Mike Bloomfield Telecaster specs?

Lou Kash

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Hello all!

I've recently read Elijah Walds book, Dylan Goes Electric! Leading me to start relistening to the Newport songs as well as highway 61 revisited and in the process have really falling in love with Bloomfield playing especially at Newport. I know there are the videos from Stewmac and GE Smith but I still have a few questions on Bloomfield 1963 telecaster. Primarily is it blonde or Olympic white, alder or ash, and who makes the best 60s style pickup and wiring harness to get that tone?! Thinking Fred Staurt... Bonus points of anyone knows what amps they were rocking at Newport :p
 
fenderchamp

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Mike Bloomfield Gear Question

Hi Im not sure if this has been addressed here before, and I apologize if it has, but does anybody know the type of Tele that Mike Bloomfield used in Bob Dylan's electric perfomance of Maggie's Farm at Newport? What year, pups, etc. Any help would be appreciated.
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fenderchamp

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The main thing would be to have the stones and confidence and conviction as a player to rock that tone! Naked, brash and bright and evil and way out exposed and in front of everything. That whole performance the whole band is just balls-out and exposed, ferocious and vulnerable at the same time. If you are willing and, and able to play like that, the pickup and the amp and body wood are moot. If you can bring that at all, you can bring that with anything.



similar to this great old Johnny winter show. I think Michael is even more out there and exposed though.



both performances awe me. And in both cases the gear is transcended by the magnificence and power of the performer. "Lord to forgive me, for my si-i-in"

Pickups schmickups....
 
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pbenn

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Thought Bloomfield's Tele was '63, and bought in a store where it was hanging... so possibly early '63.
Isn't there a difference in Tele pickups between '63 and '64?
(Like there is with Strat grey bottom/black bottom)
(Side issues: Cropper, Tedesco, maybe more definitive '63s).
 
wabashslim

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telemnemonics said:
A totally typical normal pickup and wiring got that sound, do not worry that you need a special pickup set. Not hot not blues not 52 not black guard not boutique no PIO no treble bleed no reverse control plate just total plain jane

work on your touch instead.
Click to expand...
Low-capacitance cable? SS frets? Round or flat-top knobs? Callaham cryo-dipped hardware? C'mon man, there's GOT to be a secret!
 
SnidelyWhiplash

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pbenn said:
Thought Bloomfield's Tele was '63, and bought in a store where it was hanging... so possibly early '63.
Isn't there a difference in Tele pickups between '63 and '64?
(Like there is with Strat grey bottom/black bottom)
(Side issues: Cropper, Tedesco, maybe more definitive '63s).
Click to expand...

There is a video where Dan Erlewine takes MB's tele apart. The neck is dated 9/3/63. 😀
 
Mike M

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fenderchamp said:
The main thing would be to have the stones and confidence and conviction as a player to rock that tone! Naked, brash and bright and evil and way out exposed and in front of everything. That whole performance the whole band is just balls-out and exposed, ferocious and vulnerable at the same time. If you are willing and, and able to play like that, the pickup and the amp and body wood are moot. If you can bring that at all, you can bring that with anything.



similar to this great old Johnny winter show. I think Michael is even more out there and exposed though.



both performances awe me. And in both cases the gear is transcended by the magnificence and power of the performer. "Lord to forgive me, for my si-i-in"

Pickups schmickups....
Click to expand...


And he treated his guitars like tools, not totems. Love the story of him showing up often, with just the guitar in a bag


"He also had little regard for the care and maintenance of his increasingly valuable guitars, often schlepping his Les Paul or Telecaster to a gig without bothering to put it in its case. There are reports of Michael taking a bus to an evening's performance, his guitar in his lap with its cord dangling on the floor."

 
fenderchamp

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Reputedly he was pretty rough on gear, and on himself too.

He sure did die young (I guess not compared to Jimi Hendrix).

I remember that his picture and a blurb, was in some old "Improvising Rock Guitar" book that I got from a friend when I was kid, I think it's still on a shelf in the basement maybe?



He might have even written the intro?
I never had the record, so I just heard that for the first time today. Fox on the Run!

I sort of remember hearing that he had died, probably in guitar player magazine. I think the only things I had heard from him firsthand at that time was some of the music off of Highway 61 probably.



I bought the super session record, used, in the early-mid 80s, I still have my copy, it has a skip on the Steven stills side. I have listened to more and more of him over the years of course.

Music used to be so much harder and more costly to learn about and seek out and actually hear than it is now.

I just read a story about Bob Dylan and MB. In SFO for whatever reason, BD knocked on MB's door, finding MB watching an old movie on TV, BD asked him if he wanted to come along with him and see Etta James.

MB declined, said he was in the for the night and wanted to finish his movie.

You couldn't just pause and continue watching TV back then.

MB was gone around the dawn of VCRs.
 
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Charlie Bernstein

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telemnemonics said:
A totally typical normal pickup and wiring got that sound, do not worry that you need a special pickup set. Not hot not blues not 52 not black guard not boutique no PIO no treble bleed no reverse control plate just total plain jane

work on your touch instead.
Click to expand...
'Zackly.

G.E. Smith has a nice video about the guitar:



So does luthier-to-the-stars Dan Erlwine. Pickups and pots were swapped out somewhere along the line. If you're feeling ambitious, you can compare the ages Dan gives to the dates (if you can find 'em) of when your favorite Bloomfield recordings were made. But as Telemnemonics says, what you're hearing is pretty much stock parts:

 
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telemnemonics

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Charlie Bernstein said:
'Zackly.

G.E. Smith has a nice video about the guitar:



So does luthier-to-the-stars Dan Erlwine. Pickups and pots were swapped out somewhere along the line. If you're feeling ambitious, you can compare the ages Dan gives to the dates (if you can find 'em) of when your favorite Bloomfield recordings were made. But as Telemnemonics says, what you're hearing is pretty much stock parts:

Click to expand...

The Tragicomedy of Tele gear chat is that newer players seeking Tele tone buy proper Telecasters and get that ice pick tone then get on gear forums and complain about the terrible ice pick Tele tone, joined by all the rest of the newer players who have not yet learned that a Tele is a tool like a hammer or saw and if your results suck you need to work on some skills, not change the tool into something that cannot do bad work.

Of course a few of us explain our varied ways of working with the old tools that keep getting reissued because all the old records made with the old tools sound so fine.

But the nature of gear chat is too scrutinize the gear and ignore the player.

What followed over the last 10-20 years is we got all these products designed to neuter the Telecaster into a tool that cannot slice & dice the room and drive everyone out if mishandled.

Hot overwound pickups, hemp cone speakers, EQ pedals, all plastic surgery to eliminate the Telecasters beauty which is a transparent sharp blade like no other that requires a good measure of touch and technique to create the master-tones we love yet may not all be willing to work for....
 
R

rschiller

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Lou Kash said:
Hello all!

I've recently read Elijah Walds book, Dylan Goes Electric! Leading me to start relistening to the Newport songs as well as highway 61 revisited and in the process have really falling in love with Bloomfield playing especially at Newport. I know there are the videos from Stewmac and GE Smith but I still have a few questions on Bloomfield 1963 telecaster. Primarily is it blonde or Olympic white, alder or ash, and who makes the best 60s style pickup and wiring harness to get that tone?! Thinking Fred Staurt... Bonus points of anyone knows what amps they were rocking at Newport :p
Click to expand...
Likely Mike was playing through a Twin-Reverb as he did with The Electric Flag. Mike Blookfield could have been playing with strings tied to a cigar box and broom stick and it would have still been great.
 
R

rschiller

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Lou Kash said:
Hello all!

I've recently read Elijah Walds book, Dylan Goes Electric! Leading me to start relistening to the Newport songs as well as highway 61 revisited and in the process have really falling in love with Bloomfield playing especially at Newport. I know there are the videos from Stewmac and GE Smith but I still have a few questions on Bloomfield 1963 telecaster. Primarily is it blonde or Olympic white, alder or ash, and who makes the best 60s style pickup and wiring harness to get that tone?! Thinking Fred Staurt... Bonus points of anyone knows what amps they were rocking at Newport :p
Click to expand...
Likely Mike was playing through a Twin-Reverb as he did with The Electric Flag. Mike Blookfield could have been playing with strings tied to a cigar box and broom stick and it would have still been great.
 
R

rschiller

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Joined
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Lou Kash said:
Hello all!

I've recently read Elijah Walds book, Dylan Goes Electric! Leading me to start relistening to the Newport songs as well as highway 61 revisited and in the process have really falling in love with Bloomfield playing especially at Newport. I know there are the videos from Stewmac and GE Smith but I still have a few questions on Bloomfield 1963 telecaster. Primarily is it blonde or Olympic white, alder or ash, and who makes the best 60s style pickup and wiring harness to get that tone?! Thinking Fred Staurt... Bonus points of anyone knows what amps they were rocking at Newport :p
Click to expand...
Likely Mike was playing through a Twin-Reverb as he did with The Electric Flag. Mike Blookfield could have been playing with strings tied to a cigar box and broom stick and it would have still been great.
 
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