Elvin Bishop Returns For More Big, Funky Fun

As someone who’s been at the forefront of at least two musical uprisings – the electric blues/rock boom of the early ‘60s with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and as a solo artist during southern rock’s heyday in the ‘70s – guitar-slinging, overalls-sporting, hillbilly bluesman Elvin Bishop is no stranger to shifting gears and trying something new.  In 2017, he did just that with the release of Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio, an album that ended up not only winning the Blues Foundation’s Blues Album of the Year, but also receiving a Grammy nomination.

Now, the Big Fun Trio return with their follow-up, Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here, which opens with the title cut – a sort of state-of-the-union address drenched in Red Dog’s signature crunch.  Though maybe not as powerful a statement as 2005’s “What the Hell Is Going On?” off Gettin’ My Groove Back, the lead-off track from Bishop’s new release on Alligator doesn’t shy away from addressing the elephant in the White House.  “He got trouble with the truth and he’s rough on women / Yeah, man, I believe we got stuck with a lemon,” Bishop sings in his matter-of-fact, don’t-that-beat-all Okie delivery, trading lines with Willy Jordan.

Once again joined by Jordan along with Bob Welsh on guitar and piano, Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here doesn’t necessarily expand on the Big Fun Trio’s sound as much as it solidifies its purpose: raw, gutbucket blues and soul played by talented musicians that have seen it all supporting the greats – everyone from James Cotton and John Lee Hooker to Angela Strehli and Charlie Musselwhite, among many others.

Produced by Bishop along with Steve Savage, the approach is juke-joint raw and free of fuss.  Jordan’s cajon – a hand-played Peruvian drum box – is all the percussion needed to drive these shuffles, boogies, funky workouts, and slow blues.  Jordan, whose soaring tenor recalls Sam Moore and Jackie Wilson, soulfully plows through Wilson’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” and the Ann Peebles classic “I Can’t Stand the Rain” with equal vigor and controlled abandon.

Welsh takes the spotlight on, appropriately enough, “Bob’s Boogie,” a piano-driven instrumental, and most other cuts are anchored by his steady rhythm guitar.  Bishop also keeps the party moving by reaching back to his Rock My Soul album from 1972 and dusts off his classic instrumental, “Stomp.”

On “Lookin’ Good,” Bishop addresses his former wild days, celebrates his sobriety (15 years as of this writing), and faces down mortality.  “They tell me (there are) three stages of life,” he declares over a slow blues groove, “you got your youth, then there’s middle-age, and then the last part, lookin’ good” (which may or may not be a sly, belated retort to Charlie Daniels’ famous line well over 40 years ago that Bishop “ain’t good lookin’ but he sure can play”).

Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here arrives just in time to compliment this summer’s pig pickin’s, cookouts, beach trips, afternoons at the lake, or backyard parties.  It also proves not only that the Big Fun Trio wasn’t just a one-off, but that after well over 50 years in the business, Elvin Bishop is still struttin’ his stuff…and having big fun while doing it.