Top 10 Elvin Bishop Songs

Photo: Carl Lender / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Our Top 10 Elvin Bishop songs takes a look at a legendary blues artists who had tremendous success with the single “Fooled Around An Fell In Love,” that overshadowed his catalog of great blues albums at least on a mass cultural scale. True blues rock fans always knew what a great artist Elvin Bishop was, and still is in 2020. Our Top 10 Elvin Bishop songs list takes a look at the entire career of Elvin Bishop and presents some of the highlights.

We made sure to include some recordings he did as an original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and his great guest appearance on the live album by Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. We hope some of these songs entice you to check out the great catalog of Elvin Bishop songs and albums that this brilliant artist has contributed to the rock and roll canon of music.

# 10 – Don’t You Lie To Me

We open up our Top 10 Elvin Bishop songs list with this barn burning rocking blues tune called “Don’t You Lie To Me.” The song was released on the album Big Fun on Alligator Records which was a very well known blues label. The song “Don’t You Lie To Me,” was written by Hudson Whittaker. The track was released as the opening song on the album. The album was released in 1988 during a time when big hair bands were dominating the airwaves. It was good to have some rocking blues music still being released by legends like Elvin Bishop.

# 9 – Right Now Is The Hour

As we jump around in time on this Elvin Bishop songs list, we take a glance at Elvin Bishop’s 1990s period. The song “Right Now Is The Hour,” was released on the 1998 album titled The Skin I’m In. This is a great one. It’s party time Elvin Bishop complete with a great horn section reminiscent of this legendary Stax Records from the 1960s. The song also featured Evan Palmerson on bass and Larry Vann on drums.

# 8 – Driftin’ and Driftin’ (With Paul Butterfield Blues Band)

As we wrote in the introduction we wanted to present music from different time periods in Elvin Bishop’s career. This great song “Driftin’ and Drifitn,”was recorded when Elvin Bishop was a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. This great song was released on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band album entitled The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw. The album was released in 1967. The song “Driftin’ and Driftin’ was written by Charles Brown, Johnny Moore and Eddie Williams.

# 7 – Let The Four Winds Blow

Continuing with our top 10 Elvin Bishop songs list we turn to the classic song Let The For Winds Blow. The song was released on Elvin Bishop’s 2017 album Big Fun Trio. After 50 years in the business, Elvin Bishop was still releasing great rock and blues albums. These albums were so good that he was even nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. He probably would have won if the Rolling Stones who took the prize for Blues And Lonesome, had not released their first blues rock cover album since the early 1960s.

# 6 – Sure Feels Good

If there ever was a song that was perfectly titled it was Elvin Bishop’s feel-good single “Sure Feels Good.” This very happy song was released on Elvin Bishop’s standout album Juke Joint Jump. The album was released in 1975. The song “Sure Feels God,” was written by Elvin Bishop. It was the first single released from the album.

# 5 – Fishin’

There is hard driving rock and roll screaming blues Elvin Bishop and then there’s laid-back county blues-tinged Elvin Bishop. We loved both styles. The song “Fishin’ leans way more towards the laid-back country blues Siouan down that so many fans of Elvin Bishop loved. The song was released on the album Let It Flow. The record was issued in 1974. This is one of the most popular Elvin Bishop albums ever released. There were some heavy hitters in the music business making gusto appearances on this one including Charlie Daniels, Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band, Toy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker Band, and Sly Stone.

# 4 – Juke Joint Jump

If this song doesn’t catch your attention in the first ten seconds then you better go buy a new pair of rock and roll shoes. Right from the start, between the song’s killer groove and tasty as-can-be guitar riffs, you know you are going to be playing this one over and over again. The songs served as the title track to his album Juke Joint Jump. The record was released in 1975.

# 3 – No More Lonely Nights

Even though this is not an Elvin Bishop song, it is by far an Elvin Bishop song. In the end, Elvin Bishop is a blues man, and his live performance on this record defines that so wonderfully, early on in his career. The art of the blues is all about sharing the stage, less is more, and all that lingo. Surrounded by the brilliant Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield with support from John Kahn on bass and Skip Prokop on drums, Elvin Bishop shined bright, dark, and deep on this captivating track. Standing center stage singing lead vocals and playing guitar, Elvin Bishop delivered the goods……big time.

“No More Lonely Nights,” was released on the two record set, The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. The album was released in 1969.

# 2 – Fooled Around And Fell In Love

As we close in on the number one spot on our top 10 Elvin Bishop songs list we turn to the song that was easily the biggest hit of Elvin Bishop’s career. The song went all the way to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975. Its popularity over time has only increased as new music fans continue to discover the song thanks to Sirius satellite radio and the inclusion of the song in television shows and movie soundtracks. Yet, the song’s pop sensibility in many ways never really defined the artist Elvin Bishop. Although no one can deny the success of this song and just how great a tune it is.

One wonders how many fans never realized that it was not Elvin Bishop who sang the lead vocals but future Jefferson Starship lead vocalist Mickey Thomas. Nonetheless, it still was a great song that stands as one of the highlights of 1970s rock music. We just couldn’t place it number one because we wanted to go with a track that we thought defined Elvin Bishop at his core………

# 1 – Travelin’ Shoes

“Traveling Shoes,” is one of the most popular songs Elvin Bishop has ever released and it defined who he was in so many ways. The song was issued on his classic 1974 album Let It Flow. The song was written by Elvin Bishop. It would become the first song the composer wrote that made it into the music charts. Once again the groove is to die for and the duel guitar lines that occur throughout the song along with those kicking solos are just legendary. This is rock and roll!