Duffy Bishop

Find Your Way Home

Lil’ Spinner Records

Blues bands are mostly regional. In other words they can’t afford to travel further than they can drive in a day. Members also can’t afford to give up their day jobs. When a band relocates the news is significant.

Duffy Bishop began performing in rock bands when she was sixteen; Roadside Attraction, Toulouse Lautrec, Coda, Skeezix, Cool Ray and The Shades, and The Rhythm Dogs were but a few. She has opened for Roy Orbison, John Lee Hooker, Lou Rawls, Chicago, and Etta James. She toured Japan as a “Janis” replacement with Big Brother and The Holding Company. She has shared the stage with Ruth Brown, Gatemouth Brown, Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Bo Diddley and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

The Northwest Area Music Association named Bishop Best Female Vocalist in 1989 and 1990 and Entertainer of the Year in 1991. The Washington Blues Society proclaimed her Best Female Vocalist in 1992 and Entertainer of The Year in 1993 and 1995. Bishop also won Best Female Vocalist again in 1999.

The Cascade Blues Association hosts the Muddy Awards and named Bishop Best Regional Blues Act in 1994 and Best Female Vocalist every year from 1995 until 1999 and again in 2001. She has won this award so many times they renamed it the Duffy Bishop Female Vocalist Award. She also won Best Contemporary Blues Act in 1996 and entered the C.B.A. Hall of Fame in 1997.

Their eighth and most recent album is “Find Your Way Home”. Nine of the twelve songs were co-written by Bishop and her partner guitarist John Christopher Carlson including “I Don’t Wanna Know About It”; “Get Up and Move”; the “Black Mangrove” featuring Mary Flowers on lap slide; and the title track. They also cover Dan Penn’s “It Tears Me Up”. The album was recorded at The Secret Society Studio in Portland, Oregon.

You can catch up with them by obtaining this fine album. The big news is that Bishop, Carlson and the band have stepped out of the cold and relocated to sunny Florida. A new album is planned for late 2016. Floridians are the lucky ones.

Richard Ludmerer