Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite 100 Years of Blues

Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite
100 Years of Blues
Alligator Records

The title of this first full album by blues veterans Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite refers to time playing blues if one added their careers together. It was also a selection that the two recorded together on one of Bishop's Big Fun Trio albums, which is reprised here. Bob Welsh on piano and guitar joins them, with Kid Andersen playing bass on four selections. The result is an album with has a loose back-porch party feel of Bishop's recent Big Fun Trio recordings.

The loose jam fell starts with Bishop's party celebration of the blues "Birds of a Feather." Even though there is no drummer present, the performances are rhythmically dynamic. Musselwhite plays his harp with a robust, full-bodied tone. His vocals sound a bit more upfront than some of his recent recordings . He does credit to Roosevelt Sykes' "West Helena Blues" with Welsh on piano. "What the Hell" is a topical blues that was issued on the Alligator "2020 Blues" sampler. "Good Times" is a solid Musselwhite original with Bishop channeling Robert Nighthawk while Charlie ponders about where did all our good times go.

Bishop does an atmospheric cover of Leroy Carr's "Midnight Hour Blues" with Musselwhite contributing some harmonica to contribute to the performance's mood. Musselwhite's "Blues Why Do Worry Me" is a rowdy Chicago shuffle with Welsh adding sterling piano, while Bishop's "Chicago Slide" sounds like a nicely played reworking of Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk." This recording's highlight may be Musselwhite's "Blues For Yesterday," a nostalgic recollection of "when times were tough, but we had fun." The album closes with the new recording of the title track as they recollected about the Chicago of five decades past when they were first coming out.

The recording of a drummer-less Chicago blues recording is not unprecedented. Listening to this, I thought of some of Norman Dayron recordings (often issued on Testament) by Johnny Young, Otis Spann, and others that often were without drummers. Like those recordings, there is plenty to enjoy here. Bishop and Musselwhite sound like they had a blast recording this, and folks will have one listening to it.

I received a download to review from Alligator Records. Here are Elvin and Charlie performing Tampa red's "Don't You Lie To Me" from February of 2020.