Elvin Bishop & Little Smokey Smothers That's My Partner! (2000)

Starting with its 20th anniversary in 1991, every five years brings another double Alligator collection, and 2011 was no exception. While the 35th edition –released in 2006 – logically featured 35 songs, the compilers couldn't quite squeeze 40 onto this 40th anniversary disc, even though owner Bruce Iglauer does admit to fading a few endings off prematurely in order to maximize the list, which hits 38 selections. The trick with these albums is to both pay tribute to the label's storied past while including enough recent acts to connect the dots between the house-rocking music Iglauer built his company on, and the more modern yet still roots-based sounds he's released during the last five years.

Elvin Bishop - Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby (1981)
Blues | MP3 192 Kbps | 58 MB
Publisher: Line Records

The band remained with Capricorn throughout the rest of the 1970s, releasing Hometown Boy Makes Good! in 1976. A live album, Raisin' Hell, was released in 1977 to capitalize on the group's enduring popularity. A return to the studio resulted in Hog Heaven, released in 1978. None of these albums, however, was able to match the popularity of Struttin' My Stuff. Faced with its decline in popularity, the band opted to dissolve at the end of the decade, ending its affiliation with Capricorn after the release of Best of Elvin Bishop in 1979.
Bishop was relatively quiet for much of the next decade, after releasing Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby in 1981. In 1988 he returned to active duty, signing with Alligator Records and effectively returning to his blues roots. That year's Big Fun marked the debut of Bishop with his new label, followed by 1991's Don't Let the Bossman Get You Down. In 1995 Bishop released Ace in the Hole and also performed on the first solo album of his former mentor, Smokey Smothers. The 1998 album The Skin I'm In addresses, among other things, the artist's experience of growing older. In January of 2000, Bishop's career appeared to close the circle when Smokey Smothers joined him onstage for three nights of sold-out shows in San Francisco. The performances were captured on That's My Partner!, released later that year.

CHICAGO BLUES SESSION VOL. 1 features tracks by Boston Blackie recorded in 1992 and by Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers in 1984.

Smokey Smothers - Sings The Backporch Blues (1962) {Ace Records CDCHD858, Reissued & Expanded rel 2002)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 239 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 153 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 22 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1962, 2002 King / Federal / Ace Records | CDCHD 858
Blues / Electric Chicago Blues / Regional Blues

Otis "Smokey" Smothers's 1962 LP Sings the Backporch Blues is a rare and coveted blues album. This CD puts it into wide circulation and then some, not only presenting all 12 of the songs from the original album (as the first dozen tunes on the disc), but adding nine alternate takes and four tracks from 1962-1963 singles. The album is perhaps overestimated due to its rarity, but it's solid Chicago blues, owing much to the sort of mid-tempo shuffle that Jimmy Reed had made so much in vogue by the early '60s.

Elvin Bishop's music has been making people smile for over 50 years. A founding member of the groundbreaking Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elvin has performed and recorded with music legends such as B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and the Allman Brothers……

Elvin Bishop - Gettin' My Groove Back (2005)
Blues | MP3 320 Kbps | 95 MB
Publisher: Blind Pig

Gettin' My Groove Back, the first new studio album from Elvin Bishop in five years, and the first since his daughter Selina was murdered in 2000, is an understandingly split affair, part catharsis as he deals with his tragic loss, and part the kind of rocking party record that has been Bishop's trademark in the past. Needless to say, the two parts don't necessarily fit together that well, and while Bishop's stinging guitar playing bridges the gap somewhat, it is the ragged, angry lead track, "What the Hell Is Going On," and the harrowing "Come on Blues," which features Bishop solo with just an electric guitar, that linger in the mind when this set concludes, making tracks like "Party Til the Cows Come Home" seem criminally frivolous. That said, the goofy, washboard-driven "He's a Dog" is a hillbilly delight, while an instrumental version of Don Gibson's "Sweet Dreams" features some absolutely wonderful and emotionally powerful slide guitar work from Bishop, who obviously understands that the blues is, among other things, a kind of therapy. There was probably no way for Bishop to avoid the kind of emotional split apparent in this set, and while party songs about when the cows come home have their place, particularly as part of a live show, a track like "What the Hell Is Going On" asks the exact right question and ought to be all over the radio. That it isn't — and won't be —is an indictment of the times. It's a great song, and since it leads off this album, it casts a giant shadow over everything that follows it. Everyone — not just Bishop — desperately needs the answer to the question it asks.

Elvin Bishop - The Elvin Bishop Group
FLAC | Artwork | 24Bit 96kHz: 607 MB
Cat#: Fillmore FC 30001 | Country/Year: US 1969
Genre: Blues Rock, Electric Blues | Hoster: Filesonic/Uploaded

When Elvin Bishop left the Butterfield Blues Band in 1968 and moved to California, he added the one ingredient missing from San Francisco's bubbling musical cauldron - nasty, down-home, electrified blues…