"Guitar King" Rules!

The University of Texas Press has published “Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield’s Life in the Blues,” by my friend David Dann, of Livingston Manor. At 740 pages and weighing in at more than 3 lbs., this thing is not a book — it’s a TOME.

Over 10 years of meticulous research, Dann conducted hundreds of interviews with Bloomfield’s family, friends and colleagues, to present Michael Bloomfield’s entire life for the first time. Rock ‘n’ roll fans know Bloomfield as the great Butterfield Blues Band and Electric Flag guitarist, but he was so much more than that: He was also the guy whose astonishing artistry brought appreciation for the blues to white Americans. And here we have the behind-the-scenes story of Bloomfield’s life and adventures, both onstage and off.

Dann chronicles Bloomfield’s early years as a well-to-do, suburban Jewish kid who wanted nothing more than to be a poor, black Chicago blues player, and takes us through the acquisition of his astonishing musical skills and knowledge; his loves and friendships with the greats of blues and rock; the tragically short trajectory of his career; and his mysterious, drug-related death. Every lick of it is carefully notated, and there’s a bibliography, discography, and beautiful black-and-white photos as well.

There has not been a more thorough history of any 20th-century musician and there have been few more entertaining and heartbreaking stories of any human being, than “Guitar King.” Of course, it’s the biography of Michael Bloomfield, but it’s also the history of rock and the blues, and the social history of mid-20th-century America, as well.

You’re gonna love it.

“Guitar King” should be nominated for a Pulitzer for biography. WHAT a great book!