Living Blues talks to Elvin Bishop

What is the concept behind your new Delta Groove release, The Blues Rolls On?

I got to thinking about how nice guys were to me when I first started out. And not just one or two guys, a whole bunch of them. Guys like Smokey Smothers and Hound Dog Taylor and Junior Wells, Big Joe Williams, Fred McDowell, and Clifton Chenier, they all just kind of took me under their wing and really helped me out above and beyond the call of duty, and made sure I got the music right. Like they say in Chicago, I was “square as a pool table and twice as green.” And I thought about the young guys coming up now and how hard they have it and everything. Like John Németh, Tommy Castro, I think they’re just so strong that it’s going to happen eventually. They’re out there playing every night, you know? The concept is how the music rolls along, and what I did was I took some old tunes that I remembered from those days. Some of them known and some of them I bet you hadn’t heard before.

Do you have any memorable stories from any of the sessions that you did for this record?

I’m a big gardener, I’m a total maniac. I can up like four or five hundred jars. B.B. [King] likes my jam, so I always try to bring some whenever I see him. So I had some jam in my bag, I was in the Oakland Airport getting ready to fly to Las Vegas. Going through security, the guy says, “This homemade jam?” I said, “Yeah.” “You can’t take it through.” And he sticks it down under his chair, you know. Usually they throw it in the waste basket. And I said, “That jam’s for B.B. King. He really loves it and he’ll be disappointed if he don’t get it. Can you just let me slide it on this one time?” He looks at me like he was thinking, he says, “Well, you tell B.B. King that the thrill is gone and so is his jam.” That really happened, you can’t make that shit up!

Where do you get your inspiration for new material?

It’s from life. At my age, the world don’t need another B.B. King cover, another version of Mojo Workin’ or Stormy Monday. It’s my time to be giving back. If you ain’t learned nothing by the time you’re 65, shame on you, you know?

What continues to drive you as an artist in this business?

Before I got into music, I found out what real work is all about. I worked in the steel mills and the oil fields, and tearing up streets with a jackhammer. And every time I get up there with that red guitar it feels so nice and light, and it makes me want to keep continuing on trying to avoid day work as much as possible. Even when I worked a double shift, I don’t remember ever getting a round of applause, I’ll put it that way!