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Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop’s 2007 release Booty Bumpin’, captures the blues legend at home in front of a live audience, doing what he does best; stirring up a party with a bluesy stew of slide guitar and groovin’ rhythms. With a set featuring both old favorites and recent triumphs, the album exemplifies why Elvin has become one of the most respected and beloved artists to come out of the 60’s blues-rock explosion.

Growing up in the 1940s on a farm in Iowa with a loving but non-musical family, Elvin seldom heard music as a kid. “This was before TV,” Elvin says, “and on the radio you got a lot of Frank Sinatra and ‘How Much Is That Doggie In the Window’ type of stuff.” The family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Elvin was 10, in 1952. Tulsa was “totally segregated,” says Elvin, “I mean, hard core.” However, “the one thing they couldn’t segregate was the airwaves. When rock and roll started up, in the mid-’50s, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard showed up on white radio.”

And then, late one night when Elvin was 14 or 15, the atmospheric conditions a little rough, Jimmy Reed’s harmonica came cutting through the static from WLAC in Nashville, and Elvin Bishop’s life was changed. The song was “Honest I Do.” “That piercing harp came through, cutting in like a knife, and I said, ‘Oh, man, that’s it.’ I found out that blues was where the good part of rock and roll was coming from.”

And about that time, he started trying to play guitar. “I wanted to play it from the beginning,” Elvin says. “I kept trying and then quitting it, hurtin’ my fingers, playing those old pawn-shop guitars with the strings two inches off the fret board. Nobody I knew played.” But he kept after it. “Not being able to dance, and seeing how the musicians did with the girls, and loving the music, I finally stuck with it.”

Hooked on the sounds emerging from the radio, Elvin had to find out where they were coming from and who was responsible. When he was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in 1959, he could have gone to pretty much any college he wanted, but chose The University Of Chicago, because that’s where the blues were. And so he landed in the middle of one of the richest and most vital scenes in blues history. “Any night of the week you could hear Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Hound Dog Taylor, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, Bobby King, Eddie King, Little Smokey, Big Smokey, and a whole ton of people you never heard of.”

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217
Album Review

Elvin Bishop: Elvin Bishop’s Raisin’ Hell Revue

Read "Elvin Bishop’s Raisin’ Hell Revue" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Guitarist and singer Elvin Bishop enjoyed his greatest commercial success with the 1976 single “Fooled Around and Fell in Love" (from 1975's Struttin' My Stuff (Capricorn)). His importance to the development of classic rock, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the 1960s, is often overshadowed by that AM/FM confection as are his other recordings, especially Rock My Soul (Epic, 1972) and Let it Flow (Capricorn, 1974). While perhaps not a mainstay, Bishop was a solid presence ...

154
Album Review

Elvin Bishop: The Skin I'm In

Read "The Skin I'm In" reviewed by Ed Kopp


Speaking of funny, Elvin Bishop delivers hilarious good-time blues on The Skin I'm In, his third release for Alligator. Flavored with Bishop's sizzling guitar, Randy Forrester's tinkling piano, and a raucous horn section, Skin will make you dance AND smile. My favorite tracks deal humorously with middle age, though at 56, Bishop is closing in on his senior citizenship. The former Paul Butterfield guitarist still wields a nasty ax, and his Oklahoma drawl reminds me of Levon Helm, one of ...

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85

Radio

Rockwired.com's Latest Edition of Jazzed and Blue Presents: Singer and Russian Television Personality Oleg Frish and Music from Diane Schuur, Elvin Bishop and Hulon

Source: Rockwired Media LLC

The latest edition of Jazzed and Blue: Profiles in Blues and Jazz is now available for download at Rockwired.Com and features music and an exclusive interview with celebrated Russian television personality Oleg Frish. In this opening segment, Frish discusses his forthcoming release Bring Me Sunshine, working with The Patrick Williams Big Band and plans for future recordings. The second half of this edition of Jazzed and Blue will feature music from such jazz and blues artists asDee Dee Bridgewater, Diane ...

136

Radio

Rockwired.com’s Latest Edition Of Jazzed And Blue Features Acclaimed Singer/songwriter Barbara Martin The New Music From Dee Dee Bridgewater, Elvin Bishop, Tracy Nelson and Diane Schuur

Rockwired.com’s Latest Edition Of Jazzed And Blue Features Acclaimed Singer/songwriter Barbara Martin The New Music From Dee Dee Bridgewater, Elvin Bishop, Tracy Nelson and Diane Schuur

Source: Rockwired Media LLC

The latest edition of Jazzed and Blue: Profiles in Blues and Jazz is now available for download at Rockwired.com. This edition is something of a departure of the previous two editions. Things get started with music from and exclusive interview with acclaimed jazz singer-songwriter Barbara Martin. In this opening segment, Martin discusses her latest release Eyes on the Horizon and her evolution from a folk singer to a writer and performer nuanced in the subtleties of blues and jazz. The ...

157

Recording

Elvin Bishop to Release "Raisin' Hell Revue" on Delta Groove Records on May 17

Elvin Bishop to Release "Raisin' Hell Revue" on Delta Groove Records on May 17

Source: conqueroo

Live disc features Grammy winner's smash “Fooled Around and Fell in Love" along with blues standards, recorded live in the party atmosphere of the 2010 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. Band features Finis Tasby, John Nmeth, Kid Anderson and Terry Hanck LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Elvin Bishop's musical biography is no secret to anyone who has followed blues or rock over the past 40 years. Taken under wing by legendary bluesman Little Smokey Smothers in the '60s, Bishop found a wide audience ...

104

Recording

Elvin Bishop Releases Benefit CD to Help Little Smokey Smothers

Elvin Bishop Releases Benefit CD to Help Little Smokey Smothers

Source: Just Roots PR

Elvin Bishop has released an album with his longtime friend and musical mentor, “Little Smokey" Smothers to help during a time of need. Smokey has had declining health over the last few years and recently has lost both his legs to diabetes.

Elvin met Smokey in Chicago in 1960 while attending regular college at the University of Chicago and “blues college" on the south and west sides. Smokey would have a steady mostly local career in the Chicago blues scene, ...

70

Recording

Elvin Bishop: Rollin' Forward

Elvin Bishop: Rollin' Forward

Source: JamBase

The blues have few better shepherds than Elvin Bishop, who's been exploring the myriad permutations available inside a genre that many others have tried to standardize since the early '60s. He was the guitar foil to one of that era's great guitarist, Mike Bloomfield, in the landmark Butterfield Blues Band, and a regular sparring partner for both veteran bluesmen being rediscovered in the '60s and young, emerging blues rock future-giants like the Allman Brothers Band. His instinct for music with ...

118

Festival

Elvin Bishop Headlines San Francisco Blues Festival

Elvin Bishop Headlines San Francisco Blues Festival

Source: All About Jazz

Guitar great Elvin Bishop will headline the 2008 San Francisco Blues Festival on September 27th. The show, a homecoming for the San Francisco resident, will come hot on the heels of his new album, 'The Blues Rolls On' (Delta Groove/Eclecto Groove), set for release on September 23rd. Bishop will perform with The Delta Groove All Star Blues Revue, which includes The Mannish Boys, Mike Zito, and many others. Since his days with the seminal Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bishop has ...

162

Recording

Elvin Bishop Plays the Blues

Elvin Bishop Plays the Blues

Source: All About Jazz

VETERAN STRING BENDER VISITS GUITAR HEAVEN WITH DEREK TRUCKS, WARREN HAYNES AND OTHER GREATS

Elvin Bishop - the founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band whose music has been called “sheer, unpretentious joy" by Entertainment Weekly - has completed work on The Blues Rolls On. Due September 23 on Delta Groove/ Eclecto Groove Music, the album harks back to Bishop's roots, paying tribute to the musicians who helped give him his start. A who's who of ...

161

Recording

Elvin Bishop's All-Star Album "The Blues Rolls On"

Elvin Bishop's All-Star Album "The Blues Rolls On"

Source: All About Jazz

Elvin Bishop - the founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band whose music has been called “sheer, unpretentious joy" by Entertainment Weekly - has completed work on 'The Blues Rolls On.' Due September 23 on Delta Groove/ Eclecto Groove Music, the album harks back to Bishop's roots, paying tribute to the musicians who helped give him his start. A who's who of blues musicians support Bishop on the album, including B. B. King, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, George Thorogood, ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

100 Years Of Blues

Alligator Records
2020

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Elvin Bishop’s...

Delta Groove Music
2011

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The Skin I'm In

Alligator Records
1999

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Videos

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