Sweet Blues: Guitar Legend Mike Bloomfield Celebrated On New Box, Bob Dylan Tracks Debut on Set

The time was 1965, the place was Columbia Records’ studios on Seventh Avenue in New York City between 52nd and 53rd Streets, the occasion was the recording of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. Al Kooper – he of the famed organ riff that propelled “Like a Rolling Stone” – recalled, “Suddenly Dylan exploded through the doorway with this bizarre-looking guy carrying a Fender Telecaster guitar without a case. It was weird, because it was storming outside and the guitar was all wet from the rain. But the guy just shuffled over into the corner, wiped it off with a rag, plugged in, and commenced to play some of the most incredible guitar I’ve ever heard. And he was just warming up!”

Kooper recounts the whole story of his first encounter with Michael Bloomfield in his indispensable tome Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards. Kooper’s fateful introduction to “the man who can still make me pack up my guitar whenever his music is played” led to the seminal Super Session record in 1968 and further collaborations. Now, decades later, Kooper has produced and curated what may well be the definitive anthology dedicated to the music of Michael Bloomfield, the guitarist Bob Dylan recognized as “the best.”  On February 4, 2014, Legacy Recordings will unveil From His Head To His Heart To His Hands, a career-spanning 3-CD/1-DVD box set chronicling the life and times of the late artist.  The box premieres a number of unreleased tracks including rare cuts from Bob Dylan like an alternate of “Tombstone Blues” featuring The Chambers Brothers, or a Bloomfield/Dylan live performance of “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar.”

Born in Chicago and discovered by Columbia’s John Hammond, Bloomfield participated in sessions for the label in 1964 but soon joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band alongside Butterfield, Elvin Bishop, Sam Lay, Jerome Arnold and Mark Naftalin.  But the same year Butterfield’s group debuted with its first Elektra long-player (1965), Bloomfield was making history with his friend Bob Dylan. In addition to lending his scorching guitar to Highway 61, Bloomfield was among the musicians backing Dylan on his legendary, first-ever electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival.  But there were many other paths for the guitarist with the fire in his soul to pursue.  He joined the genre-bending “horn band” The Electric Flag in 1967, debuting with the group at the Monterey Pop Festival and issuing a 1968 album on Columbia.  Shortly after the album’s release, The Electric Flag imploded, but Bloomfield bounced back that same year.

Super Session was recorded with Al Kooper, the composer-singer-organist behind the original Blood, Sweat and Tears.  David Fricke wrote in 2001, “Bloomfield and Kooper, with pianist Barry Goldberg, bassist Harvey Brooks [both of The Electric Flag] and drummer Eddie Hoh, cut enough music for one whole side of an LP…[but] Bloomfield didn’t play another note on the record.  A chronic insomniac sinking into long-term heroin addiction, he abruptly split for home the next day, leaving Kooper to finish the album with a hastily recruited Steve Stills.  But what Bloomfield left behind is still the best half an album in late-Sixties rock.”  Bloomfield continued making incendiary music until his untimely death in 1981 at the age of 37.  In addition to recording solo albums such as 1969’s debut It’s Not Killing Me, Bloomfield found time to perform and record with Janis Joplin, Dr. John, John Cale, and The KGB Band (with Ray Kennedy and Barry Goldberg) and even sat in again with Dylan in 1980.

What will you find on the new box?  Hit the jump for details and the full track listing, plus pre-order links!

Release Round-Up: Week of December 18

Frank Zappa, Remasters Wave 6 (Zappa/UMe)

Joe dutifully broke this one down yesterday at the link above: five final titles in the FZ 2012 remaster campaign, consisting of Ahead of Their Time and The Yellow Shark (1993),  The Lost Episodes and Läther (1996), plus a new compilation, Finer Moments.

Rush, 2112: Deluxe Edition (Mercury/UMe)

The prog classic is reissued (in time for 21/12, ha!) in three formats: a CD/DVD featuring three unreleased live bonus tracks, expanded liner notes and a 5.1 surround mix (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.), a CD/Blu-Ray with the same (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) and a super deluxe version in a hardbound case with additional new artwork (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Eric Clapton, Slowhand: 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Polydor/UMe)

Looking for something wonderful tonight? This may be it: Clapton’s 1977 classic comes back in a variety of formats, including a deluxe box (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) featuring the album, four outtakes and a two-disc, mostly unreleased live show, plus the album in both 5.1 surround and on vinyl. A two-disc deluxe set (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) includes the album, the outtakes and highlights from the show on the other disc.

The Rolling Stones, The Brussels Affair (Stones Archive)

A morbidly oversized CD/vinyl/swag-filled Amazon-exclusive box version of an appropriately epic concert from 1973. Careful about that price tag, y’all. (Amazon U.S.)

Muddy Waters, You Shook Me: The Chess Masters Volume 3 1958-1963 (Hip-O Select/Geffen)

A two-disc set of vintage Muddy, including the albums Muddy Waters Sings “Big Bill” and Muddy Waters at Newport 1960 in full. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill (and More) on New “Chess Masters” Volume

Six years after the last set of Muddy Waters’ Chess recordings by Hip-O Select, the boutique label will release You Shook Me: The Chess Masters Volume 3 1958-1963 next week.

While Waters’ profile was well on the rise before the period covered on this two-disc set – having put singles like “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “Mannish Boy” in the upper reaches of the R&B charts – You Shook Me is notable for being anchored not only around single releases but two of Waters’ first LPs. 1960’s Muddy Waters Sings “Big Bill” was a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy, the Chicago bluesman who gave Waters one of his first major professional breaks opening for him at local clubs. The other, recorded that same year, was Muddy Waters at Newport 1960, a killer of a live album that featured revelatory versions of “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Got My Mojo Workin.'”

This 49-track set also includes one unreleased instrumental, “Sweet Black Angel,” and a handful of songs that appeared only on a multi-LP box set of Waters’ Chess output released in Japan. Mary Katherin Aldin pens liner notes for the booklet, which is filled with rare photos of Waters in action.

You Shook Me is available next Tuesday, December 18. Grab it from Amazon U.S. or Amazon U.K. and hit the jump for full specs.

The Second Disc Buyers Guide: The 100 Greatest Reissues of All Time, Part 13 (#40-36)

It’s the lucky thirteenth part of our look at the many reissues of the 100 greatest albums of all time, as selected by Rolling Stone in 2003! We’ll explore the various versions of these classic albums on disc, letting you know which audio treasures can be found on which releases. In today’s group, we get the blues, meet the Brits, head to Laurel Canyon and fall in Love! 

40. Love, Forever Changes (Elektra, 1967)

Welcome to the Top 40!  Released just months after the so-called Summer of Love, Forever Changes was the third studio album by the group simply and boldly called Love.  But more than just that four-letter word was on the mind of bandleader/songwriter Arthur Lee, who saw more than sunshine and flowers that summer.  Love traded in the punchy electric guitar sound of the group’s first two albums (and successful singles like “7 and 7 Is” and a cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “My Little Red Book”) for a denser, more orchestrated style that incorporated strings and horns alongside acoustic guitars.  Despite the often beautiful sound, though, Forever Changes was a song suite that referenced war, violence, drug abuse, failed romance and racial tension in songs like “A House is Not a Motel” (playing off another Bacharach/David song, “A House is Not a Home”), “The Red Telephone” and “Live and Let Live.”  Bryan MacLean contributed the album’s single “Alone Again Or” which kicked off the album in a collision of AM-meets-FM styles.

Forever Changes has always been better-regarded in the United Kingdom than in its United States birthplace; it went Top 30 in Britain but only reached No. 154 in America.  That hasn’t stopped the album’s cachet from growing every year, however, and it’s been celebrated in a number of reissues.  The original 1987 CD of Forever Changes (Elektra 74013-2) retained the original track listing of the LP, and it was included in its entirety on Rhino’s 1995 double-disc anthology Love Story.  In 2000, Rhino reissued the album with a brace of seven bonus tracks as R2 76717.  These included demos, alternate mixes, outtakes, single sides and session highlights.  A bare-bones mini-LP replica was released on CD in 2007 (Elektra/Rhino R2 74802) and a standard edition was released again (this time, in a jewel case) in 2011 at a budget price point.   In 2008, though, the Rhino label issued the most comprehensive version of the album to date.  The 2008 Collectors’ Edition (Elektra/Rhino R2 428796) featured the original album only as Disc 1, while Disc 2 included a complete Alternate Mix as well as ten more bonus tracks.  This edition, partially remastered by Steve Hoffman, is the definitive version of this album.

39. The Beatles – Please Please Me (Parlophone, 1963)

The debut long-player from Liverpool’s favorite lads, Please Please Me was rush-released by Parlophone after The Beatles had taken the United Kingdom by storm with the singles “Please Please Me” and “Love Me Do.”  Of the album’s fourteen songs (a common number for U.K. albums of the time, whereas U.S. releases usually had twelve), eight were Lennon/McCartney originals.  Ten songs were recorded in a whirlwind day to supplement the four previously-released single sides.  Under such inauspicious circumstances was a classic born by John, Paul, George and Ringo, and producer George Martin.  Originals like “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Love Me Do,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Do You Want to Know a Secret” and the title song were joined by covers of Goffin and King’s “Chains,” Burt Bacharach, Mack David and Barney Williams (Luther Dixon)’s “Baby, It’s You,” Phil Medley and Bert Russell (Bert Berns)’s “Twist and Shout,” and Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow’s  ubiquitous “A Taste of Honey.”

The original 1987 CD (Capitol CDP 7 46435-2) was the first time Please Please Me saw an American release; its tracks were released in America on such U.S.-only LPs as Vee-Jay’s Introducing…the Beatles and Capitol’s The Early Beatles.  In 2009, the entire Beatles catalogue was remastered, and a new CD of Please Please Me (Capitol 09463 82416-2) replaced the 1987 issue.  It was, of course, included in the complete Beatles stereo box set (Capitol 50999 69944-9) .  The album was also released on CD in mono as part of the Beatles in Mono box set (Parlophone/EMI 50999 69945-1, 2009).

After the jump, we’ll traverse some Muddy Waters, head west and check into the Hotel California!

Even More “ICON” Titles on the Way

Mark your calendars, friends: a new batch of ICON budget compilations are due from Universal.

Between May 3 and 24, UMe is releasing a clutch of ICON sets that run the gamut from country (Willie Nelson, Hank Williams) to R&B (New Edition, Kelly Price), from classics (The Mamas & The Paps, Louis Armstrong) to modern day heroes (Gin Blossoms, Rob Zombie). As usual, there’s not much in the way of brand-new or rare material, although some titles have some one-off tunes to their credit. Others, namely Willie Nelson and Louis Armstrong, cover the lesser-known periods of each artist, so that’s certainly notable.

Really, the only set that might have something unreleased is the double-disc ICON from Rob Zombie. The All Music Guide listing states that the 2-CD version of “Mars Needs Women” is a “new version”; whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but it would be a rare moment of welcome vault material for the series. Both single and double-disc versions of the Rob Zombie set are due out May 3, while the remainder are out on May 24. Read the track lists after the jump and order them at Amazon here.

A Dozen “Playlist” Sets Due in May

Love ’em or hate ’em, the various budget compilations that come from the major labels are quick, easy ways to get catalogue material out to the masses. Universal’s ICON and Sony’s Playlist series are probably the highest-profile of these series, but the latter is arguably the more beloved of the two, thanks to a concerted effort by some of the producers at Legacy to get rarer tracks on the Playlist discs, whether it’s a rare single version or bonus track from a previous reissue.

Legacy has 12 new Playlist titles ready to go for next month, and we have the track lists for all but one of them (a compilation for Dionne Warwick). As usual, the selection runs the gamut between genres, from ’80s indie rock (The The, The Psychedelic Furs) and blues (Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters – who ironically has an ICON release due out next month, too), soul (Teena Marie, recently also honored in the ICON series; early Philly-soul band The Intruders), power-pop (Matthew Sweet), jazz (Dave Brubeck) and even older country (Marty Robbins). There’s also a multi-artist ’80s metal compilation with a title (Now Hair This!) that someone at Sony better have gotten promoted for. (It certainly makes up for the fact that not all the tracks on said set are from the ’80s!)

It’s also nice to see the label group license a few tracks from other places; Janis Ian’s debut single for Verve and long latter-day indie career is represented on her Playlist entry, while Motown contributes one early track for Teena Marie’s set. All these sets will be available May 10; pre-order links can be found here and almost all the track lists can be found after the jump (we’ll post the Dionne one as soon as we have it!).