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The songs are all excellent and something new and interesting can be detected in every listening. Mike's solos are fluid and tasteful. And the same can be said for the other soloists, most specifically Paul Butterfield, master of the blues harp. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest blues CDs ever made.There aren't many recordings that sound fresh after forty-some years, but this is one of them. Mike Bloomfield is at his peak here. The Butterfield Blues Band lineup on this CD played with authority and conviction. I believe he's playing a Fender Telecaster guitar.
What are we protesting. No sustain.
Later, he'd discover his signature axe, an old black Les Paul, which at that time was strictly a jazz guitar. No pedal boxes.
There are a few hidden jewels of recorded music that actually matter. The playing sounds as fresh and vital as ever.Also of note, Mike Bloomfield was getting this sound using a Telecaster through a Twin Reverb, with no effects.
But on this album, with his Tele, Bloomfield attacks the respond sections and solos with a fierce complexity that helped grow a new branch on the blues family tree.While PBBB's East West was the game changer, this album is a better blues album. This is one of those albums.I admit I usually played it to give me a taste of "those days." Hey, meet you at the protest march.
But then I started to realize this isn't just an album of past glories.
His death is a tragedy in the truest sense of the world. Every track on this album is fun, full of energy and masterfully played. Though the lead singer and harmonica player is white, his singing is more than credible and his harmonica playing is excellent.
Recently, rock guitar magazines have started to talk more about Bloomfield and his wonderful talents, which is a great thing. I highly recommend this album to anybody interested in Chicago Blues, especially those coming to the Blues from a Classic Rock or Clapton-related background. He deserves to be ranked up there with Clapton and Allman in terms of white guys who play Blues and/or Blues-Rock.
Along with Earl Hooker's "The Moon Is Rising", this album is a Chicago Blues masterpiece. His admiration for the great Son House was more than obvious. My personal favorite on the album is the band's cover of Elmore James' "Shake Your Moneymaker", which is a great deal different than the original, but in a good way.
Guitarist Michael Bloomfield plays some incendiary lead guitar, and was taken from us much too early. I recently viewed a video of him at one of the many folk festivals during the 1960s, perhaps Newport, talking about how his father is rich, his family is Jewish, he had a Bar Mitzvah, and how he'll never be able to play or sing like Son House.
That is just as true now as it was then.These are the guys that played with Dylan at times. There is a note on the back of the original album cover advising to play loud for maximum effect. That is, Sam Lay, Jerome Arnold, Mike Bloofield. This was an amazing album when it was released in 1965, and it is now. While the vinyl seems superior to the CD [I have 2 copies of the vinyl]they are both amazing and full of energy.
In contrast, the band seems to be trying too hard to sound like great blues on "East/West." On this album, everything feels organic and unforced. The general critical consensus seems to be that the PBBB's second album, "East/West," is the one to get, but I disagree. Here, and on Dylan albums, he's really the difference between "good" and "great." Get this one--it sounds fresh, almost contemporary, despite its age. Mike Bloomfield, of course, is excellent on every track, and that makes a significant difference between this and any other "white boy blues," or whatever you want to call it, that was around at the same time. I own both, and I find that this, the band's first release, is much better than album #2. The songs here are played with more intensity and focus (the band is "tighter," as musicians say), and the vocals and harp are tough, gritty and "authentic," in a blues sense.
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