•Our 35th Year Proudly Promoting All Things Music• FREE! December 2020 Asa Brebner Tribute Elvin Bishop Dulcie Taylor Amy Mantis & The Space Between Reboot: Elvin Bishop - November 2005 In the business of music, you’d be hard who played blues in Oklahoma. It was pretty Pepper Shakers. As I got a little better, I was able at that time so we gravitated right for each other. pressed to find a more down-to-earth guy than hard getting started. I had those little pawn shop to get gigs with people like JT Brown. He was kind METRONOME: What year did you go solo? Elvin Bishop. Since the age of eighteen, he’s been guitars with the strings two inches off the neck. of a known saxophone player around Chicago. Late sixties maybe. I’m not good with dates. quietly storing away stories and tales of a career It’s a tribute to human persistence that I stuck Hound Dog Taylor... you’ve probably heard of METRONOME: Was it The Elvin Bishop Band? filled with larger-than-life events. From playing with it at all. him. Junior Wells gave me a few gigs. He was nice Yeah. with great Chicago bluesmen like Muddy Waters, METRONOME: What was your first pro gig? enough to. Then I got with Butterfield. METRONOME: What was the name of your Lightnin’ Hopkins and Albert Collins to jamming Before I got with [Paul] Butterfield, I played with METRONOME: How did you meet Paul? first record? with Jimi Hendrix, Elvin Bishop has done it all some little bands. When I got to Chicago, I was I met him the first day I was in Chicago. I was It was the same name. It was on Fillmore with little revelry or fanfare. Maybe that’s why his supposed to be going to the University of Chicago. just walking around the neighborhood checking Records. The label that Bill Graham had going. career has lasted for more than four decades. But When Clive Davis was running Columbia at the time as Bishop puts it, “I don’t really dwell in the past. I I signed the contract, they always put your picture live more for the moment.” Still, he still has plenty in Billboard. They got some old hippie in the office to talk about. and made him put a suit on and we went out in I caught up with Elvin by phone at his California the middle of the street and took a picture. When home one sunny October afternoon. The following we got back to the office, they pasted Clive Davis’ is a glimpse into a man that has, more or less, face on his body and sent it to Billboard (laughing). seen it all. METRONOME: Were you always a ES-335 guitar guy? METRONOME: Where were you born and Yeah. raised? METRONOME: What inspired the song “Travelin’ I was born in Glendale, California, but it was Shoes?” really kind of an accident. This was 1942 and my I don’t remember writing that tune. I know that Dad was stationed there in the army. Then from it was roughly based on an old Gospel song. the time I was about two, I lived on a farm in Iowa METRONOME: How did you hook up with ‘til I was ten. Then we moved to Oklahoma. I lived Mickey Thomas for your hit, “Fooled Around there until I went to Chicago in 1960. and Fell In Love?” Did you write that song? METRONOME: What made you get into the Sure I did. Mickey Thomas... that’s another music business? Gospel story. He was singing with a Gospel/Rock Just hearing blues on the radio. I went crazy group... this great performer named Gideon. He for it. had a group called Gideon & Power. He was a METRONOME: Were you living in Oklahoma? black guy from Philadelphia and in his younger Yeah. days was on Gospel tours with all the great guys METRONOME: Who were some of the people like Sam Cook & The Soulsters and The Mighty that you were listening to? Clouds of Joy. Anyway, Mickey was originally from I really like Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Caro, Georgia, which is a little town on the Georgia/ Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters... Florida line. This guy Gideon would go through METRONOME: How did you break in to the the south recruiting singers and he found Mickey business? down there. So he took him out to the West coast, I moved to Chicago in 1960. That was really a I heard him, got a chance to jam with him and we lucky thing because Chicago blues and all the main just sort of fell together. guys were just thriving; young and strong. Muddy METRONOME: How old was he when he sang and Little Walter... Howlin’ Wolf and Magic Sam... that song? METRONOME: You were a young man yourself, Middle twenties, probably. eighteen years old? That was kinda like my cover story. I really wanted stuff out and there was a guy sitting on some steps METRONOME: When you toured for that single Yeah. to get into blues. I got together with some of the playing blues on the guitar and drinking a quart of and album, was he in the band? METRONOME: Had you been playing guitar for black dudes that worked in the cafeteria and we beer... it was Butterfield. Yeah. a while at that point? worked up some tunes and played different little METRONOME: So you struck up a friendship METRONOME: How long was he with you? Yeah, but not really raising no hell because gigs. Then I played with a band called Larry & The with him and remained friends until his death? A couple of years. We did a live album during nobody in my family played. I didn’t know anybody Crowd Chasers. Another one called The Salt ‘N’ There were very few white people in the blues that period called Raisin’ Hell and Mickey’s on that. You Break... We MISC Buy~Sell~Trade Fix! Thousands of LPs, We repair: Guitars, Amps, Keyboards, Effects, Stereos, 45s & CDs In Stock VCR/DVD players, D.J. Gear, Recorders & more! Plus MUSICAL INSTRUMENT DVDs, Books, Memorabilia, SERVICE CENTER T-Shirts, Posters & more 4 Haviland Street • Boston [email protected] (617) 247-0525 Across the street www.facebook.com/vinylvaultstore from Berklee College www.MISCFIX.com He’s a great singer. being a songwriter, if something bad does happen, METRONOME: Where did you meet? METRONOME: When you do go out on the road, METRONOME: Up until that album and song, I have a chance to write a song about it and start I met him on the West coast. We used to hang do they provide you with a backline or bringing you had a funky, country blues/roots base, then trying to get feeling better about things... get back out quite a bit. The most fun I ever had in my life your own gear? you took a step into commercial viability. Was on the good foot... get the shit outta my system. was shooting dice with Albert Collins. He was fun I bring my stuff. The bass player and drummer that a conscious effort on your part? I’m grateful to have had the blues there at my to jam with, but boy he would keep you rolling. get a backline, but I prefer to bring my sound with No. No. No. I’m probably the least scheming guy disposal because I think it was invented half way He was so much fun. We’d be shooting dice and me. I haven’t had good luck taking a chance on you ever met. Everything that happens is a surprise for that purpose. By people that had a lot of rough he had a saying for everything. He’d say, “C’mon what they provide. to me. I’m always the last guy to find out about experiences and needed a way to feel better about Aidy Mae”... he was shootin’ for an eight. If he was METRONOME: Who’s playing with you what ever it is. There’s a lot of luck involved in the life. I think it’s a good vehicle for that kinda thing. shootin’ for a ten, he’d say, Ten top buckets and nowadays? music business. The media is supremely powerful METRONOME: Where did you record the pans.” He’d say, “If I don’t hit my pint, that meat Mostly the guys on the record. The band is and over 90% of the people, all they know is what album? ain’t greasy.” smokin’. the media feeds them. You’re lucky if you get to Right at my house. METRONOME: Are you a guitar collector? METRONOME: Who is your bass player? hook up with that media machine. If they happen METRONOME: Will you tour for this album? No. I’m strictly a guitar player. A guy named Tim Walker. He’s from South to have a viable category that they can cram you I don’t exactly tour. I play gigs. I’ve got a nice METRONOME: How many guitars do you own? Carolina. comfortably in to, then you’re very lucky. That was family and a beautiful place here (California) and Maybe three or four. METRONOME: Is Bobby Cochran still playing the one and only time in my career that there was I’m kind of a serious gardener. I raise, pretty much, METRONOME: Do you own an acoustic? drums for you? a category that big media could use. This was my own food.