"Bishop" Perry Tillis
"Bishop" Joe Perry Tillis (July 29, 1919 - November 3, 2004) was a blues and gospel singer from Alabama.
Tillis was born July 29, 1919 in Talladega County, Alabama. He was raised near Elba, Alabama in Coffee County, where his family were sharecroppers and he picked cotton as a child. While he attended the Pentecostal church with his parents, he also enjoyed the blues music played at Saturday-night fish fries. He started playing the ukulele when he was fourteen years old, and eventually saved enough money to buy his own guitar. When he discovered he could make more money busking in town playing country blues, he turned his back on farming and devoted himself to music. During his travels as an intinerant bluesman, he met and worked briefly with Blind Willie Johnson, who was a huge influence on Tillis's music.
Like Johnson, Tillis played slide guitar to accompany his own vocals. During his prime, he refused to make records, considering it a waste of time because there was not enough money in it. "See, I could get out there with my guitar, I played the blues and I'd get out there in a club or some building and make myself $2000 a week. I couldn't get that on records."[1]
In the late 1940s, Tillis took a part-time job driving trucks, but had to give that up in 1954 when he started going blind. He once again became a full-time musician and hired a neighbor to drive him around to clubs and house parties for paying jobs. His religious conversion in 1967 caused him to forsake the blues entirely in favor of gospel music.
After Tillis was saved, he performed and preached at Our Savior Jesus Holiness Pentecostal Church in Samson, Alabama, where he switched to electric guitar in 1970. Although not ordained, he used the title "Bishop," and led services on the first and third Mondays of the month. His unique gospel-blues style attracted folklorists and aficionados who persuaded him to finally make records. Swedish blues pilgrim Bengt Olsson helped discover Tillis and made field recordings in 1972, after which Tillis recorded two full-length albums, "Too Close" and "In Times Like These."
Tillis was married three times and had a daughter and a son. Tillis died November 3, 2004.
References[edit]
- Barretta, Scott. Liner notes, "Wolf's At The Door: Lost Recordings From The Spirits Of The South" (Sutro Park Records), 2010.
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