Mayall & Bishop Make Blues Hall of Fame

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Blues rockers (l-r) Elvin Bishop & John Mayall

Blues music is one of rock’n’roll’s primary roots, especially classic rock. On May 4th, the Memphis-based Blues Foundation will induct into its Blues Hall of Fame among others two seminal if not pivotal blues-rockers: John Mayall and Elvin Bishop.

Would there be classic English guitar rock without John Mayall? Maybe. But it would have sounded far different without the time served in Mayall’s Bluesbreakers by Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and others. He was the U.K.’s premier advocate for blues music, and remains a vital interpreter, innovator and discoverer of new talent today.

Elvin Bishop was similarly positioned at the genesis of blues-rock in America in the 1960s as guitarist in The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, inducted last year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When guitar star Michael Bloomfield left that group Bishop handily stepped into the forefront. In the 1970s his Elvin Bishop Group was a popular act on album rock radio and the concert circuit, even scoring a #3 pop hit in 1976 with “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” (sung by Mickey Thomas, later of Starship). Last year he won Blues Music Awards for Album, Song and Band of the Year.

The other two living performers being inducted are veterans Jimmy Johnson and Eddy Clearwater. The influence on not just blues but popular music in general of final inductees Memphis Jug Band, who began their career at the dawn of recorded music in the 1920s, cannot be underestimated.

Also being honored are: Malaco Records partners, Tommy Couch, Sr. and Wolf Stephenson; the book Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis, by Jeff Todd Titon; the classic album Blues in the Mississippi Night, and five blues singles including the now near-standard “Merry Christmas Baby” (Exclusive, 1947), the first Yuletide song inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

The induction ceremony will be held Wednesday, May 4, at the Sheraton Memphis Downtown in Memphis, TN, the night before the 37th Blues Music Awards. the Blues Hall of Fame consists of blues music’s best and brightest stars. The Blues Hall of Fame induction ceremony will coincide with the one year anniversary of the opening of the Blues Hall of Fame Museum, also located in Memphis at the home of the Blues Foundation. This state of the art facility celebrates the lives and the music of each Hall of Fame individual as well as the history of the music and the literature produced through the blues timeline. These newest inductees will be added to the museum’s permanent exhibits and interactive displays in conjunction with their induction this May.