Tag: Mickey Thomas

Some songs really take me back to a place I was when I heard it. This one was going roller skating with my sister who took me along with her. I never understood why my 16-year-old sister wanted to talk to guys while I was having the time of my life skating as an eight-year-old.

If you hear the rest of Elvin Bishop’s catalog…you wouldn’t believe this came from him. It’s a love song and a good one. Bishop is a blues guitarist who played in The Paul Butterfield Blues Band before forming his own group in 1968. Mickey Thomas who sang the song was a vocalist in Bishop’s band and sang lead on “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” and would later sing in Jefferson Starship.

Elvin can sing but his voice is suited more for blues. Elvin wrote the song and thought Mickey Thomas could sing it better…Mickey did a great job with it. The song peaked at #3 on the Billboard 100, #34 in the UK, and #22 in Canada in 1976.

In 2015, Bishop was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and again in the Blues Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2016. Many younger listeners discovered this song when it was used in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy and included on the soundtrack, which went to #1 in America.

I stumbled across a newer cover of this song that I really like around 6 months ago…it’s by the Winery Dogs. The band included Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan, and drummer Mike Portnoy. Give it a listen as well…they stayed true to the original and it sounds good.

Elvin 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.”

Fooled Around and Fell In Love

I must have been through about a million girls
I’d love ’em then I’d leave ’em alone
I didn’t care how much they cried, no sir
Their tears left me cold as a stone

But then I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, yes I did
I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love

It used to be when I’d see a girl that I liked
I’d get out my book and write down her name
Ah, but when the, the grass got a little greener over on the other side
I’d just tear out that page

I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, since I met you baby
I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love

Free, on my own is the way I used to be
Ah, but since I met you baby, love’s got a hold on me
It’s got a hold on me now
I can’t let go of you baby

I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, oh yes I did
I fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
Fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
Fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
Fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
I fooled around, fell in love
I fell in love, I fell in love, yes I did