The mythology of 1960s blues rock says authenticity requires a dusty road and empty pockets. Mike Bloomfield shattered that assumption. Born Michael Bernard Bloomfield in Chicago in 1943, heir to a catering equipment fortune with a 50,000-dollar-a-year trust fund, he was expelled from the prestigious New Trier High School in 1959 for performing a raucous rock and roll song at a school gathering. After seeing Josh White perform, the suburban teenager began taking the train to Chicago's segregated South Side, where he did not just watch Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King and Sleepy John Estes but got on stage with them and held his own. This episode explores how that unlikely figure revolutionized the electric guitar and why his name is not as widely known as the legends he played beside.

We trace the Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Elvin ...