Song of the Day 4/1: Elvin Bishop, “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”

Fate played a mean joke on blues guitarist Elvin Bishop. Bishop, who cut his teeth playing with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, is remembered as a one-hit wonder for his composition “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” but he didn’t even get to sing it.

Bishop thought his gravelly voice wouldn’t do the song justice, so he gave the lead vocal to one of his backup singers, Mickey Thomas. The song reached No. 3 in 1976, and the exposure helped land Thomas the gig as the new singer for Starship, formerly known as Jefferson Starship. Thomas, sharing vocals with Grace Slick, scored two No. 1 hits with the band.

This live version from “Midnight Special” illustrates the irony. Thomas gets the camera’s attention for most of the song. We don’t see Bishop until more than two minutes into it, when he gets the spotlight for his guitar solo. The song pops up fairly often in movies, most notably on the Awesome Mix in “Guardians of the Galaxy.”