Buddy Miles

[Analogman]

Which part...that they are forgotten...(true enough) or that they weren't necessarily that great musicians?? In the later case I would dare say that no one has ever mentioned Electric Flag here, not in relation to Mike Bloomfield or anyone else, since their albums have barely stayed in print and weren't really all that renowned even when they were new.

 

Even Bloomfield, who was unquestionably a fine musician and a musical pioneer, put out some gawd aweful albums on his own. Once he got past his days in the Butterfield Blues Band and his couple albums with Al Kooper, never lived up to the promise of his early years and died pre-maturely.

 

All this may be arguable, but clearly a group like Electric Flag were a product of a time that has long since passed; even the name of the group sounds dated......

 

LouieB

 

I have to keep getting up to go do work - so I could be getting my wires crossed here.

 

But, for me there is no greater music that was made in the US/UK between say 1964-1974 - it has always been that way.

 

Sure - there is some other stuff I like - metal, the early 90s alt-country movement, U2/REM (to name a few).

 

When Mike Bloomfield plays a solo, I feel it all over the place. Is he just another forgotten junkie blues guitar player? Yes, probably so.

[LouieB]

I have to admit, I didn't know Buddy was even in Electric Flag, though I've heard of them, and am sure I've heard some of their stuff before. I think I always confused them with Moby Grape, though Moby Grape put out a lot more records ...

That Long Time Comin' album actually looks pretty interesting. I may have to add that to The List.

With all due respect to A-man (and I mean that without a hint of sarcrasim and will respond to him below...) it is truely refreshing for me to be able to come on here and remienice about a group like Electric Flag which is all but forgotten today. It was certainly Mike Bloomfield's finest moment as a solo artist in a sense, in that he was trying to make original white music, based on a black musical template, something he was deeply interested in and had a bit of talent for. Whether or not you would call Long Time Comin a really great album, everyone has to judge for themselves. I certainly enjoyed it back in my college days of the late 60s early 70s, but as I have already said, I am a bit shy to stick it on today (although I may soon) because it may be an embarrassment to my far more sophisticated musical taste (also not sarcasim, I know far more about real "black" music now than I did in my late teens.) Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

 

I have to keep getting up to go do work - so I could be getting my wires crossed here.

 

But, for me there is no greater music that was made in the US/UK between say 1964-1974 - it has always been that way.

 

Sure - there is some other stuff I like - metal, the early 90s alt-country movement, U2/REM (to name a few).

 

When Mike Bloomfield plays a solo, I feel it all over the place. Is he just another forgotten junkie blues guitar player? Yes, probably so.

Right.....knowing your taste (which is not so far off my taste) I don't disagree, nor would many people here who laud groups from that period as the high watermark of the genre. I am not bad rapping Bloomfield per se, since he was one of my first great musical heros as well. His work on the Butterfield albums and particularly on the Kooper albums were not only some of my favorite music of the period but some of the first records I both heard and collected that meant a whole ton to me. On the other hand, his first truly solo album "Its Not Killing Me" I remember (not incorrectly) as being unlistenable even when it came out. Bad songwriting and bad arrangements and few guitar solos make it a total mess. On the other hand the Electric Flag albums were great fun to listen to for a white kid who didn't have all that much experience listening to real soul music or jazz at the time. Soul was played on the radio, but little deep soul made the top 40 and jazz was not yet something I was into, because like everyone else I was a rock and roll kid, who believed that the Rolling Stones and Cream were the greatest blues musicians in the world (little did I know....) (And of course let's not forget for a minute Bloomfield's participation in the seminal Dylan sessions, but I guess that goes without saying...) It is for that same reason that Bloomfield's decline and fall is so tragic (he died in 81) and why even now hearing that Buddy Miles passed away is met here by most people with only a shrug. While he appeared on plenty of albums, he has been out of the limelight for several decades.

 

I don't have a point here, except the usual one on my pinhead......but I know for a fact that a band like Wilco could play the crap out of Electric Flag any day of the week. (And the Total Pros give them that groovy soul sound to boot.) That doesn't diminish the accomplishments of certian musical pioneers, but it also doesn't encourage me to slide the old vinyl of Long Time Comin (and even longer time gone now...) out of the jacket and onto the turntable (but then again I have to log off and go pick up Brother Ray at school), but perhaps I will later today, or maybe I won't and instead let my imagination remember how much fun listening to it used to be four decades ago. (Gawd.....)

 

LouieB

[jc4prez]

Yea, your dad is probably in the same age category as both Buddy and me.....

 

Clearly no one here but me has either of the Electric Flag LPs.....they were all the rage back in the day.

 

LouieB

 

 

Nope, I have the first one. Some really good cuts but your right they do sound a bit dated now.

[Analogman]

Well, really, we are talking about blues based rock versus whatever it is that Wilco runs on these days - two different trips, I would think.

[jff]

Clearly no one here but me has either of the Electric Flag LPs.....they were all the rage back in the day.

 

LouieB

 

 

I have a cassette comp of theirs. Some of the stuff is very good, some is so-so. It's too horn dominated for my taste, especially considering Bloomfield was the guitarist.

[jff]

Your average guitarist these days can probably out play Mike Bloomfield even in his pre-heroin days.

 

I couldn't disagree more.

[LouieB]

I couldn't disagree more.

Yea, I know most people do......

 

Bloomfield was a very fine guitarist, but there are now tons of folks who can do exactly what he taught himself to do in the 60s. Music education is just that much better and people's awareness of how to play and what to play is far greater than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Bloomfield had to go to clubs and study what the musicians were doing. He also played a kind of music that was not yet in vogue, so he sort of got there first as well. This is not to say he wasn't good, but your average musician now can find out stuff about music that they couldn't all those years ago, including s pending alot of time with digital recordings which you can stop and start (and slow down too) at will.

 

Having seen live music for many years I have no doubt that musicians are better now, which is not to be confused with them playing with more "soul", more style, or more personality, which Bloomfield had plenty of. But your average musician, playing clubs and having a limited exposure to both music theory and musical styles 50 or more years ago, was at a greater disadvantage than musicians now, who can access (and actually go see) music of all types.

 

It is a well known fact that Lester Young could only play in a handful of musical keys, but you would be hard pressed to find a player with more style and emotion. It was only around the time of WWII that musicians figured out that playing stuff in a myriad of keys (and tempos and rhythms, etc.) would make their playng and composition more unique. Heck it wasn't all that long ago that people figured out you didn't have to play in 4/4 time (or 3/4 or 2/4), sing songs in the same basic meter and structure, or that you could sing about stuff besides love.

 

LouieB

[jc4prez]

Having seen live music for many years I have no doubt that musicians are better now, which is not to be confused with them playing with more "soul", more style, or more personality, which Bloomfield had plenty of. But your average musician, playing clubs and having a limited exposure to both music theory and musical styles 50 or more years ago, was at a greater disadvantage than musicians now, who can access (and actually go see) music of all types.

 

 

LouieB

 

 

This is so true. I think some of the easy accesses to training and the formalization has taken the soul out of a lot players. I have quite a few friends who've learned to play note for note with wes montgomery but have them solo on the same tune and there is something missing.

[Edie]

RIP Buddy.

 

Band of Gypsies was on our turntable incessantly the summer of '76, along with the Dead's American Beauty. Changes indeed.

[Calexico]

I may have to add that to The List.

 

 

 

You have A List too? Mine never seems to get any smaller no matter how much I buy.

 

 

Shame to go at that age, it is really no age at all when you look around at people like The Stones and even the B-52s are nearly 60 for feck's sake!

[jff]

Yea, I know most people do......

 

including s pending alot of time with digital recordings which you can stop and start (and slow down too) at will.

 

Duane Allman used his big toe to stop/start and back up his record player when he heard something he wanted to learn.

 

I still don't buy that the average guitarist can out play Bloomfield. Name some average guitarists from the present. Maybe we disagree with the meaning of average.