As a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band back in the 1960s, Elvin Bishop had a seminal role in bringing the raw, soulful yet joyful sound of Chicago blues to the world at large. He hasn’t rested on his laurels, despite induction to both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, and his immediately recognizable, 1975 hit, “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”
“I like to keep it moving and keep something new happening and keep life interesting,” he said in a phone call from his home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Just a few years ago, he formed a new group, Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio, with pianist/guitarist Bob Welsh and vocalist/percussionist Willy Jordan, producing two Grammy-nominated albums.
Bishop and a full band, including Welsh and four other top-flight blues players, convene at Blue Note Hawaii for two nights next week.
BISHOP, NOW in his mid-70s, is as energized as ever about his music. He said playing in a trio has given him a new insight into the artform he discovered as a teenager and spent the rest of his life exploring.
“It’s uncluttered,” Bishop said. “You gotta be right on it all the time and it really keeps you into it. It brings different stuff out of you, and that’s a good thing.”
The son of farm workers who moved from California to Iowa and eventually settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bishop became fascinated by the sounds that would come on the radio late at night, past midnight, traveling hundreds of miles from Nashville on airwaves clear of daytime interference.
Even the names he heard sounded like characters out of a fairy tale – Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Hound Dog Taylor, Little Smokey, Big Smokey. “The feeling translated to me really quick,” he said.
Their music turned Bishop on to a then-forbidden world: the blues, then looked down upon as low-class entertainment by and for African Americans.
“That was about the only way that a white person was going to get exposed to it,” he said. “This was before civil rights, so it was highly discouraged associating with people of other races.”
Education was an important thing to his family, so when it came time to pick up and head for bigger and better things, he headed to Chicago, knowing of the bustling blues scene on the south side of town surrounding the University of Chicago.
Bishop, a National Merit Scholar, chose physics as his major.
Physics? Elvin Bishop as a character in the “The Big Bang Theory”?
“I was a good test-taker. Not necessarily a good student, but a good test taker,” he said with a laugh. “My scholarship was from a steelmaker, so I tried (physics), so that was cool.”
There was method to his madness. His real purpose was to take advantage of the university’s loose demands and insinuate himself into Chicago’s blues scene.
“It was the type of school, luckily for me, where you didn’t have to go to class, as long as you went once a semester and passed the test,” he said. “That worked for a couple of years, until I got to calculus, then ‘Augh!’ That’s something you have to apply yourself to.”
Through the university’s cafeteria workers, he met some of the musicians and found out where the blues clubs were – at the time, there were an estimated 200 nightclubs in the area.
Soon Bishop was getting “lost in the ghetto,” he said, hanging out with his heroes, who “welcomed me way more than I could have expected.”
It was an immersion experience for the aspiring musician, learning by exposure and practice more so than formal instruction.
“There wasn’t much thinking involved,” Bishop said. “It was just a little bit at a time. It was great to get to hang out with those guys because I’d been listening to blues for quite awhile, and you find out what the words really mean when you see the lifestyle that created it. It was a great learning experience and guys were very nice to me.
“It helps to be a little humble in a situation like that,” he said. “I’ve never been a guy who’s had long range goals or plans, just stuff happens. I’m sort of subconsciously aiming for something, I don’t know.”
BISHOP MET up with Butterfield at that time, and his five years with the harmonica virtuoso yielded four exceptional albums.
“East-West” was an especially notable effort, featuring Bishop and fellow guitarist Mike Bloomfield dueling it out with ripping solos and closely matched duets.
Over the years, Bishop has often been told that he inspired others to learn the blues; the influence on groups like the Allman Brothers Band and Derek and the Dominos is obvious.
“It was kind of amazing that a great big body of music like the blues and the white public never got together until that point,” he said. “Overdue, I’d say. I just loved the music and loved playing it. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to play it.”
Bishop would later move to San Francisco, playing in storied clubs like the Fillmore West and Winterland.
He also ventured south to Los Angeles to play with the thriving music scene in the Laurel Canyon area.
“We played with The Temptations one time, and with The Little Rascals one time, and with Trini Lopez and God knows what all,” he said. “I went to those parties in Laurel Canyon with The Byrds. It was way different than San Francisco, that’s for sure, and Chicago – and Tulsa.”
Having played in the Crater Festivals of the 1970s, he’s looking forward to returning to Hawaii and enjoys its multiculturalism. He has a deep interest in Japanese culture; his wife is Japanese and he is learning the language. One of his favorite Gibson guitars is affixed with a sticker covered with Japanese characters.
“I know there’s great Japanese food in Hawaii, and Chinese food too … Seems like I’ve played there for the past 112 years or so,” he said with a wry chuckle.
ELVIN BISHOP
>> Where: Blue Note Hawaii
>> Cost: $35-$55
>> When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday
>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com
