In the pantheon of guitars and guitar music, certain names bear an unmistakable weight. Michael Bloomfield is a prime example. Any fan of guitar-driven blues music knows of the incredible draw of Bloomfield’s tone and technique.
Known primarily for playing a Fender Telecaster and a Gibson Les Paul Standard, he was not loyal or beholden to any particular instrument. In fact, other musicians with whom he associated tell stories about how little regard he had for his guitars; it’s somewhat ironic that one of the key players often credited for making the Les Paul Standard so valuable today actually abused his own guitars in jaw-dropping ways.
It has been 45 years since Bloomfield passed away. Born July 28, 1943, in Chicago, he grew up in a privileged suburban household. His father worked in the restaurant supply business and held several related patents, including one for the ubiquitous glass sugar canister with the stainless steel trap-door top. He also invented the classic diner-tyle coffee maker that can still be seen in restaurants everywhere. In the mid ’60s, he sold the rights to those and other patents to Beatrice Foods, a company that made food-processing equipment, and walked away with millions.
Despite his upbringing and access to wealth, Michael Bloomfield followed a musical calling. After discovering the sounds of Elvis Presley and Scotty Moore, then the electrified blues created by Chicago artists, at age 13 Bloomfield got a guitar and became immersed in the city’s music. At 14, he began to frequent South Side clubs to watch Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Howling Wolf, Magic Sam, and others. He earned a reputation for jumping onstage to jam – even if he wasn’t always invited! To the audiences and performers in those clubs, though, what started as something of a novelty – this white kid who wasn’t the least bit shy about jamming with these blues heavyweights – quickly evolved into acceptance. His skills soon had him earning accolades from the likes of B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Waters, and more. Along the way, he discovered a group of young players who, like himself, paid little mind to their skin color as they established themselves as fans who could hold their own on a stage – guys like Paul Butterfield, Nick Gravenites, Charlie Musselwhite, and Elvin Bishop.
When he died in 1981, Bloomfield left a rich musical legacy. Just 37 at the time, he had recorded and toured with the Butterfield Blues Band, and co-founded The Electric Flag. As a session guitarist, he played on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, which includes “Like a Rolling Stone,” and was onstage at Newport in ’65, when Dylan first “went electric.” Dylan once called him “…the best guitar player I’d ever heard.”
While he played different guitars through the course of his career, he is best known for the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard he acquired in the spring of 1967 from Dan Erlewine by trading a ’54 Les Paul goldtop and $100.
That iconic ’59 ’Burst, which was featured on the cover of Super Session and on the July ’97 cover of VG, disappeared in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1974 or ’75; it’s difficult to determine an exact date, as various witnesses remember events differently.
The story behind the guitar’s disappearance starts with Bloomfield being booked at The Cave, a nightclub in Vancouver, for a five-night run. But after one night, Bloomfield left the gig, bound for his home in San Francisco and leaving behind his band and his gear. The owner of the club, Stan Grozina, kept the Les Paul Standard and a blue Fender Telecaster also belonging to Bloomfield.
What happened next is a story untold for more than 50 years!
Although the exact time line is unclear, at some point – probably the week after Bloomfield’s departure – a man named Chris Okey went to The Cave to see another San Francisco band, Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs. Okey was talking with members of the band when one told him Grozina had the guitars left behind by Bloomfield. Okey had seen Bloomfield perform earlier at another Vancouver club and, as a guitar player himself, remembered both instruments. He recalled how during that performance, while playing the Les Paul, Bloomfield, ”Just released the strap from the top button and let the guitar fall to the stage for the sound it made.”
Interested, Okey met with Grozina, who mentioned that Bloomfield was “…always acting like a little kid.”
Then, Grozina brought out a black Fender case which opened to reveal a blue Telecaster. Okey recognized it immediately and asked the price. Grozina told him, “$1,000.” Okey then asked if there was another guitar and out came another black case and in it was a tiger striped Les Paul, which although beat up was clearly Bloomfield’s ’59. “How much for that one?” he asked. “Also $1,000,” came the reply. Okey didn’t have the money for both, so he negotiated the price for the Les Paul to $980. “I wanted to get the price under four figures,” Okey said.
For two years afterward, Okey used the guitar to play club dates around British Columbia and the Toronto area – the only musician after Bloomfield to gig with it.
Today, Okey recalls how the guitar’s neck “…had a crack down to the fourth fret, and the bridge pickup was starting to go microphonic. And there were dents and chunks in the finish on the back of the neck.”
In fact, Okey called the guitar badly beat up. “The tailpiece had hardly any chrome left and the tailpiece studs were rusty,” he said. And contrary to popular belief, “The knobs weren’t mismatched; the chrome tops had popped off two of them, making them reflect light differently.” The bobbins of both P.A.F. pickups were mismatched, which is known in the vernacular as “zebra coils.”
Okey swapped out the chrome parts and had the back of the neck refinished. He replaced the Grover tuners with nickel-buttoned keys, and, as was his custom, carved his surname in the back of the guitar and in the cavity under the neck pickup.
One night, while still in Vancouver, Okey heard that the band Heart was doing a club date. A staple on the Vancouver bar scene in the ’70s, the band had started to make serious waves on the radio. Okey took the Les Paul to the show, where both Howard Leese and Roger Fisher played it that night. Today, Fisher has a vague recollection of the night, and was influenced by Bloomfield, especially the East-West album.
“I do remember playing the guitar in Vancouver, as it meant a lot to me,” said Howard Leese. “I was a huge Paul Butterfield Blues Band fan, and saw them at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach with the classic East-West lineup. Bloomfield was awe-inspiring – so fluent, such fire.
“Shortly after that, he put together the Electric Flag, and we all ditched high school and hitchhiked up to Royce Hall at U.C.L.A. to see them play. They also played at a love-in in a park, and their set ended suddenly when police on horses moved through the crowd. Bloomfield had two sunburst Les Pauls that day and played through two Twin-Reverbs atop Dual Showman cabinets. His tone was clear and clean, not much distortion, so you could really hear what he was playing. He is one of my all-time guitars heroes.”
After returning to Toronto, Okey decided to sell the guitar and recalls that in the mid ’70s, he did just that. The buyer was Ken Goodwin, who remembers that Okey was asking $2,500, but they settled on $1,600. Goodwin was part of the Toronto collector scene, and one point had four late-’50s Les Paul Standards, including the Bloomfield guitar, and two late-’50s Gibson Flying Vs. He owned the Bloomfield guitar for approximately five years, during which it was seen by many players in the area and was perpetually for sale.
“When the Bloomfield guitar came to my house in the ’70s along with another ’Burst, I was offered both!” recalled Toronto-based guitarist Danny Marks. “And in one of those moments of great regret, I turned them down. The Bloomfield guitar had the busted neck and stuff, and in those days, a few thousand bucks was hard to lay one’s hands on. It seemed like so much money!’
Goodwin sold the Bloomfield guitar circa 1980, and in 1986, the person believed to be the current owner took it to John Bride, a well-known Toronto-area guitarist/instrument repairman, for fret work. Bride declined, aiming to preserve the integrity of the guitar. But while the guitar was in his shop, he shot a few photos, one of which is shown here.
Today, the guitar lives a rather incognito existence. Though there are people in Toronto who know who has it and where it is, none would comment on its exact whereabouts for this feature.
So, what is the Bloomfield ’Burst worth today? That is, of course, a matter of speculation. But certainly, if the guitar is, as renowned dealer/guitar historian George Gruhn surmises, the reason ’50s Les Paul Standards are so collectible today, then certainly, it is the holy grail solidbody guitar. Not one of – the!
As for placing a value on it, consider that in 2004, Eric Clapton’s black Fender Stratocaster known as Blackie sold for $959,500 at auction. Rumor suggests Microsoft’s Paul Allen paid over $2 million for the Stratocaster played by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock (and recently seen in the hands of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, VG, February ’11). ’50s Les Paul Standards have long been among the most expensive collectible electric guitars; the Bigsby-equipped ’59 played by Keith Richards during the Rolling Stones’ appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” reportedly fetched more than $1 million. What would Mike Bloomfield’s Les Paul be worth today? Certainly, more than the $980 paid by Chris Okey!
John Picard (a.k.a. Mister Zero) is the guitarist for The Kings, which scored a Top 100 hit in 1980 with “This Beat Goes On”/“Switchin’ to Glide” and continues to perform today.
This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
