Bishop’s roots, just like rock 'n' roll, are in the blues

Since the '60s when he played guitar with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elvin Bishop has been an electrifying musician that has thrilled fans of bluesy rock ‘n’ roll and rockin’ blues.

Bishop, who has become a Santa Cruz County Fair favorite with regular appearances in the recent past, returns again in 2008 on Thursday night on the Amphitheater stage.

Born in Tulsa, Okla. in 1942, Bishop was raised on an Iowa farm. He moved to Chicago in 1960 a few decades after the blues had moved to the Windy City from the Mississippi plantations.

Bishop had won a National Merit Scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he studied Physics. At night, he studied the blues at Chicago’s famous blues bars. Bishop met Paul Butterfield and the two founded the famed Paul Butterfield Blues Bland. The band soaked in the city’s music scene, where legends such as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, John Lee Hooker and others first turned plantation blues into barroom blues — a new, amplified, rockin’ music that made audiences shake, swivel and quake. At a time when doo wop and bubble gum themes dominated rock ‘n’ roll, the Butterfield Blues Band went back to rock’s roots, a group of white boys who sounded a lot more like Muddy Waters than Frankie Avalon.

Bishop recorded three albums with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, introducing the Chicago blues to rock audiences across America. The Butterfield Blues Band's third album and mostly critically acclaimed, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, is based on Bishop's nickname.

In 1968, Bishop went solo and formed the Elvin Bishop Group. He moved West and was part of the San Francisco music scene during the early ’70s, jamming regularly at the Fillmore. He released several albums during this period. His most memorable song was Fooled Around and Fell In Love from 1976, sung by Mickey Thomas who later joined Jefferson Starship.

In 1988 Bishop signed with Alligator Records and released Big Fun. He followed that in 1991 with Don't Let The Bossman Get You Down.

In 2005, Bishop released his first new CD in five years, Gettin' My Groove Back. That followed a personal tragedy for Bishop in 2000 when his daughter Selina and her mother were murdered. Other recent albums include Ace in the Hole and the highly acclaimed The Skin I'm In.

Don’t miss Bishop on the Amphitheater stage Thursday night and see a legendary blues guitarist at work.