Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

STEVE JENNINGS Tending theRoots Elvin Bishop digs blues in his old-school shoes with Charlie Musselwhite BY DONALD LIEBENSON ELVIN BISHOP WASN’T FOOLING AROUND when he fell in love with the blues. ¶ Growing up in Tulsa on his family’s farm, the blues came to him in the night on radio stations from such far-flung locales as Nashville, Mexico, and Coffeeville, KS. “Out on the prairie, in those days, the local stations would shut down at midnight, and then you could pick up the 50,000-watt stations,” Bish- op told Ravinia in a phone interview in anticipation of his festival debut with virtuoso harp player Charlie Musselwhite. ¶ Bishop went at music “blind- ly,” he said. “My ear was not sophisticated because there was nobody musi- cal in my family. I listened to records. I listened to an R&B disc jockey in Tulsa named Frank Berry, and I listened to what was happening on the Top 40 stations. I liked Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and all that. Eventually, I found out where the good part of rock and roll was coming from, and I went straight to the blues. The guys I really liked were John Lee Hooker and Lightning Hopkins. I was lucky enough to meet them later in life and got to be friends with John Lee.” RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 31 – AUGUST 14, 2023 78