BLUES FESTIVAL: Bishop's show features 'smoking hot' band

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By David Burke | Wednesday, July 2, 2008 3:14 PM CDT | () comments

From the floods in Iowa, where he spent the first decade of his life, to the wildfires in California, where he has lived for many years, 65-year-old Elvin Bishop shakes his head in amazement.

“This whole year has brought new meaning to the phrase, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ” Bishop said from his home in Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

The blues legend is a headliner tonight at the IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. Here is part of a telephone conversation with him last week:

Q: The first 10 years of your life were spent in Iowa, right?

A: Yeah. You know how you think you’ve heard of every town in Iowa and then another town comes up and you think, “I never heard of that son of a (gun).” Elliott, Iowa, 12 miles from Red Oak, southwestern Iowa.

Q: Not too many memories of living in Iowa, though, right?

A: Lots of memories. I remember everything. We lived four miles out from Elliott on a dirt road, and every spring we’d get mudded in for a couple of weeks when the snow melted. ... It was kind of a backward part of Iowa, and in the early ‘50s there wasn’t any electricity out in the sticks where we lived. I remember going to my grandma’s house in Red Oak and just flushing that toilet over and over again. I couldn’t get over it. ...

Anytime I see somebody from Iowa, and I saw some girls at a show we did in Aurora, (Ill.), I tell them to round me up a gooseberry pie. I’ve never seen those outside of Iowa.

Q: And you went from Iowa to Tulsa to Chicago. ... How much of an influence did those moves have on your sound and what you play?

A: Ah, I don’t know. I got used to the idea of getting along with the blues guys from down South because of knowing what it’s like to be from out in the country and be real quiet and lonesome. Oklahoma, you breathe country music in with the air, and Chicago, that’s naturally the blues.

Q: Your Web site bio says you wanted to go to college in Chicago because of the blues, right?

A: The blues was my ticket out of town and my cover story.

Q: Looking back, was having a pop hit with “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” in 1976 unexpected?

A: Yeah. The whole career has been somewhat unexpected. I never took anything for granted because nobody in my family was ever musical — just a long line of farmers. To end up being friends with and playing with guys I’d listened to in my room, like John Lee Hooker, has a certain dreamlike quality to it.

Q: How did that song end up on the pop charts?

A: Getting on the charts was something that was largely not under my control. It was the media having a slot they could shoehorn you into. That may have been the one and only time they could shoehorn me. I think (lead singer) Mickey Thomas’ singing had a whole lot to do with it. I wrote the tune and played the guitar, but that was the extent of my contribution.

Q: What’s your show like these days?

A: The band is just smoking-hot. It’s unbelievable. Some of the old tunes, enough to keep people happy, and enough new stuff for the musicians.If you do something for over 40 years, you should be able to be good at it.