Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop (born October 21, 1942) is an American blues and rock and roll musician and guitarist. He was born in Glendale, California, and grew up on a farm in Iowa.  He attended Will Rogers High School, winning a full scholarship to the University of Chicago as a National Merit Scholar finalist. He moved to Chicago in 1960 to attend the university, where he majored in physics. In 1963, he met harmonica player Paul Butterfield and joined Butterfield's blues band for five years.

In 1968 he went solo and formed the Elvin Bishop Group.  The group signed with Fillmore Records, which was owned by Bill Graham, who also owned the Fillmore music venues.  In March 1971, The Elvin Bishop Group and The Allman Brothers Band co-billed a series of concerts at the Filmore East.  Over the years, Bishop has recorded with many other blues artists including John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley, and in 1995, he toured with B.B. King.

In 1988 Bishop signed with Alligator Records recording numerous albums before going silent in 2000.  But in 2005 he released his first new CD in five years and followed that up with several more CDs in the years that followed.

Bishop was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998.

(Elvin Bishop at Riverfront Blues Festival, Wilmington, Delaware 2012)