In `65 Dylan closed the Newport Festival with Bloomfield and the rest of the band sans Butterfield.
“As far as I know, no one else out there plays like this…The guy that I always miss, and I think he`d still be around if he stayed with me, actually , was Mike Bloomfield. He could just flat out play. He had so much soul. And he knew all the styles, and he could play them so incredibly well.” Dylan 2009

That`s Bloomfield rocking out on Dylan`s Highway 61 album and in many senses Bloomfield paved the way for a multitude of great guitarists and bands. Here`s a video featuring a young Bloomfield interview PLUS the impossibly idiosyncratic slide sound, and equally impossibly desperate, twisted voice of blues legend Son House – soaked in tragedy, piss, blood, sweat and tears. Its Butterfield on the gob iron (harmonica). DIG…man!

Tomorrow I`m going to focus on Son House – who influenced Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Remember it`s a mystic thing people…you either got it or you aint.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

Call me old fashioned but the only thing I`ve ever thought was a great romantic, gothic and truly bluesy use for used guitar strings involved a tall tree, and a precariously balanced stool to dance with the devil upon…for a short while. Emo huh?

Or maybe I`ve just been listening to too much Beck Hansen…for awhile there he was definitely throwing down some Dylanesque skills both lyrically and instrumentally. I draw your attention here to Beck`s rough house cover of Dylan`s Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat in all it`s steampunk lo-fi, harp-dog magnificence. It`s great but covering Dylan is a bit like trying recreate Picasso with your local painter and decorator…scruffy!

With the rerun shows
And the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slop
He hung himself with a guitar string…

Anyway if you head over to Wear your music.org you can help out a large range of charities whilst decking yourself out in the old guitar strings of the famous.

Some of the guitar playing artists featured include Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Gregg Allman, Keith Richards, Les Paul, Pete Townsend, Peter Frampton, Steve Vai, and Slash. Let`s presume they clean these things first. I completely dig Clapton and all, and I grew up in the same village – you can read alot more about him here, but I`m not sure I want his microbes.

IF on the other hand you think this kind of thing is just a little too emo or skater boi and just not damn bluesy enough then why not throw your strings in the trash and give some money to charity anyway.

You have to ask yourself though what really happened to PUNK and ROCK and did Sid Vicious really have to die so the bourgeois could listen to Fall Out Boy?

You only have to listen to Axis Bold as Love and the Electric Ladyland album version of All Along the Watchtower to gain a vague idea of Hendrix fascination with Dylan`s oeuvre. Click here for more.