Sunday, February 1, 2015

Dead Silence - the guys who had the name first...

 

Apparently there are (were) not one, but two Colorado bands going by Dead Silence.

This post is about the first one, formed in 1980 (Ken Just, Brooke Besser, Perry Gragas, and E.D. Meyers). They were only together about five years, but made quite an impression on the harder edge local music scene. Bummer they only released one single.


(DSR 001/ 1984)

Looks like they're still in business, with a CDBaby page of never-to-vinyl songs available.

Good stuff. Dig in, but don't hurt your neck.

Imogene (Gene) Bloomfield



 I first ran across the name Gene Bloomfield on the 1983 Ace Ball album, Ace Ball Sings Gene Bloomfield And Some Of His Own. You can read all about Ace's Pueblo years here.



 Not much is known about Imogene Eleanor BloomfieldFound out she was born in 1914, and the 1940 census shows she lived in Illinois with her husband, Leo (who passed away in 1972).

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, in 1949 she penned "Forever and a Day" with song-a-minute guy David Hall of Nordyke Publishing, the big song poem racket out of Los Angeles.

Somewhere along the way the Bloomfields made it to Pueblo, where she continued to write songs, eventually partnering with Ball.  At the age of 71 she recorded what is believed to be her only solo record, the endearing "My Letter of Prayer." Found this demo via my buddy Joel Scherzer.



She left this world in 1992 and is buried, next to Leo, at the Imperial Cemetery, off the Beulah Highway.