Little Charlie & The Nightcats - Deluxe Edition [CD]

CALIFORNIA JUMPING BLUES

…the extraordinary synthesis of swinging, 1940s style, jazzy R&B and driving Chicago blues harmonica.  Nobody does it better than Little Charlie and the Nightcats.  When Little Charlie Baty, hair flopping over his forehead, unleashes his wild, totally unpredictable and always swinging (John Lee Hooker calls him “dangerous”) guitar licks and Rick Estrin, perfectly dressed (who else has argyle socks that match his shoes?) and coiffed, delivers his slice-of-life lyrics before jumping into a gritty-harp solo, it sounds like what might have happened if Louis Jordan and Little Walter had jammed with Charlie Christian in front of The Five Royales’ rhythm section. 

Baty and Estrin have been a team for over 20 years, beginning in tiny clubs in San Francisco and Sacramento.  An excellent harp player himself, Charlie only took up guitar after meeting Rick, who had been perfecting his vocal and harmonica skills and his sartorial style in the ghetto clubs of Oakland since he was a teenager.  Relocating to Sacramento in the '70s, they worked with a series of drummers before finding Dobie Strange, whose twelve-year stint with the Nightcats playing with a succession of excellent bass players allowed them to experiment far beyond the standard range of blues grooves.

Baty quickly evolved into one of the most eccentric guitar players on the scene, effortlessly blending swing, jazz, rockabilly and blues into single solos that set the standard for the entire jump blues/swing revival.  Estrin grew into a monster songwriter (with recent tunes recorded by Robert Cray, John Hammond, Koko Taylor and Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women) and won a W.C. Handy Award for Song of the Year for My Next Ex-Wife.

Once Sacramento’s best kept secret as the house band at Melarkey’s, an unsolicited audition tape won the Nightcats a longstanding home at Alligator Records.  Since then, they’ve been crossing geographical and musical boundaries for ecstatic fans all around the world.