Bishop Perry Tillis

"Bishop" Joe Perry Tillis ( July 29, 1919, in Elba, Alabama; November 3, 2004 ) was an American blues musician. He played with well-known blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Blind Willie Johnson.
 

Bishop was introduced to the blues at a young age. [ 1 ] At the age of 14, he learned to play his first instrument, the ukulele. After saving for months to buy an acoustic guitar, he was soon busking while continuing to work as a farmhand on a cotton plantation. Eventually, he discovered that playing country blues paid better. Tillis travelled across the United States as a bluesman, initially hitchhiking or riding on freight trains. The reason he was never recognised by the largely white public was that he refused to record.

He had worked for a regional transportation service since the 1940s. However, due to his blindness, he had to give up his job in 1954. He refocused on the blues and hired a neighbour to drive him across the country. In the late 1960s, Bishop experienced a religious conversion and joined the gospel choir at Our Savior Jesus Holiness Pentecostal Church in Samson, Alabama.

On November 3, 2004, Tillis died at the age of 85.