Like Cherry Red Records and Rough Trade in my youth, Liberation Hall has quickly become my go-to label. Unearthing a series of gems from various corners of rock music history, their logo has become a seal of quality and is a signpost that the music within is worthy of your time. Case in point being this live album from Mike Bloomfield; featuring a previously unreleased ten song set, captured two weeks before his untimely death, Dark Road Blues: Santa Cruz 1981 finds the guitar virtuoso at the peak of his powers and breathing new life into a selection of blues standards.

The blues isn’t something you can learn, it’s more a feeling, an inherent, innate quality that’s often born from a tragic backstory. That’s why the best blues comes from those most troubled and explains why Mike Bloomfield was such an authentic purveyor of this quintessentially African-American art form. The antisemitism that Mike endured growing up allowed him to inhabit the blues and feel their intrinsic pain (it also led to manic depression and a fatal overdose), meaning he was given the ultimate seal of approval by B.B. King and Muddy Waters. That’s precisely why this recording sounds so genuine, and no more so than on Willie Lofton’s ‘Dark Road Blues’, the track which opens this disc and from where it gets its title. A set of two halves, the first finds Mike at the piano and hitting the ebonies particularly hard and countering them with equally tenebrous vocals. The result is dark and oppressive because, well, that’s what good blues is; it’s the type of sound you’d expect to hear emanating from a late night backstreet dive bar, the likes of ‘I Don’t Know’ beckoning you in with a crooked finger. It is with a heart wrenching rendition of Jimmy Cox’s ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’ (made famous by Bessie Smith) that the piano-led section of the show comes to an emotional finale, a track that works because Mike brings just enough of himself whilst staying true to the original.

The second part of this disc finds Mike on more familiar ground. Having come to prominence via his electrifying work on Bob Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited and as an integral part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, it’s safe to say that Mike knew his way around a fretboard. Like all the best guitarists, Mike understood that sometimes it’s not what you play but what you don’t; good music is all about leaving space for this listener to infer their own meaning and songs such as ‘Kansas City Blues’ afford plenty of opportunity for that. What really shines through is the sheer depth of Mike’s musical knowledge as he tackles the country-tinged ‘T.B. Blues’, the traditional folk tune ‘Frankie & Johnny’ and the pure blues of Robert Johnson’s ‘Come On Into My Kitchen’, whilst switching between slide and fingerpicking techniques, all of which render Mike Bloomfield the all-round musician.

This gig was recorded on 31st January 1981 and Mike would be found dead two weeks later at the age of 37. It’s an age when bluesmen are just coming into their prime and that renders this disc bittersweet; the avenues he explores hint at what he could have achieved, yet it’s also a celebration that captures Mike at the peak of his powers. Dark Road Blues: Sanat Cruz 1981 is the complete, perfect package.

• Dark Road Blues: Santa Cruz 1981 is released via Liberation Hall and is available now (from here).

Track List:

1. Dark Road Blues
2. Mean Mistreater Mama
3. I Don’t Know
4. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
5. Kansas City Blues
6. T.B. Blues
7. Country Mechanic
8. Frankie & Johnny
9. Fool For A Cigarette/Feelin’ Good
10. Come Into My Kitchen