Elvin Bishop has enjoyed a nearly 50-year career in music at every possible level — from apprentice to veteran Blues master Little Smoky Smothers and Blues groundbreaker as co-founder of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band to crossover Pop success (with “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”) and various degrees of roadhouse fame and commercial obscurity. With his signing to Delta Groove and a pair of Top 10 Billboard Blues charting albums, Bishop is in the midst of a career resurgence.
Bishop’s third Delta Groove release is an inadvertent live album — his hastily assembled band of Blues gypsies was documented by a pair of recordists on last year’s Rhythm & Blues Cruise. With a rotating cast, including veteran vocalist Finis Tasby, Blues newbie John Nemeth and Bishop’s longtime bandmate, vocalist/saxophonist Terry Hanck, Bishop’s band tears shit up good and proper. Although the bulk of the group was made up of players who happened to be booked on the cruise, they mesh with the skill and intensity of a group that has shared a musical chemistry for years.
Bishop’s guitar work is at once scorching and completely fluid, like on the incendiary and satisfying “What the Hell is Going On.” One of the recognized masters of the slide sound, Bishop runs his Revue through its paces, setting a course that includes Blues (“Down in Virginia,” “It Hurts Me Too,” “Dyin Flu”), Gospel (“River’s Invitation”), Doo Wop (“The Night Time is the Right Time”), Soul (“Cryin’ Fool”) and Zydeco (“Callin’ All Cows”). Raisin’ Hell Revue is less indicative of Bishop’s recent rejuvenation and more an example of the totality of his long and brilliant Blues experience.
Grade: B
