Elvin Bishop: Fooled Around And Fell In Love
[purchase]
I really wanted to write about a prank, but the only two musical pranks that I could think of were “Paul is Dead,” which would require essentially regurgitating the stuff that I linked to in this, and “Rickrolling,” which I really don’t find interesting. I also thought about going to the Monty Python well again, but decided against it. But this is a good song, by an artist that I’ve never written about, so here we go.
Elvin Bishop has had a long career as a blues guitarist, after he decided not to finish his degree in physics at the University of Chicago and join the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1963. He formed his own band in the 70s, and had a minor hit with the song “Travelin’ Shoes,” from an album on the Allman Brothers’ label, Capricorn Records, that featured contributions from Dickey Betts, Charlie Daniels, and Sly Stone, among others. The follow up to that album was almost finished, but the producer said that they needed one more song. Bishop suggested “Fooled Around And Fell In Love,” but they were all unhappy with the way Bishop’s vocals sounded. In all of the interviews that I’ve read about the song, Bishop is incredibly self-deprecating about his voice, which he considers to be average, at best—although he believes that this has forced him to write better songs.
Bishop suggested that his backup singer, Mickey Thomas, who he acknowledged had an incredible voice, give it a whirl, and rock and roll history was made. “Fooled Around” was a #3 hit on the Billboard charts, and has been a staple on FM radio, and on soundtracks, maybe most notably Guardians of the Galaxy. It is also regularly covered.
After that, Mickey Thomas left Bishop’s band, tried some solo work, and became the lead singer of Jefferson Starship, recording one pretty good album, and a series of less good albums, ultimately (after litigation) dropping the “Jefferson” and recording something that is regularly on lists of the worst song ever recorded. (My Cover Me piece here links to a couple of such lists). Interestingly, the drummer on “Fooled Around,” Donny Baldwin, later also joined Jefferson Starship, but in 1989, in Scranton, PA, he attacked Thomas, who needed reconstructive surgery. Attacking your lead singer is generally a bad idea, and Baldwin was fired, but as history has shown, the Airplane/Starship revolving door is always turning, and Baldwin rejoined a Mickey Thomas-less version of the band in 2008.
Bishop, on the other hand, returned to the relative obscurity of the blues world, continuing to record and tour both as a leader and sideman. When he performs the song these days, he either does it as an instrumental, or with his background singers stepping forward—and occasionally with Thomas. (who also performed the song with Starship). He’s had a couple of Grammy nominations, in the Best Traditional Blues Album category, losing out to B.B. King and The Rolling Stones (no shame there), and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. And, one can assume, Bishop continues to cash royalty checks for “Fooled Around,” demonstrating that he is nobody’s fool.
