The Elvin Bishop Interview

The Jake Feinberg show started as a look deep inside the spiritualism of man and music from a certain period in our musical history. It was a time before labels and idioms dared to matter and linear notes were chewed up and thrown out with the bath water….if you actually had any running water. As my show has evolved it has settled nicely into interviews with those who sought to creatively express their thoughts; they did this by breaking color barriers, reaching over these barriers and showing great strength and love in their playing and how they treated others. Country boys have been few and far between on my program. However like all art that too is evolving. These farmers were high on the hog, noting corruption at the Piggly Wiggly Supermarkets and hearing the sounds of raspy blues originalists on the AM radio. My guest today grew up in rural Iowa with no electricity or running water. When he was ten his family moved to Oklahoma where he began to hear the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed on the radio. He traveled up the Mississippi on a scholarship and wound up traveling Market Street watching the blind dobro players strumming in Chicago. It was in the Windy City that he met Paul Butterfield and formed the core of the most explosive and forward thinking blues band. As they played the blues circuit in Chicago my guest decided to head west and wound up where else? The Bay Area which was percolating with Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and many other musicians who were experimenting with electric instruments and psychedelics and beautiful woman. The raw blues playing of my guest forged an alliance with the rest of the cadre including John Mayall, John Kahn, Mark Naftalin, Phil Wilson, David Sanborn, Maria Muldaur, Steve Miller, Pinetop Perkins and Eric Clapton. And that is just the 1960s…… A lot to talk about with an American Music Icon, Elvin Bishop, Welcome to the JFS…..