Today’s classic song of the day is one where the featured artist didn’t sing lead. The song is “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” by Elvin Bishop, and it was released as a single in February of 1976. This bluesy track did pretty well, peaking at #3 on the both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100.
Elvin Bishop, who wrote “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” was a blues guitarist who also sang a little, but not on this song; he felt his gravelly voice wouldn’t do it justice. In his own words:
“My voice is very plain. It’s better suited for blues. It’s been good for me, because it’s made my songwriting strong, because to really get over with a voice like mine, which is not a thrill in itself—the quality of the voice—you have to have a strong story and really good words to capture people’s imagination.”
So he asked Mickey Thomas, who was singing backup in his band at the time, to take lead vocal duties on this one. You probably remember Mr. Thomas for his later work singing lead with Jefferson Starship, later just Starship; that’s him sharing lead vocals with Grace Slick on one of the most despised songs of the ’80s, “We Built This City.”
Elvin Bishop (no relationship to soft rock singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop) got his first break in 1963, playing guitar in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, alongside fellow guitarist Mike Bloomfield. He left that band in 1968 and formed his own band. His group got a lot of play on album-oriented FM rock radio during the 1970s and 1980s, and has kept performing to this day. In 2015 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and in 2016 as a solo artist into the Blues Hall of Fame. He’s currently 82 years old.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the Elvin Bishop group, with Mickey Thomas on vocals, performing “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” live on the August 27, 1976, episode of The Midnight Special. Elvin sure could play that guitar—and Mickey sang pretty good, too.
