LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

• 180 gram audiophile vinyl
• Gatefold sleeve
• Includes "Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong", "Feeling Groovy", "Green Onions" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy"

The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper is a double album recorded at the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco. The album is the follow-up to the studio album Super Session [MOVLP1530] which included both Bloomfield and Kooper in addition to Stephen Stills, and had achieved commercial and critical success earlier in 1968.

In regards to the performances, recordings and production, in the sleeve notes Kooper describes the difficulties of finding rehearsal space, Bloomfield's insomnia, and the failure of a vocal microphone during "Dear Mr Fantasy". The album is an important, if raw, document of a live blues-rock performance of the period and is notable for not only one of the earliest live recordings by Carlos Santana, but also Bloomfield's debut as a vocalist. Whilst he is not historically noted in this role, in "Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong", according to Kooper, "he displays consummate homage to the traditional guitar-voice trade-offs; a lesson in phrasing and understanding."

TRACK LISTING:

SIDE A

1 OPENING SPEECH 2 THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE SONG (FEELIN’ GROOVY) 3 I WONDER WHO 4 HER HOLY MODAL HIGHNESS

SIDE B

1. THE WEIGHT (LIVE)
2. MARY ANN
3. TOGETHER ‘TIL THE END OF TIME
4. THAT'S ALL RIGHT
5. GREEN ONIONS

SIDE C

1. OPENING SPEECH
2. SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON
3. NO MORE LONELY NIGHTS

SIDE D

1. DEAR MR. FANTASY
2. DON’T THROW YOUR LOVE ON ME SO STRONG
3. FINALE - REFUGEE