Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper — The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper

Having discovered and loved Super Session, I continued to acquire any number of albums I had previously ignored that featured, in some way or other, Mike Bloomfield or Al Kooper. I bought “Grape Jam,” a tremendously enjoyable Moby Grape album that featured Al Kooper on one track and Mike Bloomfield on another. I bought a new release of The Electric Flag, I band I had utterly ignored before. I bought Sundazed’s re-release of “East-West,” and Bloomfield’s solo “It’s Not Killing Me.” I bought a soundtrack to a movie I’d never even heard of, “Steel Yard Blues,” because it featured Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites (of Electric Flag, among millions of other things). And then during a sale at Sundazed last month, I got this beauty.

Well.

I thought I loved Super Session, a loose, little jam sesh. This followup to that is all Kooper and Bloomfield, completely live, and completely off the hook. Normally, I despise “The 59th Street Bridge Song.” Don’t know why, just do. But not here – their version (so different from Paul Simon’s) is sublime. Their version of “The Weight”? The version you want. “Green Onions”? Does not disappoint. The whole thing . . . wow. Musicians, man. When they’re on, they’re on.

This is another supremely well-recorded live album for the time (despite some glitches here and there, and a fairly mumbled intro by Bloomfield). Somehow, the Fillmore always seemed to get it right. It’s pretty much these two guys plus bass and drums, with Carlos Santana sitting in on one song and Elvin Bishop on another.