Rock and Roll

Another Chicago Classic and Favorite of us Midwest Folk

"We're 1980's rock 'n roll," says Hounds leader-founder John Hunter, Chicago native and, like the other band members, a seasoned veteran of Midwestern rock, nearly a genre unto its own these days. "By its very nature," explains Hunter, "rock 'n roll is steeped in rebellion. Hounds' messages are contemporary. They are not just sex & sleeze. They're not just street fighting. There's more involved in it, and there's still rebellion. in the '60's, rock 'n roll was more than an art form - it was political as well. Today, I'm not sure where the Hounds are going to end up politically. I think one of the Hounds' functions - or missions – is to shake up the people a bit. I want them to like us or to hate us, but react to the music either way. I want the music to make them think."

In Chicago, where Hounds have passed from semi-legendary street-cult status to genuine historical fact, the popular reaction has been all that Hunter could ask for. Come friday afternoons around 5 P.M., listeners of a dozen radio stations in the area have been known to salivate like Pavolv's dogs at the prospect of hearing Hounds Anthem, "Drugland Weekend," one more time. One station has it pegged as it's "most requested" number of 1976 and 1977 - notwithstanding the fact that they were programming it off a demo tape (which also included "The Alleys of Love," Hounds set opener) and the sides were not for sale in any record store.

With the release of the Hounds' debut album, UNLEASHED (March 1978), the latter problem is solved in no uncertain terms. At the same time, three years of scuffling (and several lifetimes of dues-paying) make it all worthwhile. There have been some times! "We really were starving at one point," recalls Hunter. "We did a tour of Wyoming, of all places, and sometimes we didn't have enough money for a motel room, so we'd sleep on park benches. Hey it was coarse.

For 28-year old Hunter, who'd graduated Northwestern University as a pre-med student, the rock 'n roll decision was hardly an overnight one. He was playing one-handed boogie woogie piano at age 3, and was trained through high school. Along the way was an endless succession of bands, with influences ranging from Dion and Motown in the early '60's (Jr. Walker's "Roadrunner" was the first song Hunter ever recorded); through the Beatles ("I was swept away... they changed my life") and the rest of the British Invasion, with its open indebtedness to its root source - American rhythm & blues and rock 'n roll, factors that figured heavily in the birthright of Hounds.

Out of school in 1971, the John Hunter Band became the focus of attention. An otherwise enlightening A&R junket to New York City turned up no buyers for his many demo recordings, but set his head straight on the next phase: "The general consensus was a) You need a direction; b) You need a band to perform the songs; c) You need a strong road organization and booking organization; d) You need strong management organization. So I had a lot of work ahead of me."

The work began as he sought musicians who shared his initial concept: "Substantial rock 'n roll, with rawness, the strength, the heavy dynamics that I'd really only hear from British groups until that point. I wanted to be able to use that classic British sound, to take those rock 'n roll, into a true rock 'n roll form, not American or British, but a form that transcends both, a continuation."

Hunter came across drummer John Horvath in a country-rock band called Wildwood and was able to convince him to join the venture. Trained by Roy Knapp (who taught Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich years before), Horvath's tastes extend from Lionel Hampton to Billy Cobham, from Led Zeppelin's John Bonham to Count Basie.

When Hunter saw a newspaper ad that read "Professional English-style rockers looking for front man" he crossed the Indiana border and found Jim Orkis playing lead guitar in Pyramid. Hunter sent Pyramid's drummer back to Macon (!) and brought in Horvath. Ditto Pyramid's bassist, whose cousin the guitarist dropped out in protest. Hunter, Orkis and Horvath became the nucleus of Hounds, and recorded the "Drugland Weekend" demo in 1975 with various bassists, they started performing as a 4-piece band, taking gigs virtually anytime and any place they could. With one important proviso - Hunter's unqualified refusal to play anything except his original material.

If such a "luxury" infuriated club owners or alienated patrons - who expected to hear "copy" material at least 50% of the time - it certainly didn't matter to the Hounds. If the boss or the patrons became abusive, the band was ready to defend itself. "We had no choice," says Hunter. "It was either fight or get buried. But something always happened to pull our spirits up, and we'd rally and keep going. 'Let's do a few more gigs, let's do one more demo, let's borrow a little more money and buy a little more equipment, let's make just a little bigger fools of ourselves.' We were bound and determined to make it, no matter what."

The true fans emerged slowly, turning up to request "Drugland Weekend" or "Alleys of Love" on the basis of the demo's radio play and the Hounds' hardworking presence in the area. One fan was Bruce Kapp of Celebration Productions, Chicago's primary concert promoters, who took over Hound's management in 1977 around the same time they were signed to Columbia Records. Already established as headliners around the city and even into suburban Indiana, hounds soon expanded their turf throughout the Midwest, as Celebration booked them onto major regional tour wings with the likes of Ted Nugent, Geils, Manfred Mann, AC/DC and others. The concert audiences were predictably more excited about Hounds' original music compounded with their outrageous, aggressive attitudes onstage. "And the more we did it, the more they liked it," adds Hunter.

Hounds' final personnel change happened last November, 1977, just weeks before recording sessions for Columbia were to commence at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. Guitarist Glen Rupp Jr. and bassist Joe Cuttone, Chicagoans who'd performed and recorded in the Paul Bogush Band (produced by Larry Carlton), were able to master Hounds' repertoire in a matter of days, and the sessions went on as scheduled. "I've never worked with such skilled musicians," praises Hunter.

It seems an altogether appropriate coda for this opening chapter of Hounds' saga that, right after they'd finished the sessions in Record Plant's Studio C, the facility suffered a million dollar fire. Hunter, engineer Steve Smith, and producer Terry Powell (of Sparks renown) were actually doing final mixes of the album elsewhere at the Record Plant when "C" was razed.

But now the real heat is on. "We were very savage when we put this band together," recollects hunter, "We've begun the first step of our journey with the recording of this album. Now we want the whole ball of wax, we want to establish ourselves and make albums forever. as long as we're physically able to do this, we're gonna do it, in one capacity or another. Right now, professionally, this is the high point of our lives

Growing up in the 1940s on a farm in Iowa with a loving but non musical family, Elvin seldom heard music as a kid. "This was before TV," Elvin says, "and on the radio you got a lot of Frank Sinatra and 'How Much Is That Doggie In the Window' type of stuff." The family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Elvin was 10, in 1952. Tulsa was "totally segregated," says Elvin, "I mean, hard core." However, "the one thing they couldn't segregate was the airwaves. When rock and roll started up in the mid-'50s, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard showed up on white radio."


And then, late one night when Elvin was 14 or 15, the atmospheric conditions a little rough, Jimmy Reed's harmonica came cutting through the static from WLAC in Nashville, and Elvin Bishop's life was changed. The song was "Honest I Do." "That piercing harp came through, cutting in like a knife, and I said, 'Oh, man, that's it.' I found out that blues was where the good part of rock and roll was coming from." And about that time, he started trying to play guitar. "I wanted to play it from the beginning," Elvin says. "I kept trying and then quitting it. Hurtin' my fingers, playing those old pawn-shop guitars with the strings two inches off the fret board. Nobody I knew played." But he kept after it. "Not being able to dance, and seeing how the musicians did with the girls, and loving the music, I finally stuck with it."


Hooked on the sounds emerging from the radio, Elvin had to find out where they were coming from and who was responsible. When he was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in 1959, he could have gone to pretty much any college he wanted, but chose The University Of Chicago, because that's where the blues were. And so he landed in the middle of one of the richest and most vital scenes in blues history. "Any night of the week you could hear Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Hound Dog Taylor, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, Bobby King, Eddie King, Little Smokey, Big Smokey, and a whole ton of people you never heard of."


His first week in Chicago, he came across Paul Butterfield, who was sitting on some steps drinking beer and playing blues on guitar. "We fell together right away," says Elvin. "I was amazed to find other white guys into blues." After playing with a lot of different people, including J.T. Brown, Hound Dog Taylor and Junior Wells, Elvin hooked up with Butterfield to form the legendary Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, who'd been Howlin' Wolf's rhythm section. Producer Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records encouraged them to add guitarist Michael Bloomfield. "I'd met Bloomfield before, in a pawn shop," says Elvin, "when I was looking for guitars. We got to talking. He got a guitar out, started playing circles around the world."


In 1965 the Butterfield band went into the studio and recorded The Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, which turned out to be a sea-change record for thousands of rock fans and musicians. An integrated band playing blues music in 1965 was unheard of. It introduced a lot of people to the blues, and to the musicians who had influenced the Butterfield band. After several more albums with Butterfield, including the pivotal genre bending East West, Bishop took off on his own. "I wanted to stretch out, see how far I could take it on my own," says Elvin. Bishop had visited San Francisco with the Butterfield band during the Summer of Love in 1967. "I loved the people, the weather, and not having to watch my back all the time." And like several other Chicago musicians he ended up moving to the Bay Area.


The 70's saw Elvin hit the charts with solo tracks like "Travelin' Shoes," "Sure Feels Good" and what would become his biggest hit, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," with a powerful vocal by Mickey Thomas (later of Jefferson Starship). During the 1980's, Elvin spent most of his time on the road, "entertaining the people and maybe having a little too much fun myself." Later in the decade he hooked up with Alligator for a number of excellent albums that grew right out of his blues roots.


Elvin's brand new release "The Blues Rolls On" on Delta Groove Music, harks back to Bishop's roots, paying tribute to the musicians who helped give him his start. A who's who of blues musicians support Bishop on the album, including B.B. King, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, George Thorogood, James Cotton, Kim Wilson, Tommy Castro, John Nemeth, Ronnie Baker Brooks, and Angela Strehli. Bishop handles the majority of the vocals, with Nemeth and others pitching in as well.


Bishop revisits his own '70s solo hit "Struttin' My Stuff" with Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, Junior Wells' "Come On In This House," and the Butterfield Band's "Yonders Wall" and Hound Dog Taylor's "Send You Back To Georgia." He also contributes the autobiographical boogie "Oklahoma," played solo electric. Sessions for the rollicking album ranged from Jacksonville, FL to Clarksdale, MS, and to a cruise ship off the Mexican coast.


Bishop is a slide guitar great with 45-years of blues under his belt. Rolling Stone has tagged Bishop's music as "raucous," praising his "careening slide and razor-edged bursts, all delivered with unflagging enthusiasm and wit. "The Blues Rolls On" is another defining moment in Bishop's long career and a welcome reminder that the blues is still alive and well.