Fooled Around And Fell In Love

by

Elvin Bishop

Album: Struttin' My Stuff      Released: 1975

US Chart: 3     UK Chart: 34

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Bishop is a Blues guitarist who played in The Paul Butterfield Blues Band before forming his own band in 1968. Mickey Thomas, who joined Jefferson Starship in 1979 and sang on their hits "Sara" and was a vocalist in Bishop's band, and he sang lead on this. Said Bishop: "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. And that tune, I gave it a try. The producer, Bill Szymczyk, said, 'We need one more piece of material here. You got anything else laying around?' I said, 'Well, there's this tune I wrote the other day.' Well, not the other day. I'd actually tried to get a couple of other people to sing it, but somehow it didn't work out. I said, 'How about this 'Fooled Around and Fell In Love'?' We cut a track, it was a really nice track. I tried singing it, and I said, 'That's not buttering my biscuit, my vocal on this. Why don't we give Mickey a shot at this?' And the producer said, 'Well, that's big of you.' And I said, 'Well, I don't think so. It's just common sense, you know?' And Mickey just tore it up."

Mickey Thomas replaced Marty Balin as the male lead singer of Jefferson Starship in 1979 and was with the band in 1985 when they changed their name to Starship and had huge hits with "Sara," "We Built This City" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."

Bishop: "The better a song is, the less story there is to it, as far as I can tell. The best songs just come rushing out. I don't know if life squeezes them out of you, or if they're just so right that they take no thought. I don't know. Or if you're given a temporary connection to the flow of the universe, or whatever it is. But that song just damn near wrote itself."

Although Bishop is known as a Blues musician, this song was a huge Pop hit and still gets considerable airplay on Adult Contemporary radio. The song does not represent the body of Bishop's work, but he does love playing it live. Says Bishop: "I figured out a way to have my cake and eat it too on that one. I play it as a slide instrumental, pretty much, with the guys singing background vocals, and they get the crowd to sing, and it works just amazingly well. Slide is kind of like the voice I never had. I can sing as high or as low as I want to, put as much sustain, as much treble... I learned to play the melody 'Fooled Around And Fell In Love' on the slide. It doesn't sound like it would work, but it does." (Thanks to Elvin for speaking with us about this song. Read his full interview in the Songfacts interviews section. Learn more on his page at Blind Pig Records.)

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Comments:

It's also featured in "Invincible," another movie with Mark Wahlberg. It really added to the 70s vibe of the movie.
- Mark, New Orleans, LA

Country artists Gary Morris and Juice Newton performed a nice duet version of this song, too.
- Brad, Barry, TX

I met Elvin Bishop and Mickey Thomas in Ukiah, CA back in 1976. Good people both of them. I had a feeling Mickey wouldn't be hanging around for long with that band, not with that incredible voice.
- Jami, Redding, CA

Also gets a lot of airplay on classic rock stations. (At least, in Illinois)
- Joe, Chicago, IL

This song has been featured in several movies, including Boogie Nights. The song is very soulful, with an incredible melody.
- Joey, Boston, MA

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