JD Simo plays the 1963 Fender Bloomfield Stratocaster Live at Carter Vintage. He is playing through a 1965 Fender Vibrolux. cartervintage.com/shop/fender... cartervintage.com/shop/fender...
There isn’t a style music JD just doesn’t tone crush. Dude was, is and always will be one of the greats. Edit: I do miss his Marshall tone though, my fav JD era
I saw him in 2015 at a free show in boulder he was still playing Marshalls I sat buy up front no one was near me. Everyone was like 20 feet back from me. It was killer just him and a wah and marshall stacks he played a 345 his red 335 and a 60 burst.
Great demo, way to kick it into gear towards the end and then end with that sweet neck position, then the slide work!! Whew!! That was some mighty fine a pickin and a playin!!
Micheal Bluefield, the quintessential example of a light burning twice as bright…but sadly only half as long. Electric Flag was thee most kick ass band in The Classic Era of Rock & Roll..
I was in college in the late 60s and early 70s in the San Francisco Bay Area and got to see Bloomfield several times in the Butterfield Blues Band. The first time was at the freshman welcome dance when I entered UC Berkeley in 1965. That dance featured 2 "unknown" bands. The new Jefferson Airplane and the Butterfield Blues Band, just in from Chicago. I remember remarking to my date, "They're pretty good." Hah, hah. I soon got familiar with their 2 albums at the time, and Bill Graham had them on the bill at the Fillmore with Cream a year or so later. A few years later I was in grad school in San Francisco and was familiar with the Electric Flag. I was a fledgling guitarist (still am 50 years later). I was jamming with a buddy when a guy knocks on the door. It was Marcus Doubleday, the trumpeter for the Flag. He asked to play my guitar, a Japanese LP copy, and proceeded to wring out the blues like I never could. I have always loved "Down on the Killing Floor" from the Flag's album. But the absolute Bloomfield peak for me was his solo in "I've Got A Mind to Give up Living". It's my nominee for the best traditional blues solo of all time. I religiously studied it until I could produce maybe 25% of what Bloomfield did in that song. I had most of the notes, but the suave smoothness was something Mike did that few could ever reproduce. These are among my fondest memories from my youth.
From the Carter site “Some sort of tension system, on the headstock, was used for the sympathetic strings and there are metal remnants of that visable.”
Saw JD when he was a kid doing his stint at Robert’s. It was obvious then that he was something special and has only gotten better and more authentic if that’s possible…
