Elvin Bishop

[Nordoki]

It constantly cracks me up to hear people refer to their elf Bishop as and elven bishop:

Elvin Bishop is one of the truly historical guitar players. He played with the original Paul Butterfield Blues band, one of the coolest early 60's Chicago blues bands. If anyone remembers "the Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw" he was the Pigboy.



Chicago guitarist -- in partnership with his friend from the University of Chicago Paul Butterfield -- was a member of the Paul Butterfield blues Band, which brought blues music to a generation of rock fans, inspiring such late-'60s electric groups as Cream. At this point, Bishop had already played with Magic Sam.
Before the end of the decade, Bishop had -- like compatriot Mike Bloomfield -- left the group for a solo career, starting the Elvin Bishop Group. Chicago Reader critic Monica Kendrick says "This Oklahoma-born vet... has built an unfortunate reputation as the hippies' favorite blues-rock suck-and-jiver. But when he's inspired... he can play the slide guitar as if his fingers were on fire."

Bishop met local guitarist Smokey Smothers as a blues-crazy student at the University of Chicago, and asked to teach him how to play the blues. They have stayed close ever since, preforming together regularly, including at the 1993 Chicago Blues Festival and 1999 San Diego blues Festival.

After the breakup of the BBB, the Tulsa, OK native moved to San Francisco where he became a regular at the Fillmore jam sessions, performing with B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and others. He recorded several hits with Capricorn (Traveling Shoes, Fooled Around and fell in Love), etc. After nearly a decade of recording silence, Bishop signed with Alligator, and has been a more visible performer, touring with B.B. King, Etta James, Jimmy Vaughan, and J. Geils, and appearing on Late Night with David Letterman. The rollicking 1998 The Skin I'm In features some of Bishop's best slide guitar work in a long while... You might also want to listen to Tulsa Shuffle: The Best of Elvin Bishop (1994; Legacy), which is the only still-available collection of Bishop's 1970s material. His previous recent albums are Don't Let the Bossman Get You Down (1991) and Ace in the Hole (1995).

[Ziggurat]

That's very interesting about Elvin Bishop. I had one (Elven) in my first party in Wiz8 and she did great after level 10 or so. I also played in a band in Chicago while a freshman at the University of Chicago in '73. We were called Maelstrom and did some interesting "progressive rock" at the time. The guitarist was one Richard Ejzak who was very blues-oriented, which sometimes clashed with my classical stuff and the Lebanese drummer's jazz style. (His father was a diplomat from Lebanon, I wonder if he would be profiled as a terrorist nowadays?) But being 18-19, we were up for it. I never understood Chicago blues as opposed to Chicago preferring jazz: now I see there are good reasons to take it seriously, considering the history.

BTW, my next party (of four this time)has a human priest about to become a bishop. I made the mistake of building up points for the special skills and forgot I had to get minimum stats to switch to bishop. Why did I do that? Is taking me 3 more levels to get bishop. It works, tho'. Thanks for the info.

[Hunnawunna]

LOL, I have an Elven Bishop in my party for exactly that reason. I've got a Howling Rouwlf in my party too. I've been a guitarist for 25 years and the blues always creeps into my gaming. Cya!