Elvin Bishop: The Blues Rolls On

Oklahoma-born bluesman Elvin Bishop has once again slipped on his “travellin’ shoes”. With an array of friends turning up to jam alongside him including Fabulous Thunderbirds harmonica player Kim Wilson, George Thorogood, and elder blues statesman B.B. King, the former Paul Butterfield Blues Band guitarist follows the success of 2005’s Gettin’ My Groove Back with The Blues Rolls On. It’s a searing collection of studio sessions and one live track, a Butterfield Band tune “Yonder’s Wall” recorded on a cruise ship off the west coast of Mexico, that takes him all the way back to his roots. But before the album can close with a shimmering instrumental of Jimmy Reed’s slow burner “Honest I Do”, the song that inspired Bishop to pick up his first guitar, there’s a bunch of standout tracks to groove on such as the swampy zydeco blues of “Black Gal” and a foot-stompin’, solo electric take of Bishop’s autobiographical “Oklahoma”. Further highlights are provided by two smouldering R&B covers, Ray Charles’ “Night Time Is the Right Time” and Junior Wells’ “I Found Out”, both boasting excellent soulful lead vocals by John Németh with Angela Strehli supplying harmony vocals on the latter and sharing lead on the former.