Mike Bloomfield: Porn Meets The Blues?
SAN FRANCISCO - Rock and porn performers may be collaborating and associating with high visibility nowadays, but the rock and porn connection began a lot further back than many may believe. The Mitchell Brothers' long-lost Ultra Core film series featured music composed and played by one of the most familiar - and respected - musicians of the 1960s, virtuoso guitar star Mike Bloomfield.
Longtime rumors have held that Bloomfield, who had done some mainstream film music during his career, was involved in at least some of the music for Behind the Green Door, the film which made both the Mitchell Brothers and leading lady Marilyn Chambers stars. The guitarist didn't even know the Mitchells or their people at that time, but later in the decade he did contribute music to Mitchell productions, according to Jeff Armstrong, general manager of the Mitchells' San Francisco club, the O'Farrell Theater.
"It was for Ultra Core, our series of 35mm films," Armstrong told AVN On The Net, warming to the subject when told it was Bloomfield. "One of the guys who worked (with the Mitchell Brothers) knew him, he lived in Marin County, and he did some tracks."
Armstrong said Bloomfield impressed everyone involved with both his music and his personality. "He was a real nice guy, from what I picked up," he said. "Our sound guy did the recording, I didn't personally work with him. But everybody thought he was really nice. Very cooperative and a great musician, he had a lot of fun ideas about the music."
Unfortunately, Armstrong said, the music won't easily be heard by listeners today who might be rediscovering Bloomfield's talent. "I don't think the music is available anymore," he said. "Ultra Core was pulled out of circulation."
Free Speech Coalition lobbyist Kat Sunlove, who was also making her way as a porn legend in the 1970s, didn't know Bloomfield or his work for the Mitchells, but she said it was no surprise that contemporary music and porn had connected even in those years. "They both emphasize freedom and personal choice," she said, "and expressing oneself in whatever medium you happen to be in, whether it's music or erotica."
Bloomfield's guitar playing was nothing if not about freedom of self-expression. Discovered by legendary talent scout John Hammond in 1964, Bloomfield's effortless, extended, lyrical improvised lines made him the first true guitar star of the post-Beatles 1960s, well before Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix became international stars. His trebly, sleek style involved an acute sense of tension-and-release and a thorough steeping in the blues he learned from the masters themselves as a precocious Chicago teenager.
In late 1964, Bloomfield joined the Butterfield Blues Band, which then kicked off a revival of the blues at which the Rolling Stones were hinting the same year. His work with Butterfield, the Electric Flag, and on the "structured jam" album collaborations with Al Kooper (Super Session and The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper) secured his reputation as one of the true guitar masters of the 1960s.
However, Bloomfield retreated from the spotlight in the 1970s, recording blues and roots music albums for numerous tiny record labels. One of those albums finally brought him recognition on his own terms. What he'd made as a near-throwaway for Guitar Player magazine, an album called If You Love These Blues, Play Them As You Feel Them, earned the guitarist a Grammy award in 1979 for best traditional blues album.
But it was too late to sustain Bloomfield's career. A lifelong insomniac, Bloomfield's desperation to overcome the condition led to drug addiction and, finally, his death of a drug overdose in his beloved San Francisco in 1981. He was 37 years old. The man familiar for his high curled hair and beatific expressions when playing his gold-topped guitar is buried in a crypt at Hillsdale Memorial Park in Culver City, Calif.
Two years ago, Columbia Records issued Live At The Waldorf, a compact disc showcasing music from rounds of informal live performances Bloomfield gave in San Francisco during the 1970s.
"I think it was the totality of his character I was impressed with," remembered Bloomfield's longtime friend and periodic music partner, Nick Gravenites, to rock journalist Jan Mark Wolkin. "Not only his musical ability, but also his intellect, his sense of humor, his compassion, his generosity, all those things that make up a human being. And those are my fondest memories, of character."
