Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation entirely on his instrumental prowess. Respected for his fluid guitar playing, Bloomfield, who knew and played with many of Chicago's blues legends even before he achieved his own fame, was one of the primary influences o...
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Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation entirely on his instrumental prowess. Respected for his fluid guitar playing, Bloomfield, who knew and played with many of Chicago's blues legends even before he achieved his own fame, was one of the primary influences on the mid-to-late 1960s revival of classic Chicago and other styles of blues music. In 2003 he was ranked at number 22 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Bloomfield was born into a wealthy Jewish family on Chicago's North Side but preferred music to the family catering equipment business, becoming a blues devotee as a teenager and spending time at Chicago's South Side blues clubs.
The young guitarist's talent "was instantly obvious to his mentors," wrote Al Kooper, Bloomfield's later collaborator and close friend, in a...
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