Product Review

On a search to find answers to the unsolved death of a renowned blues guitarist, author Aaron Skirboll unveils an under-appreciated American icon: Michael Bloomfield. Though today his name is hardly remembered, it’s Bloomfield’s guitar that glides through “Like a Rolling Stone,” killed folk, ushered in the age of psychedelia, and brought the blues to rock. It was his initiative that put Chicago legends Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and B.B. King in front of white audiences for the first time. But his career was cut short at thirty-seven years old when he was found dead in his car on the outskirts of San Francisco, the details surrounding his death unclear. The Last Night of the Guitar Virtuoso tells the story of the man before Clapton, Hendrix, Allman, or Page—the original guitar hero— Michael Bloomfield.



Aaron Skirboll is a journalist and author of The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven: How a Ragtag Group of Fans Took the Fall for Major League Baseball and The Thief-Taker Hangings: How Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard Captivated London and Created the Celebrity Criminal. Recently his work has appeared in the Smithsonian Magazine, Huffington Post, and Belt Magazine. He lives in Pennsylvania.



Cover design by Evan Twohy.