Electric Shock: Bob Dylan and Michael Bloomfield Change Music Forever

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Electric Shock: Bob Dylan and Michael Bloomfield Change Music Forever
July 25, 2011
Ted Drozdowski
Gibson Lifestyle

Bob Dylan was the most popular folk artist in America in 1965 when he outgrew his original solo acoustic sound and cut the landmark album Highway 61 Revisited. Then he started a revolution. And he fired the first shot at the famous Newport Folk Festival on July 25, when he brought the electric band that played on that album – including the legendary guitarist Michael Bloomfield – to its stage.

Dylan had played the festival alone the day before, performing “All I Really Want to Do,” “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” in a workshop setting with his acoustic guitar. That was the Dylan his fans and festivalgoers expected. But few knew about the potent all-electric album he’d recorded in New York City at Columbia Records’ 7th Avenue Studios with Bloomfield, organist Al Kooper, bassist Harvey Brooks, drummer Sam Lay and other ringers.

A few days earlier, the album’s first single, “Like a Rolling Stone,” had been released, and Dylan seemed to be debating whether to perform it at Newport on the main stage. The die was apparently cast when folk musicologist Alan Lomax made some condescending remarks about the electrification of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band when they appeared on July 24. Like so many roots music gatekeepers, Lomax was missing the point about the need for music to evolve, and overlooked the dynamism of this great band – one of the first integrated blues groups – in his criticism. That night Dylan decided to retaliate by debuting “Like a Rolling Stone” and other numbers with a full electric band that included Butterfield Band members Bloomfield and Lay as well as Kooper and other powerhouse players.

Kooper contends that Dylan’s decision to plug in surprised the festival audience but received a warm reception. They rocked through “Maggie’s Farm,” laid down the cool textures of “Rolling Stone” thanks to the interplay of Bloomfield and Kooper, pumped out an early electric version of “It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” and “Phantom Engineer” before leaving the stage. Master of ceremonies Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary begged them to continue over the microphone, realizing a great transformation had taken place and that Dylan had just become the most important creative force in popular music besides The Beatles.

The old-guard folkies, however, raised their own noise. Folk movement leader and music journalist Irwn Silber accused Dylan of “losing contact with the people” and letting the “paraphernalia of fame” get in his way. And traditional performer Ewan MacColl denounced Dylan’s new sound. While Dylan’s performance was in progress, Lomax and Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman got into a fist fight.

Dylan did return to the stage alone for a few acoustic numbers, and when he remarked that he had the wrong key harmonica and asked the audience for an E harp, several were tossed to the stage. He played “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which had been recorded as a pop hit by The Byrds, and the lovely “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” And Dylan – apparently feeling some degree of rebuke – did not play at the festival again for 37 years.

Dylan’s Newport show and his emergence as an electric artist nailed the coffin lid shut on the so-called Brill Building era of rock and pop songwriting. Until then, most artists played on the radio recorded songs written by professional writers like those who populated that famed New York City brownstone. That changed in a slow evolution from Buddy Holly to The Beatles, who were key in inspiring rock artists to write and record their own numbers. After Dylan added his own poetic mastery to the world of electric music, there was no turning back for any emerging artists for at least the next 35 years, when originality in popular music was the norm.

The Newport show and Highway 61 Revisited were not only pivotal for Dylan, but his guitar foil at the time, Bloomfield. Today, thanks to his time in the Butterfield Band and, moreso, his period with Dylan and his subsequent recordings and performances with Al Kooper, most roots-conscious guitarists are aware of Michael Bloomfield. He was a brawling, free-ranging blues master whose innovative playing helped immortalize the beauty of the ’Burst – the Gibson Les Paul Standard. Although Bloomfield’s playing was on par with that of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, his untimely death 30 years ago denied his place in popular culture alongside those icons.

Bloomfield acquired his first Gibson Les Paul – an early 1950s Gold Top like the one his hero Muddy Waters used while inventing electric Chicago blues – just before the recording of the Butterfield Band’s epochal and experimental East-West in 1966. Bloomfield’s first ’Burst came a few years later. It was a 1959 Les Paul Standard bought from Dan Erlewine, who played guitar for Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Prime Movers. That guitar has now been immortalized by the Gibson Custom Shop as the Mike Bloomfield 1959 Les Paul Standard.

Bloomfield took terrible care of his guitars, letting them accumulate dust and string rust between performances, leaving them behind at clubs, locking them in his car’s trunk without a case for days or longer. His San Francisco roommate, the versatile bluesman Joe Louis Walker, often had to rescue Bloomfield’s abandoned instruments so Bloomfield could perform.

Bloomfield’s style leaned on volume, although not distortion. He enjoyed clean loud amps with plenty of headroom. But he was nonetheless a profound influence on plenty of cutting-edge guitarists in the ’60s, including Page, who has stated that he was inspired by Bloomfield to play Les Pauls.

Although Dylan has worked with a myriad of guitarists over the ensuing decades, including The Band’s Robbie Robertson, never again has the six-string on his albums or live performances equaled the emotional majesty of Bloomfield’s playing on Highway 61 Revisited or the short series of shows played by the live electric band Dylan debuted 36 years ago at Newport.