - Track 7 features ROOSEVELT GOOK on
Keyboards
CD2 (40:55 minutes):
1. Opening Speech [Side 3]
2. Sonny Boy Williamson
3. No More Lonely Nights
4. Dear Mr. Fantasy [Side 4]
5. Don't Throw Your Love On
Me So Strong
6. Finale - refugee
Track 2 is a Jack Bruce (of
Cream) and Paul Jones (of Manfred Mann) cover
Track 3 is a Sonny Boy
Williamson cover
Track 4 is a Traffic cover
(Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood and Chris Wood song)
Track 5 is an Albert King
cover
Track 6 is an MB and AK song
Tracks 2 and 4 vocals by Al
Kooper
Track 2 has Guest Guitarist
CARLOS SANTANA
Track 3 has Guest Lead Vocals
and Guitar by ELVIN BISHOP (of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band)
Track 5 has vocals by Mike
Bloomfield
The double-album was released
February 1969 in the USA on Columbia Records CG 6 and CBS Records S 66216 in
the UK.
Although the double-sided
six-leaf foldout inlay looks kind of nice, it's like the album itself, it gets
on your nerves because you wish it would work better. There are recollections
from Al Kooper that are good and the BOB IRWIN and VIC ANESINI Remasters make
this rough and ready double sing. But therein lies the problem for me - so much
of this live set feels self-indulgent and despite the covers and the big name
guests - very little of it actually ignites in the way that you would have
expected. On Side 3 and 4 although Elvin Bishop puts in gallant Slow Blues
attempts on the 12:20 minutes of "No More Lonely Nights" - it feels
awkward somehow and the Carlos Santana contribution the same - none of the
fluidity needed and none of the stunning dexterity he would show only the
following year on the debut and on into 1970's "Abraxsas".
The nine minutes of their
song "Her Holy Modal Highness” is probably the album’s most trippy moment
- Kooper’s oscillating keyboard solo setting up Bloomfield for some truly
lovely touches on the fretboard. They launch into a cover of The Band classic "The
Weight” – a keyboard driven instrumental take that feels like The Spencer Davis
Group having a go. Its ragged glory is part of the charm I think and both boys
play a blinder. The R&B shuffle of "Mary Ann” sees Bloomfield go B.B.
King on a Ray Charles cover.
Bloomfield's absence from that
28th of September 1968 night (I was exactly 10 on that night) is acutely felt.
Neither he nor Kooper have great voices but you can hear impressive Hammond
organ stuff on the 10 minutes of the Albert King cover "Don't Throw Your
Love On Me So Strong". Side 2's ending pair features Crudup's "That's
All Right" make ordinary by Kooper's vocal - better is the Booker T
"Green Onions" groove - both guitar and Hammond blasting away in
their bar-band best unison.
Kooper would soon launch a
solo career and Bloomfield descend into horrible addictions - but at least this
raw slice of live indulgence is here for us to remember a time when you could
make stuff like this and not give a fig...
