He was all about the truth of touch, transmitted from an electric guitar down a patch cord to a combo amp. (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)“Mike was irrepressible,” says blues keyboardist Mark Naftalin, Bloomfield’s Butterfield bandmate and lifelong musical collaborator. Bloomfield onstage in New York CIty with Paul Butterfield and bassist Jerome Arnold of the Butterfield Blues Band, circa 1966. He opted instead to throw his lot in with a new group he’d just joined, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)The Butterfield Blues Band was an early exponent of the blues as a platform for adventurous musical experimentation and improvisation.