A slide guitar great that has been playing blues for 45 years!

I didn’t hit this one on the head, and had to step back and look - I took his jaw on this drawing to much to an extreme.. don’t know what happened, but not all works can be perfect - draw & learn.  Here’s the pic I went off..

Stepping up when a friend is in need when Mike Bloomfield ducked out of another performance due to his insomnia, it was at the Fillmore - Al Kooper was put into a predicament once again to find some players that would rock the house.

Calling up Carlos Santana, Stevie Miller, Jerry Garcia and Elvin Bishop.  Playing past closing time, the musicians with the passion, showed up, played their hearts out and bailed out a friend in a jam.  Why, because they were and still are passionate about playing guitar and making music.

Elvin Bishop had a guest spot on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper, not as much of a success as Super Sessions, but still some great instrumentals - The Band’s - The Weight, a Classic Booker T’s - Green Onions, and much more!

It is amazing reading Elvin Bishop’s Bio - the lives he touched and the people that he has influenced.

From his site -

And then, late one night when Elvin was 14 or 15, the atmospheric conditions a little rough, Jimmy Reed’s harmonica came cutting through the static from WLAC in Nashville, and Elvin Bishop’s life was changed

Hooked on the sounds emerging from the radio, Elvin had to find out where they were coming from and who was responsible. When he was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in 1959, he could have gone to pretty much any college he wanted, but chose The University Of Chicago, because that’s where the blues were. And so he landed in the middle of one of the richest and most vital scenes in blues history.

I wonder do we give our children these opportunities now to follow their passions, or do we actually push them to hard? My son is going to be 17 in a few weeks, and we raised him openly, honestly and did not push him in any one direction.  We have treated him as an adult, we did not force soccer, football, arts, after school clubs, or anything of the like down his throat.  We signed him up for soccer, he played for a short while, he did not have the “passion” to go after that ball.  Being 6 foot 3 inches tall, and over 250 - I so could see him playing football, and so could the coaches, but he does not have the passion to do it.

I have watched several of the kids he went to school with, one’s that were forced to do as many extra curricular activities as they could fit into a day, now, coming into their own as teens - and they seem to be taking some of that freedom of choice back, and it’s becoming evident, it’s not always the best choice how they are using that freedom.

To be who we are, do what we love - we can only grow more and share the emotions that the passion from doing so creates!

Tags: elvin bishop, Pencil Sketch

2 Responses to “Touching Others Lives - Part 7 - Elvin Bishop”

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website