Dickie Bishop (April 16, 1935 - January 25, 2018) was a British jazz guitarist, banjoist and vocalist.
Dickie was born Richard William Bishop in West Ealing, London. As a boy he was introduced to music by tuning into Big Bill Campbell and Sons Of The Pioneers who played and sang cowboy songs on their regular radio shows (or wireless as it would have been known back in those far off days) on the BBC Light Program network. Campbell played guitar and sang, the show catchphrases were "Howdy Pard" and "Mighty Fine".
No doubt the popularity of the show was entirely due to kids Saturday morning pictures being exposed to American imports of the singing cowboy movies of Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Once however the young Dickie had got past the stage of galloping around the school playground on an imaginary horse, he found himself bitten by the bug of American folk music. Woody Guthrie would become a Dickies lifelong hero prompting Dickie to learn to play banjo, ukulele and, a little later, guitar whilst at school.
National service was spent in the RAF, and once this time was up a career as a professional musician beckoned. In the immediate post war years the popularity of traditional, or Dixieland, others may refer to as New Orleans Jazz, proved to be a fruitful stomping ground for young aspiring musicians, it would prove a natural progression for Bishop too. Joining Brent Valley Jazz Band, which included among its member future near lifetime member of Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, Pat Halcox, with whom both he and Dickie moved on to play within the Albemarle Jazz Band. Once however Halcox had been headhunted by Barber that would be the end of the band. A time spent as a banjoist in Charlie Connors Jazzmen followed, before splitting and working solo performing at folk clubs, by now adopting the tag Dickie "Cisco" Bishop after his hero Woodie Guthrie’s singing partner Cisco Houston.
By the mid-fifties, something was stirring in the coffee bars and rooms above pubs around ole London town. This brand of home-made music interpreted American folk and blues, acoustic guitar, banjo, by now the washboard had found another use outside of the kitchen or the scullery. Chris Barber caught the mood perfectly and formed a skiffle group to perform alongside and inside his jazz band. Dickie soon found himself playing alongside and sharing vocals with the soon to be "King Of Skiffle" Lonnie Donegan. Once he had split for his hugely successful career, Bishop took over on banjo, staying with the Barber band for eighteen months, cutting an EP with them, sharing vocals with the wildly underestimated former American GI, Skiffle, Country, Rockabilly singer, Johnny Duncan, before spending time as part of Donegan’s skiffle group with whom he cut a live album in January 1957 at the Conway Hall.
A couple of months later, he formed his own group, Dickie Bishop and The Sidekicks soon to be found performing gigs at Roundhouse pub in Wardour Street in Soho. At the time the jazz and blues bar upstairs was run by blues harmonica player and singer Cyril Davies and bassist Don Wilson who was also a member of "Sidekicks" and one of the first to lay down his stand-up bass and pick up a bass guitar.
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| Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Donegan & Bishop |
The pair authored the song for which Dickie will be forever associated "No Other Baby" one of the first British penned number to find in swift time an American cover, in the shape of country singer Bobby Helms who took it into the US country charts, the following year 1958 peaking at No 30 on the UK pop charts.
Bishop’s original never got beyond cult status, but has since become a staple of British Rock’n’Roll singer Vince Eager’s stage act for a number of years. Paul McCartney did the song proud in his 1999 "back to his roots" tour in company of Dave Gilmore from Pink Floyd and Mick Green of the Pirates on guitars.
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| Dickie Bishop & Johnny Duncan |
In April 1957 the first huge skiffle concert was held at Royal Festival Hall, along with Johnny Duncan, Chas McDevitt’s Skiffle Group, Ray Bush and Avon Cities Skiffle Group among others. It was said, that Bishop had by far the heaviest electric sound and veered much closer to Rock'n'Roll. However that be as it may, once Skiffle had run its course, he went back to just being a member of a jazz band, performing with Kenny Ball’s outfit, making a living too providing covers of then current pop hits for the Society label.
The final two decades of the last century he performed in Papa Humbser's Jazzmen, before upping sticks and making a permanent home in Germany at the turn of the Millenium. Dickie did his last musical performances in December 2004 during the Skiffle Concerts in Gelsenkirchen & Essen.
Dickie Bishop died in his Hamburg home on 22nd February 2018 aged 82.
(Edited from Tales From The Woods magazine)