FM
History
The Electric Flag, formed in 1967, was a blues rock soul group that consisted of guitarist Mike Bloomfield, drummer/vocalist Buddy Miles, vocalist Nick Gravenites, keyboardist Barry Goldberg, and bassist Harvey Brooks. Bloomfield formed Electric Flag after his stint with The Butterfield Blues Band. The band reached its peak with the 1968 release, A Long Time Comin', a fusion of rock, jazz, and R&B styles that charted well in the Billboard Magazine Pop Albums listings. The Flag's initial recording was a soundtrack for The Trip, a movie about an LSD experience by Peter Fonda, written by Jack Nicholson, done with director Roger Corman.
With his great appreciation for blues, soul, and R&B, Mike Bloomfield wanted to create a group of his own that would feature what he called "American music." He was inspired not only by the big band blues of B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, and Guitar Slim (Eddie Jones), but also by the contemporary soul sounds of Otis Redding, Steve Cropper, Booker T & the MGs, and other Stax recording artists. He also drew inspiration from traditional country, gospel, and blues forms. He organized the Electric Flag, initially called the American Music Band, in the spring of 1967, not long after he produced a session with Chicago harp player James Cotton that featured a horn section. Bloomfield decided that his new band would also have horns and would play an amalgam of those American musics he loved. He and Goldberg assembled the group, under Albert Grossman's management, in San Francisco and immediately began working on its first project -- the soundtrack for the film The Trip.
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