The Original Bloomfield - Pics

[RAG7890]

Having been involved for several years with a number of professional musicians, I think I know how their mind works............some, not all.

What Michael did was wrong but not unusual for a gifted & talented musician, especially one that had issues.

That being said, there is an argument about the legality of what happened to Michael's gear.............."theft by find" is illegal, illegal is illegal, certainly in our country & probably Canada.

Let me ask you this question..................would you buy another musician's gear under the same circumstances? I would not..............even if it were a Burst for a bargain price. Mind you, many would.

Michael's family are more than likely not aware of these facts & at the time probably did not give it more than a moments thought.

My 2c FWIW.

Anyway, I am sure there will be more to come.

[Les Gear]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

I really wanted to stimulate some discussion re the rightful ownership of Michael's Burst.

.........................the silence is deafening guys.

Ayuh.

Whether it's a 59 LP or a Dean PointOCaster
Whether it's Michael Bloomfield or Joseph Blow
Whether somebody was high or just a douchebag

It's so WRONG take somebody's stuff worth $xx,xxx, sell it and pocket all the money just because somebody doesn't show up for a gig and puts you out $bbb.

How hard would it have been to say, "Mike, you'll get your gear back when you show up to play and I'm gonna take $bbb out of your cut for what you cost me that night." There's a difference between "theft" and "collateral."

Like a lot of us I grew up on Bloomfield. This thread makes me so sad.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by Les Gear

Ayuh.

Whether it's a 59 LP or a Dean PointOCaster
Whether it's Michael Bloomfield or Joseph Blow
Whether somebody was high or just a douchebag

It's so WRONG take somebody's stuff worth $xx,xxx, sell it and pocket all the money just because somebody doesn't show up for a gig and puts you out $bbb.

How hard would it have been to say, "Mike, you'll get your gear back when you show up to play and I'm gonna take $bbb out of your cut for what you cost me that night." There's a difference between "theft" and "collateral."

Like a lot of us I grew up on Bloomfield. This thread makes me so sad.

Thanks mate, totally agree. Thanks.

You know what I am going on about & if the current owner of Michael's Burst is reading this, I am going to keep investigating & digging........................until I get an answer & that guitar is made public.

You'd be suprized what you can find if you are patient & dig far enough.

I am totally that you are the only one to post a comment like this while everyone else fails to grow a set of balls!

[rickym]

Balls has nothing to do with it. Different era - different train of thought back then. Personally I would have kept his gear for 90 days & made every attempt of getting ahold of MB during that time & research any statute of limitations that might apply.

If an incident regarding someone else's gear that happened decades ago gets you this upset, you need to get out more often.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by rickym

Balls has nothing to do with it. Different era - different train of thought back then. Personally I would have kept his gear for 90 days & made every attempt of getting a hold of MB during that time & research any statute of limitations that might apply.

If an incident regarding someone else's gear that happened decades ago gets you this upset, you need to get out more often.

I can see what you mean & it would be right to hold for 90 days & attempt to get a hold of Michael etc. but this is not just a someone else...............it is Michael Bloomfield's Burst & as such an iconic, historical guitar.

Mind you the same should happen for anyone's gear regardless of who they are. I would certainly not buy a guitarist's gear under these circumstance but some no doubt would.

What I am a little disappointed about is the lack of comment re this particular issue..............particularly since I suspect the current owner or a close friend of the current owner has read this thread.

BTW, I get out a lot................always good to have a cause or two & be a little passionate about things...............I have several..............the others do not involve guitars.

[RAG7890]

..............anyone currently living in the USA that was born north of the border care to shed some light on Michael Bloomfield's Burst?

Any current pics?

[tonebone]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

...............it is Michael Bloomfield's Burst & as such an iconic, historical guitar.

It hurts me deeply to say this, but the majority of people nowadays wouldn't know a burst from a strat . . . if it hit em in the face.

Now ask the populace if a particular "smart" phone was an iphone 3 or 4, and I'm sure you'd get a definitive answer.



That said, I believe the guitar belongs with family. Do they have the tele he loved so much?

And Ronnie Montrose's burst should be returned to him, also.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by tonebone

It hurts me deeply to say this, but the majority of people nowadays wouldn't know a burst from a strat . . . if it hit em in the face.

Now ask the populace if a particular "smart" phone was an iphone 3 or 4, and I'm sure you'd get a definitive answer.


That said, I believe the guitar belongs with family. Do they have the tele he loved so much?

And Ronnie Montrose's burst should be returned to him, also.

Totally agree TB.

Never mind, I do have more information & I'll keep this post going................I believe the current owner is a Canadian, living in the USA, married to a US citizen (she was born in the US).

Stay tuned.

[drew365]

My understanding is Michael's family is very well off. If they had any interest in the guitar, they would have hired an investigator to look for it years ago. The person that owns it now would probably love to share it with the world but is afraid to. I'm not sure what satisfaction would be gotten by giving it back to "the family", only to have it disappear again forever. I like doing the right thing, but I'm not that much of a purist. The person that has it now isn't necessarily an evil villain. If it comes down to the interpretation of the law on one side of a boundary vrs. the law on the other side of the boundary, than I say let sleeping dogs lie.

[cherrick]

Originally Posted by tonebone

There's 5 "Bloomfield" threads. I thought it best to post in the most recent one.

You're gonna wanna go to 2:45

MUDDY WATERS MIKE BLOOMFIELD Long Distance 1974 live! - YouTube
...

The guitars in the original pics don't match the Lester in the video. What's up with that?

Man, I miss Muddy Waters.

Elvin Bishop is a much better guitar player.

[cherrick]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

I can see what you mean & it would be right to hold for 90 days & attempt to get a hold of Michael etc. but this is not just a someone else...............it is Michael Bloomfield's Burst & as such an iconic, historical guitar.

Mind you the same should happen for anyone's gear regardless of who they are. I would certainly not buy a guitarist's gear under these circumstance but some no doubt would.

What I am a little disappointed about is the lack of comment re this particular issue..............particularly since I suspect the current owner or a close friend of the current owner has read this thread.

BTW, I get out a lot................always good to have a cause or two & be a little passionate about things...............I have several..............the others do not involve guitars.

Bloomfield's 'Burst is no more iconic than any of the other several thousand 'Bursts that Gibson made in '58-'60.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by cherrick

Bloomfield's 'Burst is no more iconic than any of the other several thousand 'Bursts that Gibson made in '58-'60.

................................... ....., I am not even going to comment on that statement................................. oh, I just did.

Each to their own I suppose but it is an iconic Burst, along with many others that made music history in the hands of many well know musicians.

If you can't see that well, you can't see it. The players & their music were always more important than the actual guitars they played but their Bursts are iconic IMHO.

[Rollingrock]

Originally Posted by Rollingrock

Yeah, he must've been high that day. You couldn't hear him through most of it and his solo was sub-par and that's being extremely liberal in my critique. Mike was an amazing guitarist but there's a reason he isn't as respected as his contemporaries. Drugs. He was hit and miss. This was a miss.

Here's something weird. I didn't post this but I'm receiving likes and notifications. Why?

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by Rollingrock

Here's something weird. I didn't post this but I'm receiving likes and notifications. Why?

Good question, no idea but you can ask a Mod who can check it out for you.

In the meantime, thanks for the accidental bump while I collect more information

[Red Flametop]

What precisely is the endgame with all of this "research", if I might ask? There won't be any tearful reunion ala Peter Frampton w/his long-lost Custom.....that guitar has one of 2 possible futures:
1) Staying where it's at, and MAYBE being played here and there.
2) Being returned to the family, who will either stick it in some damned museum or sold to some corksniffing collector who'll let it rot under some godawful spotlight.

I just can't justify demonizing the bar owner for selling it.......guy flakes out on ya, doesn't offer to play a make-up show....over a damned PBS special(yeah, it's Muddy Waters...but all of that over a TV show?).

[EasyAce]

Originally Posted by cherrick

Bloomfield's 'Burst is no more iconic than any of the other several thousand 'Bursts that Gibson made in '58-'60.

Maybe you had to be there when Bloomfield played the instrument to understand why it became considered iconic. He was, arguably, the first American guitar star who slung a Les Paul as his go-to guitar (he started with a '54 goldtop, which he used on the Butterfield album East-West, swapping that for the '59 burst in 1967), before his and others' work---Eric Clapton (who beat Bloomfield to the punch in terms of using a '58-'60 burst, though he wouldn't equal Bloomfield's influence in the U.S. until shortly after Bloomfield acquired his burst), Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Alan Wilson and Henry Vestine (in Canned Heat), a couple of others---wielded such an influence in terms of people becoming aware of and wanting the guitars that Gibson decided at last to return the original Les Pauls to production in 1968.

(Keith Richards and Brian Jones might have become a similar Les Paul icon-maker, since they found and played bursts even before Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton did, but Richards and Jones---like so many of the Brit Invasion stars---switched guitars so often in those years that they didn't become identified with one particular guitar the way Bloomfield, Clapton, Green, and Beck did . . .)

For 1958-60, the total run of such Les Paul Standards was 1,700 instruments. Far enough fewer than the total of Les Paul goldtops made from 1952-57.

[EasyAce]

Originally Posted by drew365

My understanding is Michael's family is very well off.

His is the family that made their fortune in restaurant supplies and commercial coffee systems. Bloomfield's younger brother went into the family business for a time, but Bloomfield himself spurned it because his father was, let's just say, somewhat less than enthused about having an aesthetically-inclined older son (though his mother always encouraged him from the outset), and expressed that lack of enthusiasm in such ways as to instill in that son the irrevocable belief that you had to be an asshole to become rich.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by Red Flametop

What precisely is the endgame with all of this "research", if I might ask? There won't be any tearful reunion ala Peter Frampton w/his long-lost Custom.....that guitar has one of 2 possible futures:
1) Staying where it's at, and MAYBE being played here and there.
2) Being returned to the family, who will either stick it in some damned museum or sold to some corksniffing collector who'll let it rot under some godawful spotlight.

I just can't justify demonizing the bar owner for selling it.......guy flakes out on ya, doesn't offer to play a make-up show....over a damned PBS special(yeah, it's Muddy Waters...but all of that over a TV show?).

............good question..........still thinking that one through. I may end up with Zero from my "research" as you put it. I am not demonizing anyone...............but there is an element of legality that most tend to ignore.

Personally, I'd like to see the guitar out in the open where it belongs............& maybe played by a few great players on a stage again. Joe would be in to that I am sure.

I mean TW is happy for Gibson to scan Sandy & he is open & helpful when it comes to educating those of us interested in Bursts.

If the guitar was unlawfully obtained I have no idea what can be done about that.............yet. If indeed the guitar is fine staying where it is then I would love to see it...................if it is legal, it can come out of hiding. Maybe it would be great to do an accurate run of Bloomfields based on the digital scan of the original.................although the previous run may well be the only one ever made.

As for a cork sniffing collector well maybe the person who owns it now is a cork sniffing collector I don't know. I do know someone who does know, I just have to wait.

IMHO, if I have to actually explain why I am interested in getting to the bottom of this & having this particular Burst out in to the open......................then you'll never understand. Some will some will never.

[EasyAce]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

IMHO, if I have to actually explain why I am interested in getting to the bottom of this & having this particular Burst out in to the open......................then you'll never understand. Some will some will never.

It would compare, I'd think, to someone getting onto and potentially unearthing Eric Clapton's original 1960 Les Paul, the Blues Breakers guitar stolen somewhere between the finishing of Fresh Cream and the rehearsals for Cream's first major tour . . .

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by EasyAce

It would compare, I'd think, to someone getting onto and potentially unearthing Eric Clapton's original 1960 Les Paul, the Blues Breakers guitar stolen somewhere between the finishing of Fresh Cream and the rehearsals for Cream's first major tour . . .

EasyAce................in a word mate...........TOUCHÉ............you hit the nail on the head.

[drew365]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

EasyAce................in a word mate...........TOUCHÉ............you hit the nail on the head.

Sorry, I don't think they're comparable. One was outright stolen. The other was left behind for a debt owed by a drugged out flake who didn't see fit to go back and straighten things out. Just for the record, I'm a huge Bloomfield fan.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by drew365

Sorry, I don't think they're comparable. One was outright stolen. The other was left behind for a debt owed by a drugged out flake who didn't see fit to go back and straighten things out. Just for the record, I'm a huge Bloomfield fan.

Look, I agree with you in some respect. It is a fair comment. What Michael did was wrong...............but to my way of thinking two wrongs don't make a right.

Anyway, hopefully it will come to light sooner or later as will the Beano. It is really bad Karma knocking off a bloke's axe..........just not the done thing.

The guitars themselves are not the important thing so much as the music, the era & the players............but many of these great guitarists used Bursts (& Teles & Strats for that matter).

Unfortunately abuse of drugs & alcohol were a big part of this era & took many a talented musician.............Bloomfield, Hendrix, Buchanan, Bonham & many, many others.

In about 1974 or so, my father said to me that this music will die & I said you must be kidding. It will never die, it will take it place with all the greats be it Jazz, Classical, Blues etc. etc.

So every now & then it would be great to fill in some of the the missing pieces of musical history...........which is a major interest of mine.

...............and I often wonder what these guys would be playing now................

[EasyAce]

Originally Posted by RAG7890

...............and I often wonder what these guys would be playing now................

Considering his post-1960s activities, in which he spent most of that decade and the first couple of years of the 1980s making blues and other Americana music for tiny independents, it's not unreasonable to surmise that Mike Bloomfield would have been doing likewise even if he'd lived to a ripe old age.

Those who knew him best have sworn he wasn't exactly your typical strung-out 24/7 junkie, by the way, so much as he was a genuinely recreational user. (Which fuels some of the speculation that his death may have been suspicious.)

I'm not entirely certain but based on my own reading of works about his life, I'm convinced the loss of the '59 burst might have occurred in due course anyway because Bloomfield, sadly enough, was too cavalier about possessions. Possibly because of his rejection of his upbringing (recall my earlier observation that his father's attitudes taught him that to be rich or successful you had to be an asshole), he believed---as indeed a chapter of Michael Bloomfield: If You Love These Blues was called---"everything is replaceable." Things could be replaced, if people couldn't be.

Which doesn't make right what that Vancouver club owner did or didn't do with the guitar, even if you can understand he was entitled to recompense if Bloomfield did indeed miss that show for whatever reason (the television special), but Bloomfield wasn't exactly a fanatic about things, even his own guitars, notwithstanding his lovely observation that without a guitar he was like a poet with no hands.

[skyeking69]

Originally Posted by drew365

Sorry, I don't think they're comparable. One was outright stolen. The other was left behind for a debt owed by a drugged out flake who didn't see fit to go back and straighten things out. Just for the record, I'm a huge Bloomfield fan.

Exactly! Keep in mind the club owner didn't sell his gear the next day
BTW there also was a '50's Telecaster and his amps as well. They sat in the club. Michael made no effort to get the gear back. Those were just tools to him.
( as for the beat up condition of the LP)
If a builder losses a screwdriver...he gets another..
That guitar has had several owners since then and been in the possession of many people. Do you charge all these people ? Of course not!
Bottom line: If the current owner/owners of the guitar want it seen or photographed they will come forward. End of story..
If you need a hobby call Dirk Ziff and get him to open the vault on his 150+ bursts, or all other private owners.....

'without a guitar he was like a poet with no hands." but he still did have a voice!

[EasyAce]

Originally Posted by skyeking69

'without a guitar he was like a poet with no hands." but he still did have a voice!

As a singer, he was passable. (And it took quite some time for it to get that way, if you recall his first known recorded vocal, singing "Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong" on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper.) His voice wasn't the reason people wanted to hear him. As for a voice on behalf of himself, never mind his gear, Mike Bloomfield wasn't exactly the world's greatest or most renowned self-advocate.

[RAG7890]

Originally Posted by skyeking69

Exactly! Keep in mind the club owner didn't sell his gear the next day
BTW there also was a '50's Telecaster and his amps as well. They sat in the club. Michael made no effort to get the gear back. Those were just tools to him.
( as for the beat up condition of the LP)
If a builder losses a screwdriver...he gets another..
That guitar has had several owners since then and been in the possession of many people. Do you charge all these people ? Of course not!
Bottom line: If the current owner/owners of the guitar want it seen or photographed they will come forward. End of story..
If you need a hobby call Dirk Ziff and get him to open the vault on his 150+ bursts, or all other private owners.....

'without a guitar he was like a poet with no hands." but he still did have a voice!

Hey Craig, I have just taken one of these...................I feel good now!

[cherrick]

Originally Posted by EasyAce

Maybe you had to be there when Bloomfield played the instrument to understand why it became considered iconic.

I was "there". I would argue that Bloomfield is/was the icon, even though I have always had a much stronger preference for Elvin Bishop's playing. Having said that, I must admit that every time I go back and listen again to Bloomfield's playing I hear something new (to me).

The guitar itself? As you said, there were just under a couple of thousand made. Many sounded better to my ears when I listen to them on recordings. But then my ears are not your ears.

[cherrick]

He was, arguably, the first American guitar star who slung a Les Paul as his go-to guitar

Muddy Waters comes to mind.

[RAG7890]

.................almost to the bottom of the page.

.....................bump..................ca use I can & I don't want to have to go looking for this Thread while I am digging!

[rykus]

Anyone have more pics of this guitar while Bloomfield had it?