Harvest Media Center
Slide Guitar Master Elvin Bishop
to Headline Harvest
June 22, 2009
Organizers announced today that slide guitar great Elvin Bishop, with a rich four-decade long pedigree in the blues, will join the impressive list of headliners at this year's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.
Bishop will perform Friday, September 18, in the Bell Aliant Mojo Tent in the Historic Garrison District, in a slot that became open when blues vocalist Koko Taylor passed away recently.
"This is amazing news! We've actually been trying to book Elvin for the past four festivals and it just hasn't come together. After Koko passed away and we had to go back to square one, we contacted Elvin's people one last time just in case something had changed. We were pretty ecstatic that he finally said yes," says Harvest music director Brent Staeben.
"No one can actually replace Koko and we didn't go about it that way. We went out to book another great act that we know will connect with Harvest audiences. Elvin is a legend in the business. His music is timeless and his shows are fantastic," adds Staeben.
Tickets for this year's Festival go on sale Saturday, July 18th at 8:30am and are available online at www.harvestjazzandblues.com, toll free at 1-888-NB-BLUES or in the Festival store at 81 Regent Street in Fredericton.
Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Elvin Bishop has been singing and recording his rollicking brand of electrified down-home blues for 45 years. Bishop's history-making tenure as a founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the 1960s, his chart-topping hits in the 1970s, and his emergence on Alligator Records in the late 1980s and into the 1990s place him at the forefront of electric blues guitarists.
Elvin's music is a mix of his blues roots with contemporary funk and rock flavors spiced with a touch of country and the laid-back feel of his Northern California home.
Rolling Stone referred to Bishop's music as "a good-time romp...raucous blues with high-energy soloing, mixtures of careening slide and razor-edged bursts, all delivered with unflagging enthusiasm and wit."
His career intersects some of the great moments in rock and blues. In the 1960s, he played with the legendary and influential Paul Butterfield Blues Band after he and Butterfield met in Chicago where Bishop had been soaking up a heavy scene where he got to play with Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, and Hound Dog Taylor.
Towards the end of the 60s, he moved to San Francisco and played a string of legendary performances at the Filmore West with the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and BB King.
In the 1970s, he went solo and recorded a number of chart-topping hits, including "Fooled Around and Fell In Love."
Elvin's brand new 2008 release "The Blues Rolls On" harken back to his roots, paying tribute to the musicians who helped give him his start. A who's who of blues musicians support Bishop on the album, including B.B. King, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, George Thorogood, James Cotton, Kim Wilson, Tommy Castro, John Nemeth, Ronnie Baker Brooks, and Angela Strehli.
Bishop revisits his own '70s solo hit "Struttin' My Stuff" in a blistering version with Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, Junior Wells' "Come On In This House," and the Butterfield Band's "Yonders Wall" and Hound Dog Taylor's "Send You Back To Georgia."
