ELVIN BISHOP’S Big Fun Trio – An Intimate Holiday Show – Redwood City, CA

“Fabulous good-time romps…The pleasure is infectious.” –Blues & Rhythm“Seriously played good-time music guaranteed to put a smile on your face” – Chicago Tribune

Deceptively loose but always tight…the raspy chuckle in Bishop’s singing and the sharp sting of his guitar are forceful and fresh, enduring and fun.” –Fresh Air, NPR

I love these guys; Bob and Willy are great musicians. With a trio there’s no place to hide­—you’ve got to be pourin’ everything you got right out front, totally goin’ for it all the time. If you’ve got some real good musicians who are willing and able to do that, you’ve got something that will move people. And it’s fun!” –Elvin Bishop

A lot has happened since guitar legend Elvin Bishop released his last album, 2014’s Grammy-nominated Can’t Even Do Wrong Right. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and soon after into the Blues Hall Of Fame. He won the Living BluesAward for Best Blues Album Of 2014 and three 2014 Blues Music Awards: Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year (for the title track) and The Elvin Bishop Band took the award for Band Of The Year.

Now, Elvin—along with his friends, guitarist/pianist Bob Welsh and percussionist/vocalist Willy Jordan—launches The Big Fun Trio. Preparing for one of the first live gigs with his new trio, Bishop told The San Jose Mercury News, “Every time I pick up the guitar, something new comes out of it. I guess you’d call me a late bloomer. When you get to be my age, you’re not expecting to be progressing or coming up with any new ideas, but for some reason, I’m lucky enough that that’s what’s happening to me.”

Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio features Bishop’s down-home delivery, deep blues picking and slide guitar, playfully meshing with Welsh’s piano and guitar licks and Jordan’s soul singing and propulsive cajón playing. The album’s laidback, front-porch vibe mixes four rollicking Bishop originals with three co-writes and five raucous, well-chosen covers. And because one can never have too much fun, Bishop’s pals Kim Wilson, Charlie Musselwhite and Rick Estrin stop by the sessions, each adding his distinctive harmonica talent (and in Musselwhite’s case, vocals too) to a song. Listening to the proceedings, it’s easy to see why the Chicago Sun-Timesenthusiastically declared, “It’s impossible not to like Bishop. He’s always singing something lowbrow and uplifting.”

When it comes to the formation of The Big Fun Trio, it’s best to let Elvin tell the storyhimself: Me and a couple of fellas got to jamming in my studio one day and we lucked up on The Big Fun Trio. I knew Willy Jordan from when he played percussion on some of my albums, and I liked his singing and rhythm feel. This time he brought a cajón, a South American percussion instrument. It’s a square box you sit on to play it, and he got some amazing sounds out of it—bass drum, snare, anything—and he’s a real strong singer. Bob Welsh is a member of my regular band, an amazing talent. He plays great guitar or piano and can get a tremendous bass sound on his guitar.

In a trio, there’s no place to hide. You need to be totally into it all the time and you got to have the right guys. The combination of the three of us clicked big time. We went out and played a couple of gigs, and it was really cool to see how the people reacted to the goin’-for-it feel of the music.

Although Bishop has been performing his good-time brand of electrified, easy-rolling blues for over 50 years (his first professional gig was as guitarist for Junior Wells’ band in 1962), he is as vital and creative an artist today as he was when he first hit the national scene in 1965 with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He is still as slyly good-humored and instantly crowd-pleasing as he was when his blues-tinged country rock music was climbing the charts during the 1970s. His return to the blues on Alligator Records in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, along with releases on Blind Pig and Delta Groove before returning to Alligator in 2014, insure his place on the short list of bona fide blues guitar heroes.