Great choices garebear! Hearing Bloomfield on the What's Shakin' album in '66 was a game-changer. That's when he was in The Butterfield Blues Band, who introduced a lot of us white suburban kids to Blues. I saw Mike live in The Electric Flag in '68, and he was just great, as was drummer Buddy Miles. About as "punchy" a drummer as I've ever seen, along with Keith Moon. But Buddy could lay down a killer shuffle, which British guys aren't so hot at. No offense, Keith lovers!
Hubert Sumlin is credited with creating the tone all Rock 'n' Roll guitarists wanted to get after hearing Hubert on the Howlin' Wolf albums. Jeff Beck used the Gibson Maestro distortion pedal to imitate that sound on "Heart Full of Soul", but that artificial distortion is nowhere as cool as Hubert's organic tone. It took awhile, but everybody finally found out it was using a low powered tube amp driven into clipping that was the secret. Great player, very influential. And Wolf himself, unmatched imo!
