Elvin Bishop’s still sitting on a bale of hay, an earthborn throne for a musical patriarch.
Elvin Bishop smiles during a 2013 show in a sold-out South Shore Room. Tahoe Onstage photo by Tim Parsons.
He’s made more than 20 records, none, perhaps, as great as the latest, “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right,” 10 tracks, five of them originals, which revel in slide-guitar and homespun wit and wisdom.
The 71-year-old in bib overalls explains on the album an answer to the age-old question of how man can get along with woman as well as mankind’s egalitarian existence: “You and me, the president and the pope; everybody’s in the same boat,” Bishop sings, adding he’s never seen a hearse with luggage on top.
Bishop continues crank out albums every year and we expect, and hope for, plenty more. But he reminds us “one of these days, he’s got to go.” He made “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right” as if it were his last.
Bishop has acquired much in his lifetime, especially this year with induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and with six Blues Music Award nominations for Album Of The Year and Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year, B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year, Band Of The Year, Song Of The Year (for the title track) and Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year.
Paul Thorn drew the cover art for “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right.” Both the album and title song are nominated for Blues Music Awards.
Moreover, Bishop has made many friends. Paul Thorn, another pen-in-hand, tongue-in-cheek artist, drew the cover art for the album. Contributing on harmonica was Charlie Musselwhite, who like Bishop moved Northern California after helping opening a nation’s eyes to Chicago’s music.
“Those were the first white audiences we inspired as musicians to be blues players,” said famed bluesman Billy Boy Arnold, who will join Bishop in Tahoe onstage Jan. 3 for Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowout.
Bishop said that as a teenager growing up in Oklahoma he was able to hear blues on the radio because “they couldn’t segregate the airwaves.”
When he received a college scholarship, he elected to go to Chicago to get close to the music. Out of pure luck, he picked University of Chicago instead of Northwestern and wound up on the South Side, the blues hub. During his first week in town, he came across Paul Butterfied, who was on a set of doorsteps drinking beer and playing harmonica.
Bishop became a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, trading lead guitar riffs with Mike Bloomfield.
A decade after Bishop captured rock fans’ attention with the blues, country fans claimed him with the emerging southern rock genre.
“Elvin Bishop’s sitting on a bale of hay; he ain’t good looking but he sure can play,” Charlie Daniels sang is his anthem “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”
Bishop gives homage to the lyric in a cover of Fats Domino’s “Bo Weevil” on his new album.
He also reunites with former South Lake Tahoe resident Mickey Thomas for “Let Your Woman Have Her Way.” (It’s that simple, guys.) It was the first time Thomas and Bishop collaborated in the studio since the megahit “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”
“Can’t Even Do Wrong Right” also includes “Blues With A Feeling,” a Little Walter song which was on the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album. This inclusion might be Bishop’s acknowledgement to his career. Sure he’s self-deprecating and humble, but he has so many accolades, friends and smiling fans, he knows that he’s done all right.
He makes a flannel shirt and a pair of Ben Davis coveralls with a strap hanging over a shoulder look downright regal.
Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowout: Bluebird Records Tribute
Artists: Mark Hummel, Billy Boy Arnold, Elvin Bishop, Rick Estrin, Little Charlie Baty, Steve Guyger, Rich Yescalis, Bob Welsh, June Core and R.W. Grigsby
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 3
Where: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe South Shore Room
Tickets: $49.75
With their dual slide guitars, Elvin Bishop and “Johnny V,” Vernaza created a commercially successful southern rock sound in the late 1970s for the Elvin Bishop Band. Bishop’s guitarist now is Bob Welsh, who will join him in Tahoe Onstage for Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowout in Harrah’s Lake Tahoe. Tahoe Onstage photo by Kurt E. Johnson
Tags: Billy Boy Arnold, Can't Even Do Wrong Right, Charlie Musselwhite, Chicago blues, Elvin Bishop, Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Little Walter, Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blowout, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Paul Thorn, University of Chicago
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