Page 68 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2015

“You’re looking at a Butterfield album and you go, ‘Who’s
Walter Jacobs? [Little Walter] Who’s McKinley Morganfield?
[Muddy Waters] Who’s Chester Burnett? [Howlin’ Wolf]’ I’m 12,
13 years old, and started picking up on this stuff,” said Salgado.
“The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album pretty much turned
white America on to blues. I remember Elvin Bishop. I can’t believe
Elvin Bishop. Now, I know the guy. But I used to stare at it, and
there’s Elvin chewing on a toothpick, and there’s Sammy Lay with
a gold pair of shoes that looked like they were spray painted. That
was a killer record. Then I found out where these guys got it from.”
“We didn’t play it as well as Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf
or a lot of the other guys, but we played it well enough to make
an impression,” Bishop said. “Blues was overdue to cross over
to the big white audience. After that, it wasn’t all our doing, but
we helped a little. Muddy Waters didn’t used to be able to play
anywhere but a black club. Then he would be playing concerts
and folk festivals and playing for a week at a time at a jazz club,
and I was glad to see that.”
Bishop has been prolific in the studio. He has made 20
albums, including 2014’s Can’t Even Do Wrong Right, which led
to six Blues Music Award nominations for Album Of The Year,
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.
“A good thing about blues, or music in general, is that it ain’t
like football,” Bishop said. “You don’t pass your prime at 30 and
have to retire. Blues is a simple music. You don’t need a lot of
technique to play it, but you do need to have an understanding of
exactly how to place the few notes you do play, and that comes
with an understanding of life. And, I don’t know, I flatter myself. I
have a better feel for things as I go along with more experience,
because I am not one of these guys who is gonna recede back into
the woodwork with age and sit on the couch. I like to stay busy
and just live.”

Blues Festival Guide Editor Tim Parsons compiled this story from
a series of his interviews with Elvin Bishop and others quoted here
from 2008-2015.

Bob Welsh and Elvin Bishop share a glance and a song.
Bobby Cochran plays drums Photo by Kurt E. Johnson

66 Blues Festival Guide 2015