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The Electric Flag was a blues rock soul group, led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, keyboardist Barry Goldberg and drummer Buddy Miles, and featuring other well-known musicians such as vocalist Nick Gravenites and bassist Harvey Brooks. Bloomfield formed Electric Flag in 1967, following 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. Their initial recording was a soundtrack for The Trip, a movie about an LSD experience by Peter Fonda, written by Jack Nicholson, and directed by Roger Corman.
Though the Electric Flag was together in its original configuration less than a year, the band made a strong impression on critics and musicians, primarily in the San Francisco area where they were based. One of the first rock groups to include horns, the Electric Flag preceded the earliest edition of Blood, Sweat and Tears with Al Kooper.
Al Kooper left BS&T in April 1968, and was inspired by a jam recording with Moby Grape to the organize the similarly structured Super Session album. He included Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg and, after Bloomfield left the session due to a bout of insomnia, Stephen Stills. Bloomfield and Kooper also toured together, while drummer and vocalist Buddy Miles went on to form the Buddy Miles Express and also play in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys. Bloomfield also developed a solo career, commencing with the release of It's Not Killing Me in 1969, and which included former Electric Flag bandmate Marcus Doubleday on sax.
A reunion of sorts took place in 1974, with the Electric Flag releasing The Band Kept Playing, but the recording was not a commercial or critical success and the band quickly disbanded after several months of sporadic gigs.
On July 28 and 29, 2007, a concert took place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Monterey Pop Festival. One of the acts featured was a one-time reunion of The Electric Flag, anchored by original members Gravenites, Goldberg, and Hunter, backed by members of the Tower of Power and The Blues Project. The one hour set featured material from the first album, as well as several blues covers.
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