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Elvin Bishop was just plain born to be a blues musician, even if it did take him a few years to know such a thing as blues music even existed. Or, to even hear much in the way of music at all. 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. Oklahoma was not that far ahead of the rest of the South, I'd say." Elvin remembers seeing Ray Charles in the Big Ten Ballroom with a rope stretched the length of the room to separate blacks and whites. "The one thing they couldn't segregate was the airwaves," says Bishop. "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."
Working in the kitchen of a bowling alley, Elvin became friends with
a couple of black guys, Henry and Marvin. "They had a radio in the
kitchen playing blues all the time. They'd tell me about tunes
coming out, what stations to listen to, what stores to get the
records. It was just nice to have somebody to talk about the blues
with. I just went after the blues," he says. When
he was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in 1959, he could have
gone to pretty much any college he wanted, but chose Chicago,
because that's where the blues were. "It was the luckiest thing that
ever happened in my life. I ended up at the University of Chicago,
on an island in the middle of the Southside ghetto, completely
surrounded by the blues." “In Chicago in 1960, I'll bet there were 200 blues clubs. 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." And his first week in Chicago, he came across Paul Butterfield, who was sitting on some steps drinking beer and playing blues on guitar. "We fell together right away," says Elvin. "I was amazed to find other white guys into blues. Nick Gravenites was already pretty good and he was nice enough to show me some licks."
Elvin became buddies with Little Smokey Smothers, who'd come up to
the big city from Mississippi in 1956. "He'd teach me the rhythm
part first. Once I had it, he'd call in the neighbors to listen.
Then he'd teach me as much of the lead as I could get a hold of."
Smokey not only taught Elvin about blues and how to play the guitar;
he taught him about the life of a bluesman as well: "Eating soul
food, smelling the smells, seeing the real life that went with the
music I'd heard on records." After two years, Elvin Bishop and the University of Chicago came to a parting of the ways, but he continued doing what he'd really come to Chicago for: studying the blues. "In those days the clubs were open to 4 a.m. every night, and 5 a.m. on Saturdays. The band would start at 9, and play a 45-minute set every hour till closing," says Elvin. "That was a lot of time to fill up, so guys were glad to have you show up to jam. Guys would go around from gig to gig, sitting in. It was good for musicians' development because you had to learn a lot of tunes. It was like an employment agency. Guys were looking for gigs when they went around jamming. Since the gigs didn't pay much, there was a lot of turnover in personnel." On Sunday mornings there was Maxwell Street, a huge open-air market. "A lot of musicians went out there to get extra money, check out other musicians. You'd sit there and have the guitar case open to catch the money. When you accumulated enough money to get a jug of wine, you'd knock off, get the wine and pass it around. A lot of fun." Elvin did some time working in the steel mills and other jobs. Playing all night, working all day. Hard times, living on a can of beans a day, maybe, and living sometimes in abandoned buildings. "I just was on fire with the music," he says. "I didn't care about that other stuff. I'd sit there and practice guitar for hours and hours." After playing with a lot of different people, including J.T. Brown, Hound Dog Taylor and Junior Wells, Elvin hooked up with Butterfield to form the legendary Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, who'd been Howlin' Wolf's rhythm section. Producer Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records encouraged them to add guitarist Michael Bloomfield. "I'd met Bloomfield before, in a pawn shop," says Elvin, "when I was looking for guitars. He was behind the counter. It was his uncle's shop. We got to talking. He got a guitar out, started playing circles around the world." In 1965 the Butterfield band went into the studio, joined by organ player Mark Naftalin, and recorded The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, which turned out to be a sea-change record for thousands of rock fans and musicians. An integrated band playing blues music in 1965 was unheard of. It introduced a lot of people to the blues, and to the musicians who had influenced the Butterfield band. "Doesn't a gig go by that somebody doesn't tell me what that album meant to them," Elvin said recently. "It's amazing. As far as a commercial success, I don't think it was huge, but I think every musician in the world bought it." Besides the historic importance of helping to push blues music across the black/white line, the Butterfield band introduced the concept of having two kick-butt lead guitarists working at the same time. (Later on, Dickie Betts and Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers band would do something similar, furthering the idea of what became known as Southern rock. "The Southern rock period was about the only time in my career there was a commercial category they could fit me into," says Elvin.) After several more albums with Butterfield -- including East West (1966), The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967) and In My Own Dream (1968) -- Bishop took off on his own. "I wanted to stretch out, see how far I could take it on my own," says Elvin. Bishop had visited San Francisco with the Butterfield band during the Summer of Love in 1967. "I loved the people, the weather, and not having to watch my back all the time." And like several other Chicago musicians he ended up moving to the Bay Area. He
played all the big venues in San Francisco, and had a lot of fun
running a Monday night jam at the Keystone Korner, which was THE jam
spot in San Francisco. "Man, we had everybody there. The '60s and
'70s were a jamming time. All the blues guys liked to stop in and
jam. John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, Santana,
Luther Tucker, Clifton Chenier, the Ford brothers, all kinds of
local musicians." In 1975 his album Struttin' My Stuff included what turned out the be Elvin's biggest single hit to date, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," with a powerful vocal by Mickey Thomas (later of Jefferson Starship). After three more Capricorn discs -- Hometown Boy Makes Good! (1976), Raisin' Hell (1977) and Hog Heaven (1978), Elvin recorded Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby for a German label in 1981. For most of the '80s he was on the road, "entertaining the people and maybe having a little too much fun myself." In 1988, Elvin hooked up with Alligator for a number of excellent albums that grew right out of his blues roots, including Don't Let the Bossman Get You Down! (1991), The Skin I'm In (1998) and a live album with his old friend and mentor Little Smokey Smothers, That's My Partner (2000). Gettin' My Groove Back is Elvin's first new studio album in seven years. I love it. It has a generous serving of Elvin's signature fun-time tunes, such as "Party Till the Cows Come Home," "That's My Thing," "He's a Dog," the downright funky "Got To Be New Orleans," and a really tasty slice of slide instrumental, "Sweet Dreams." And a whole bunch of wonderful musicians including Bishop band members trombone player Ed Earley, Steve Willis on keys, Ian Lamson on guitar and drummer Bobby Cochran (who also contributes some strong lead vocals on a few tunes) and guest artists including the estimable Henry Butler on piano and excellent Bay Area musicians Roy Rogers, Norton Buffalo and Terry Hanck. But the song I played the most is "Come On Blues." It's part of what Blind Pig calls "a darker side to the album, reflective of a period of personal misfortune for the artist." "Well," says Elvin, "A lot of times a situation will come up and life will kind of give you a choice -- you can either laugh or cry about it -- and I'll always try to see the humor. But sometimes things get so rough that you just can't grin about it. And that's when I'm glad I'm a songwriter, because I can at least write a song about it and try to get it out of my system a little bit and start trying to get back on the good foot." Some call it "the redemptive power of music." I call it the blues, and on this album it's heard in the way the outrage of "What the Hell Is Going On?" is balanced with the optimism of "I'll Be Glad." "Come On Blues" reminds me a little of Charles Brown's "Dark Night." The guitar licks remind me a little of John Lee Hooker's signature hard-ass twang. But it's all Elvin Bishop, it's straight from the heart. It hit me like a piledriver and immediately jumped into my personal list of all-time great blues tunes. "Come on blues, help me make it through. Come on blues, I'm countin' on you." And this album is the only place anyone will ever hear it. "I only did that song once in my life and that's all I'm ever going to do it," says Elvin Bishop. "I thought about doing it over -- maybe the singing could have been better - but it's real. So I just left it." "Most of my stuff is for entertainment, but that song and 'What the Hell is Going On' were written for me, more for therapy than anything." "My
show is one thing. I know what it is that I do for a living. I'm
there to show people a good time. The other stuff, I can sit on my
front porch and play any time I want."
Delany Bramlett
Mississippi’s son Delaney Bramlett’s blues roots music has been a
major influence on the sound of some of the worlds greatest pop
artists. Eric Clapton attributes his vocal style to Delaney’s
tutelage. George Harrison learned to play slide guitar by studying
Delaney’s style. The Delaney and Bonnie Band members included such
pop legends as
Pinetop Perkins PINETOP PERKINS is one of the last great Mississippi bluesmen still performing. He’s made a living playing blues since 1926 and is widely regarded as one of the best blues pianists. He’s created a style of playing that has influenced three generations of piano players and will continue to be the yardstick by which great blues pianists are measured. Born Willie Perkins, in Belzoni, MS, in 1913, Pinetop started out playing guitar at house parties and honky tonks, and switched to piano after sustaining a serious injury that made picking a guitar painful. He came under the tutelage of Clarence “Pinetop” Smith, for whom he composed the song entitled “Pinetop’s Boogie” that became a hit and, indeed, one of the more popular tunes from the boogie-woogie era. Perkins started performing the tune himself, and out of admiration for his mentor, started using the name “Pinetop.” Perkins worked primarily in the Mississippi Delta throughout the thirties and forties, spending five years with Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time radio program on KFFA, Helena, Arkansas. Pinetop also toured extensively with slide guitar player Robert Nighthawk and backed him on an early Chess session. After briefly working with B.B. King in Memphis, Perkins barnstormed the South with Earl Hooker during the early fifties. The pair completed a session for Sam Phillips’ famous Sun Records in Memphis 1953. By this time, Pinetop had developed his own unmistakable sound. His right hand plays horn lines while his left kicks out bass lines and lots of bottom. It was Pinetop, along with Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Little Brother Montgomery, who provided the basic format and ideas from which countless swing bands derived their sound-whole horn sections playing out what Pinetop’s right hand was playing. Although Pinetop never played swing, it was his brand of boogie-woogie that came to structure swing and eventually, rock ‘n roll. Still, with recent successes the exception, Pinetop is best known for holding down the piano chair in the great Muddy Waters Band for twelve years during the highest point of Muddy’s career. Replacing the late, great Otis Spann in 1969, Pinetop helped shape the Waters’ sound and anchored Muddy’s memorable combo throughout the seventies with his brilliant piano solos. In 1980, Pinetop and other Waters’ alumni decided to go out on their own and formed the Legendary Blues Band. Legendary recorded two records for Rounder and toured extensively. Pinetop, who had been labeled a sideman throughout most of his career, eventually left Legendary to concentrate on a solo career. Within two years, he had his first domestic record as a frontman and had a most impressive touring schedule. Since going solo, Pinetop has been featured on many nationally syndicated news and music shows, and he has appeared in numerous movie productions as well as television and radio ads. He has also headlined nearly every major showcase room in North America and most of the major festivals here and abroad. It’s certainly ironic that Pinetop waited for his eighth decade to blossom as a headliner. Born In the Delta (a multimedia enhanced CD), his Telarc debut, documented an amazing historical figure and had an abundance of entertainment value for a contemporary audience. On his 1998 release, Legends, Pinetop collaborated with master blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Together, they blended the traditional delta blues sound with modern electric blues-rock, showcasing the spirit and energy of the music.
Eddie Shaw
Although Eddie Shaw was born in the Mississippi Delta, the tune
getting the most airplay off his Delmark CD Can't Stop Now--"Chicago
Man"--shows where his allegiance now lies. An undeveloped jam on
Shaw's 1992 In The Land of the Crossroads CD, it returns as a
polished anthem in which Shaw promises to take you to all the Windy
City's hot spots for food, entertainment, and culture.
Little Smokey Smothers Elvin became buddies with Little Smokey Smothers, who'd come up to the big city from Mississippi in 1956. "He'd teach me the rhythm part first. Once I had it, he'd call in the neighbors to listen. Then he'd teach me as much of the lead as I could get a hold of." Smokey not only taught Elvin about blues and how to play the guitar; he taught him about the life of a bluesman as well: "Eating soul food, smelling the smells, seeing the real life that went with the music I'd heard on records." In 1998 recorded a live album, That's My Partner (2000) with his old friend and mentor, Little Smokey Smothers.
Jim Thackery Whether Jimmy Thackery headlines a festival in South Dakota or jams for hours in one of numerous blues bars that dot the musical landscape, he'll always unleash an intense volley of rockin' blues guitar guaranteed to leave crowds emotionally spent. His double edged guitar dynamics allow him to fire off tracer missiles, bend a note so it will fit under a limbo bar, run off dive bomber riffs, and find space within the trembling of one stinging note. "I put all my senses on hold and find the zone and follow what's inside. There's an electricity from your mind to your heart to your fingers. You just try and remember to breathe." He's one of the few blues guitarists who learned first hand from the masters of the blues, not off a blues record or DVD. Though most associate Jimmy with his 15 years as the co-founder of the Nighthawks, he ended his time with them in 1987. Since then, Jimmy has been on the road as a solo musician for 15 years doing nearly 300 shows a year proving each night that he is still the guitar powerhouse in the blues. Thackery has lived the life of a true road warrior; he's absorbed the artistic lessons of life and filtered them into his guitar playing and song writing. To get where he is today, Jimmy has journeyed a highway of life filled with a series of twists and turns. He met all the right people and they have had a permanent influence on him. It
was Thackery's time on stage with Muddy Waters that is branded deep
within his musical soul. "Muddy was one of those guys who was
constantly encouraging. He never told you what to do, but he always
told you what you were doing wrong. He never minced words about
that. Thackery left the Nighthawks in 1987 because he wanted the opportunity to write and put newer material into the sets. First he formed a six piece R&B band, the Assassins, an all-star R&B, funk band from the DC area, and recorded three albums with them. Then, in 1992, Thackery put together his three piece band called the Drivers to highlight his explosive guitar and hit the blues highway. "The 1990's were a fabulous time. We were working our butts off doing" close to 300 shows a year. The irony is that was one of the reasons I'd left the Nighthawks, I was tired of working so much and not having a life outside the music. When you're out on your own, you'd better rise to the occasion. So I found myself back in the 300 night niche. What made that satisfying is that it was my ship and I was the captain of it. We were doing material that I was writing. We were doing arrangements that I came up with." Whenever Thackery plays live, a guitar stand props up four guitars and Thackery will announce to the audience, I'm gonna use all of them tonight!" His recordings are no different. In that time, he's recorded eight discs for Blind Pig. His first record, Empty Arms Motel, was released in 1992. "That one still seems to be the favorite of a lot of people. I went into Kingsnake Records and rattled off some covers and originals. Halfway through, Bob Greenlee called Jerry Del Guidance at Blind Pig about the sessions." From that session, Thackery began his years with Blind Pig. In 1993 he followed up with Sideways In Paradise, a down home, laid back acoustic duet with John Mooney. Then, in 1994 Jimmy recorded Trouble Man, with Memphis producer Jim Gaines. That began their five record association. Wild Night Out, a 1995 live recording, Drive To Survive in 1996, Switching Gears in 1998, and Sinner Street, which added a sax to Thackery's music in 2000. "I think that record, Trouble Man, turned the corner for me because I had a real producer and I was doing original songs. That gave me a direction. Jim and I did a lot of projects together. He did everything through Sinner Street. I was learning so much by watching him as a producer that by the end of Sinner Street, we both came to the realization that I was ready. I was telling him what was going on. He knew that I'd lost my training wheels." After leaving Blind Pig, Thackery has released and produced two of his own records, We Got It and True Stories, on Telarc and two collaborations on Telarc with Tab Benoit, Whiskey Store and Whiskey Store Live. And there was the critically acclaimed reunion with his old friend David Raitt on Blue Rock It" All this has lead to a new Jimmy Thackery. Because every record is more about originals than covers, Jimmy traveled to Nashville to work out his songs with some of the best. This is not a Jimmy Thackery goes country. This is Jimmy Thackery rocks the blues. "I think True Stories on Telarc is my best song writing to date. For the newest Telarc project I went to Nashville to work with Gary Nicholson. I wanted to go and see how the guys in Nashville go about writing songs. We wrote this from the ground up. I came in with hooks and ideas and lines. I didn't want to be overly prepared. I wanted to see how they build these songs lyrically. What you do with Gary Nicholson is throw out a hook or line and take off from there and you don't leave that garage until you're done with a song." Jimmy describes what writing is like for him. "Inspiration can come at any time. It might be a lyric first or it might be a musical lick first. It might just be a form thing. In my world, a lyric tends to be a musical road map. It tends to set up the music I hear in my head. The cadence of a lyric tends to suggest the way to go on the guitar. There was one tune we labored over with a certain groove and feel and it wasn't rising to the occasion. At the very last second, Gary and I said, "Why not just rock this thing out. We completely switched gears and totally changed the patterns and chords and went for something completely different. We did it in one take. It's the first song on the record and it just kicks ass." And there is Thackery's guitar. "There are three guitar instrumentals on this record because I wanted to make a guitar oriented record. The guitar is still very rootsy stuff that is very rooted in blues. But also rooted in surf and spy music. I'm a sucker for that straight eight beat, twangy, minor scale instrumental stuff. The first thing every body did when they got a guitar in the early 1960's was to play the music of the Ventures. I'm still staying true to those roots. Blues is well represented, but so is all that other music I heard. But so is all the other music I listened to." To make the best record possible, Jimmy hired some of the best musicians Nashville had to offer. It's no coincidence that many of these names also work with fellow blues rocker, Delbert McClinton. Jimmy notes that even though it has a Delbert feel, it still has all of his integrity. "Maybe because of the way it's laid out and the common musicians, it will strike a chord with fans who don't normally buy my records." To support his newest project, Thackery's ready to do the road time. "I started thinking that I missed the days when I was just a full blown, kick ass trio. I thought it would be fun to go back to that. I did keep Mark Stutso, my drummer of 15 years. He knows what direction I'm going in before I do." Between constant road work with his own band, producing the latest record by his Arkansas friends, the Cate Brothers, recording Whiskey Store with Tab Benoit and touring in support and playing various Nighthawks reunions, Thackery's plate is overflowing, and that's exactly how Thackery likes life - Overflowing.
George Thorogood
Born 24
Dec. 1950, Wilmington, Delaware, USA. White blues guitarist George
Thorogood first became interested in music, notably Chicago blues,
when he saw John Paul Hammond performing in 1970. Three years later he formed the Destroyers in Delaware before moving them to Boston where they backed visiting blues stars. Thorogood played as an opener for Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers early in his career and was greatly influenced by them. Other musicians worth mentioning are John Lee Hooker (Thorogood has said that he is the best man to play with Hooker because they both play as "wrong"), Elmore James, Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. The Delaware Destroyers was comprised of Thorogood (guitar), Michael Levine (bass), and Jeff Simon (drums). School friend Ron Smith played guitar on and off to make up the quartet. There was briefly another bass player, Bill Judefind. According to some sources the Destroyers played quite often like the Houserockers, without a bass player. In 1974 they recorded some demos in Boston which were later released in 1979 as an MCA rip-off-album called Better Than The Rest. No record company was really interested in them, so they kept on playing the blues in small clubs. It was not until hot July night in 1975 when diehard blues fanatic John Forward was looking for some live blues in the Boston area. He decided to go to Joe's Place in Cambridge although he had never heard of George Thorogood and Delaware Destroyers, who often played there. He was thrilled with their music and named himself as Fan Number 1. He put them in touch with an independent folk label called Rounder. They made their first album in 1975 but the album was not released until 1977 for many reasons. Some say that Thorogood was too "rocking" for the folk label. But Rounder claims that they had no suitable photos for the album (!!). During recording sessions bass player Levine either resigned or was fired. He was replaced by Bill Blough. After some good publicity about their first album, Thorogood & the Destroyers released their second album in 1978. This album gave Thorogood & Destroyers world wide recognition. The title track, a cover of Hank Williams' classic, was pulled as a single and received heavy FM airplay. The album made it to Top 40 and eventually went gold. Smith left in 1980 and was replaced by saxophonist Hank Carter. Carter, who lived in the same city as Thorogood, was considered as the toughest player in town (even tougher than Thorogood) and nobody had the guts to ask him to join The Destroyers until 1980. Carter accepted their offer immediately and is still playing with them after 17 years. Thorogood, a former semi-professional baseball player, took time away from music that season to play ball. But by 1981 was back in the fold as the band opened for the Rolling Stones at several their American gigs. The venues were unfamiliar to Thorogood as normally he shunned large areas for smaller clubs, even going to extent of playing under false names to prevent the smaller venues being overcrowded. George Thorogood & Destroyers' famous tour in 1981 was called 50/50. That meant they toured 50 states in 50 days and played a gig in every one of them. No nights off! After their third album in 1980 with Rounder they signed to EMI. Their final breakthrough album was in 1982 released Bad To The Bone. The song called "Bad To The Bone" was in the movie Christine. They made their first music video from that same song featuring Thorogood and Bo Diddley. The title track of the album became their first major crossover hit, thanks to MTV's saturation airplay of the song's video. The album went gold and spent nearly a full year on the charts. In 1985, The Destroyers released their best selling album, Maverick. A song from that album, "I Drink Alone", was used for the Don't Drink and Drive-campaign. In the same year they appeared at Live Aid playing with blues legends Albert Collins and Bo Diddley. In 1986, EMI noticed how popular George Thorogood And The Destroyers really were and released a live album called simply, Live. They have continued releasing albums after that, every two years. Their newest album, Rockin' My Life Away, was released in spring of '97. Nobody seems to know anything about George Thorogood's personal life. He doesn't want to talk about it, claiming that he is a ageless man who enjoys rough life and endless touring. He is interested only in music, beer, women and baseball. He understands someone writing about John Lee Hooker or James Brown - people who've made an incredible impact on music history. But the Destroyers? "We're like a burger joint," he says. "Then again, there's nothing wrong with selling cheeseburgers as long as they're quality cheeseburgers," he adds and says that's the way he thinks of the Destroyers.
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