Album Review #75: Struttin' My Stuff (Elvin Bishop)

in #music6 years ago

ELVIN BISHOP
STRUTTIN' MY STUFF
1975-CAPRICORN
Produced By ALLAN BLAZEK & BILL SZYMCZYK

  1. Struttin' My Stuff
  2. Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey
  3. My Girl
  4. I Love The Life I Lead
  5. Fooled Around And Fell In Love
  6. Holler And Shout
  7. Slick Titty Boom
  8. Grab All The Love
  9. Have A Good Time
  10. Joy

Elvin Bishop, also known as Pigboy Crabshaw, was a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band until he went solo in 1968. A well respected blues player, it wasn't until the mid seventies that he started to become popular. Struttin' My Stuff isn't a blues album at all, but a collection of sometimes pretty good mainstream rock. The big hit, of course, is "Fooled Around And Fell In Love". And, on a personal note, this was the first band (touring for this album) that I saw live (opening for ELO). So it gets points for sentimental value.

Those points are taken away when I realize that the first lead singer I ever saw live was the guy would end up singing "We Built This City". Bishop and Mickey Thomas split the lead vocal duties here, and with the exception of "Fooled Around", Bishop, who has nowhere near the range or control that Thomas has, wins hands down. His good ol' boy voice works well on the excellent title track, "Have A Good Time", and "I Love The Life I Lead", while Thomas is just annoying on "My Girl" and "Hey". "Slick Titty Boom" is a hilarious take on which of the two gets to NOT take the backstage slut home. It's a fun album, if you can get past Thomas, who would go on to commit much worse sins in his career than this.

Bishop still plays. Thomas is still dragging around the Starship name, even though no one from the original band will touch him. Interesting also...the drummer on this album, Donny Baldwin, followed Thomas into Starship years later. He was kicked out for almost destroying Thomas' face in a bar fight. Baldwin holds the strange distinction of having twice replaced former Journey drummers in Starship.

This is album #75 in an ongoing series.

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