Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Rick Estrin interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 52

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Rick Estrin joins me on episode 52.
Rick grew up in San Francisco and starting sitting in with bands in the city.  He was friends with Jerry Portnoy, who persuaded him to spend some time in Chicago. Here he met many of the harmonica greats, and missed the golden opportunity for the harmonica chair in the Muddy Waters band. 
It turned out this wasn’t a bad thing though, as Rick forged his own path with Little Charlie & The Nightcats (later Rick Estrin & The Nightcats). A band in which he has played harmonica, sung and wrote most of the lyrics for well over 40 years. 
And with great success as the band has won many Blues Music Awards, including for Rick’s harmonica playing and songwriting prowess.

Links:
Rick's Website:
http://www.rickestrin.com

Instructional DVD is listed at the bottom of this page:
https://rickestrin.com/music

EP Booster pedal:
https://xotic.us/effects/ep-booster/

Videos:
Rick singing with Little Charlie & The Nightcats in 1981:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyEYO1Pkosg

‘Contemporary’ album video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY1tkJRrx9Q&t=9s

I Met Her On The Blues Cruise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqS_nL2jvHE&t=55s

Rick Estrin & The Nightcats at World Harmonica Festival, 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sccRtO1mJfw&t=6s


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 52. And at this stage I have finally got together a separate website for the podcast. You can find it on harmonicahappyhour.com. So on there are some useful features. You can find some featured episodes. It's a bit easier to navigate. There's also a donate page. If people wish to help support the running cost of the podcast, you can send a little money my way for that. So much appreciated. Rick Estrin joins me on today's episode Rick grew up in San Francisco and started sitting in with bands in the city He was friends with Jerry Portnoy who persuaded him to spend some time in Chicago Here he met many of the harmonica greats, and he missed the golden opportunity for the harmonicature in Muddy Waters' band. Turned out this wasn't a bad thing though, as Rick forged his own path with Little Charlie and the Nightcats, later Rick Estrin and the Nightcats, a band in which he has played harmonica, sung and wrote most of the lyrics for well over 40 years, and with great success as the band has won many blues music awards, including for Rick's harmonica playing and songwriting prowess.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, Rick Estrin, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, Neil.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're talking to us from the west coast of the US. Are you still in San Francisco?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm in Sacramento, which is about 90 miles east of San Francisco.

SPEAKER_01:

But I think you were born in San Francisco, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was born there, grew up there. I moved to Chicago when I was about 19 years old. Lived there on and off for several years until I came back to California for good in 1976 or something. and then I moved to Sacramento.

SPEAKER_01:

So talk about your early life, you know, what was your involvement early on with music and the harmonica?

SPEAKER_00:

I always loved music and it was like an escape for me, you know, listen to the radio. I think probably that's true for a lot of musicians. I had an older sister who had some Jimmy Reed records and she had some other blues records and stuff and I was just fascinated by that music and there was something about it and especially she gave me a A Ray Charles album, I think it was new at the time, was called The Genius Sings the Blues. And she gave me that album and there was something about it that just, it sounds ridiculous now because obviously I was just a little kid, but I felt like, wow, this guy knows how I feel, you know. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. Well, he does that to a lot of people, doesn't he? It's amazing, isn't it? This connection that those kind of white guys have with what was fundamentally African-based music, wasn't it? What

SPEAKER_00:

do you think it is

SPEAKER_01:

about that

SPEAKER_00:

music? I think that, first of all, there's more naked emotion in there. It's more honest, more than regular pop music typically is. There's also, you know, from having made a life of this music and being primarily a fan anyway, there's a lot of nuances and subtleties that I notice now that when I first heard it, I just took them in on a visceral level, but I didn't know what was, you know, what was occurring. But man, there's a lot of a lot of subtleties and different aspects to it that create that feeling. It's very multidimensional, I think. Yeah, and it's just more honest to me. I don't know. There was just something about it. And then, too, I noticed that in African-American culture, you know, as a kid growing up. I mean, I can remember being 12 years old in school, and I was walking next to this girl in— that was in my homeroom named Sondra Price. She was an African-American kid, same age as me and stuff. And there was this guy walking in front of us named Marvin Vesey. And Sondra said to me, you know, she was just looking at him, ooh, he's got, he's just got the cutest little walk, you know. And something about that, man, like, you know, I was 12 years old. I had never even thought of that. It was like an awakening to me, not just that one incident, but just to me black kids in school there was just something more expressive about them and more more vibrant more alive more colorful more they didn't seem as stiff

SPEAKER_01:

you know yeah definitely so you got that early connection with the music so when did the obviously there's a harmonica podcast so when did the harmonica come in and you know did you obviously you mentioned jimmy reed there you know did you start getting drawn to the harmonica and the sound of it

SPEAKER_00:

yeah i got a harmonica when i was about 15 years old and I had already been hearing Jimmy Reed in the house, and I already liked those records, and I knew some of the songs. I got a harmonica when I was about 15, but I had already heard and already knew some Jimmy Reed songs in my mind, and I was already familiar with him. And so when I got the harmonica, that's what I started trying to do. And I always really wanted to play anything else. I mean, as far as a style of music, I'd play a little guitar just to help me write songs. But as a style of music, and especially on the harmonica, all I ever wanted to play was blues. I learned a couple other things when I was just trying to learn, just because I was studying the instrument.¦

SPEAKER_01:

I understand as well, when you started playing the harmonica, your father had recently died, so that was quite an emotional outlet for you, was it?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was really lost for a long time, and that was one of the principal things that saved my life, was it gave me something to care about, and something to, kind of like a refuge. Music was a refuge, and playing the harmonica gave me something to focus on, and I channeled all my emotions into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so at this stage, were you singing as well? Did that come later?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was actually singing earlier. I always tried to sing. And when I was younger, if you listen to some real early, even before we were on Alligator, when I was really young, I had more voice. I was more of a singer.

UNKNOWN:

I don't want to be a lesser

SPEAKER_00:

now i'm more of a stylist that i have been that way for years because i i mess my voice up you know it works out fine because now i'm probably more readily identifiable but

SPEAKER_01:

yeah give me character in that voice yeah

SPEAKER_00:

but when i was young i i wanted to be a singer and and i i was more like your traditional people that could actually sing and stuff like that at that time

SPEAKER_01:

you mentioned you went across to Chicago after a few years but did where you started playing out in in the black clubs yeah and that's how you started sort of sitting in with people was that in the west coast before you went to Chicago or

SPEAKER_00:

yeah in San Francisco what happened was in my teenage years you know when I was 15 and I was starting to play the harmonica growing up in San Francisco there was the hippies were just starting to be a scene there and so there were these guys concerts and Bill Graham and another guy named Chet Helms had the Fillmore Auditorium and another place called the Avalon Ballroom and you could go see music there and they would have these very eclectic bills with you know some hippie you know they'd have like the Grateful Dead and Big Mama Thornton you know Junior Wells and Buddy Guy and the Quicksilver Messenger Service or something so you had a chance to see these people and so when and then when I got more serious about not when i got more serious i was serious from the beginning but when i felt like i was making some progress on the harmonica and with my you know just my whole thing i started going out to these clubs probably when i was about 17 i started going out to different clubs in the ghetto and sitting in

SPEAKER_01:

and uh you were welcome there i think uh it's quite a case with a few people of sports so you know the kind of young these young white guys going to these clubs uh were quite welcome weren't they?

SPEAKER_00:

I was I mean I felt that way I did notice a difference after Martin Luther King got shot you know that didn't stop me from going but I noticed the difference but yeah I was welcome and I was felt really welcome you know because they could tell I was serious I was sincere I was always trying to play the real music I think I had maybe not exquisite taste, but I had better taste than a lot of young guys trying to play. I didn't try playing a million notes. I always tried to say something.

SPEAKER_01:

And at this stage, had you been listening a lot to the harmonica greats, Little Walter and Soul, so you'd start getting that language?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I started out with Jimmy Reed, and then by the time I got a harmonica, I had already been listening to Jimmy Reed, but then I got some Sonny Boy Williamson And then I threw the grapevine or whatever, you know, looking at British blues magazines and stuff. And I heard about Little Walter and Muddy Waters, you know, with Walter on these records. And then I had a friend that turned me on to, you know, Cotton with Muddy and Cotton with Johnny Young. And...

SPEAKER_01:

and uh i know i know obviously you like uh everyone loves little walter yeah you do a good song called marion's mood i was uh i was listening to that one early on

SPEAKER_00:

yeah that was sounds like a tribute

SPEAKER_01:

so And you mentioned James Cotton there as well, and I think you like his high energy playing, and is that what drew you to him?

SPEAKER_00:

The high energy is one aspect of it, but there's also such a vocal aspect to his playing, the way he shapes notes and things, even amplified, and I'm not just talking about the obvious wah-wah things, but there's so much texture and subtlety and shapes. People don't think of him as a subtle player because he's so, you know very brash and in your face but he's uh there's a lot more layers to his sound and his the the feel of it and and then most people pick up on i think and also he was somebody that i got to see him probably more than anyone else because you know when i was young because his band was real popular and uh you know bill graham and then the film auditorium and all that stuff he was that early band that he had with luther tucker and alberto gianquinto and and bobby anderson and you know that was just a very popular band

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i was lucky enough to see him once in the uk but a little later obviously so uh so yeah so in play so so great so you were playing in san francisco is this where you were playing with trevor phillips and you got a regular gig with him yeah

SPEAKER_00:

yeah by the time i was 18 or so yeah i was playing with travis and phil more slim

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i'm phil more slim slim he was the pimp wasn't he

SPEAKER_00:

yeah he was he really was yeah he was he was very famous as a pimp although he's a great entertainer and a great singer too

SPEAKER_01:

did some side of that fall out into the band you know did you sort of see that i guess he was very extravagantly dressed and all that sort of thing

SPEAKER_00:

uh you know he was actually his he dresses more like that now he was a little you know more toned down than what you typically would think a pimp would look like you know The way he dressed, he wore nice suits and stuff, and he had a Cadillac Fleetwood Brom, but it was very tasteful looking. It was just a nice, soft brown color. He was not as flamboyant as... people typically fell. Most of the other pimps that I knew at that time were a lot more flamboyant than him.

SPEAKER_01:

Good. So you were in quite a cool scene then at a young age. You mentioned again that you'd moved across to Chicago. I think you were friends with Jerry Portnoy, yeah? And he played a part in that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, yeah, because he was living in San Francisco at that time and we were both just trying to figure out how to play. We were both new at this stuff. But I had that gig with Travis and Fillmore and Jerry would come see me play, you know, and we were friends and we would try to figure out, you know, one of us would figure something out and we'd show the other one or we just, you know, we were friends. We were both into this, you know, music and just, we were both obsessed with it. Then his father got sick and he moved back to Chicago. And when he moved back to Chicago, he would send me postcards saying, yeah, you need to come out here, man. I just sat in with the aces and all this. So I found a girl to buy me a plane ticket and I went to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. So then you could absorb the Chicago blues scene.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because on the West Coast, I was playing blues and there was plenty of blues out here, but it's a little different brand. It wasn't that the black migration to California was primarily from Texas and Louisiana and Oklahoma and mostly Texas. texas probably and it was a more generally a more urbane type of blues you know it wasn't as country as as the chicago stuff that came up from mississippi i'm generalizing

SPEAKER_01:

but i think that comes through doesn't it in in the west coast bands like your own we'll get on to your music shortly but you've got that more kind of swing jive sort of style in the west coast don't you than the chicago blues and

SPEAKER_00:

yeah thanks t-bone and and and and lowell folson who was actually the first guy that ever let me on a bandstand. Guys like that and Charles Brown were more popular out here.

SPEAKER_01:

And the band that you're in, the Nightcats, you do have that more swing element to it. So is that...

UNKNOWN:

......

SPEAKER_01:

You know, how did that come about? You know, when you went back to California, that's the sort of style that was popular or did you choose it on purpose?

SPEAKER_00:

No, it wasn't popular. I mean, when I came back here, came back here and I started playing with Little Charlie, we were just playing Chicago blues, you know, trying to learn that stuff. We were in love with that. And little by little, we just started getting these other records and listening to different stuff. We got into Bluebird stuff very heavily for one period of time. we got and we got into um more jazzy type of stuff as well but it wasn't like that was a thing here but that was something that was was occurring simultaneously like in southern california you know you had rod piazza and he was getting into the same kinds of things so it was really just something that naturally occurred it was not a thing like later on they started calling it oh the west coast style and

SPEAKER_01:

that's what came afterwards yeah so yeah so so Before we get on to the Nightcats, so your time in Chicago, you had the chance to meet some of the Harmonica greats, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. You know, obviously, Rice Miller was dead, and little Walter had died a couple of years before I got to Chicago. But I could see big Walter any time. I could see Cotton quite a bit when he was not on the road. He would play, and he would do these middle-of-the-week residencies sometimes. And, you know, for a month, he'd play, like, Wednesday nights. somewhere or something, you know, so I got to see Cotton a lot then, got to know him a little bit. I saw, you know, just some lesser known guys, you know, little Willie Anderson. who was like a little Walter disciple, you know. He didn't have the technique of Walter, but there was something, the visceral feel of it was quite a bit like Walter. He had a more swinging, jazzier feel to his playing, even though he didn't have, you know, his execution and stuff was a little, you know, not as flawless.

SPEAKER_01:

It sounds like harmonica heaven being in Chicago at that time. Maybe early as well, like you say, seeing Little Walter and Sonny Boy too, but superb. So a great chance to see all those guys. So is this the time as well that you got to sit in with Muddy Waters?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the first time when I first went to Chicago, that's the first time I sat in with Muddy. I went to Teresa's. Jerry took me to Teresa's and I sat in. I mean, you can't even imagine what the scene was like in those days. I mean, I mean, Teresa's was packed and everybody was in there, man. It was a Monday night. I mean, Junior Wells was in there. Terry Bell was in there. I didn't see Cotton that night, but the band that was working there that night, you know, and they were just sitting on chairs, sitting on folding chairs. But the band was like B-Lo, Buddy Guy, Sammy Lawhorn, and I can't remember who was playing bass, but that was the house band in Teresa's. Wow, yeah. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, it's like, what's happened to the world? That's a Monday night, yeah? You wouldn't find that in many places on a Monday night these days, would you?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think so,

SPEAKER_01:

no. Everyone's too busy watching Netflix these days, sadly.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, it was just an informal thing. It was a popular place to go on Mondays, but it was... I can't remember what the cover charge was, but it was, you know, very cheap and just a neighborhood ghetto club, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

So this time... I hear that you had a chance to be the harmonica player in Muddy Waters Band and it just passed you by. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

what happened was that night in Teresa's I sat in and Terry Bell at the time was playing with Muddy. He told me he was going to quit and he said I should come sit in with Muddy at the Sutherland Hotel where they were playing that weekend. Come down and sit in. He said if Muddy liked me I could have the gig because he was going to quit. So I went down there and i waited around all night friday night and he had introduced me to muddy and muddy said he'd call me up and i waited around all night and this place had a 4 a.m license you know so i waited till 4 a.m he never called me up so he said i got up the nerve to approach him afterwards i said oh i thought you were gonna call me up and he said oh oh yeah he goes i forgot come back tomorrow it took me years afterwards to realize he didn't forget me he just wanted to see how serious I was. So I came back the next night and he ended up calling me up and I put a long distance call with him. And then the band took a break and he was sitting over by the side with these couple of women. He sort of beckoned me over there with his finger, you know, like crooked his finger. And I walked over there and he stood up, halfway stood up from the table and he started shaking his finger in my face. And he's going, you out of sight, boy. You play like a man, boy. So you got that sound, boy. I know that sound when I hear it. That's my sound, you know. And I was just practically levitating, you know. So he asked me what I was doing. I said, well, I was thinking about going back to California. And he told me, don't leave town for at least three weeks. And he gave me his phone number and he took the phone number that I had at the time, which was where I was staying with this girl that had bought my plane ticket, and I ended up leaving that place. So I don't know if I waited, but I ended up, you know, I never heard from him, and I went back. And later on, I know I saw those guys, and Fuzz said, man, what happened to you? You were supposed to be with us, you know. But as it turned out, after that, Paul came back to the band. He had left for, I don't know what happened that time, but he left for a came back to california then i went back to chicago and never really worked i never happened

SPEAKER_01:

it wasn't written in the stars but in the end you know it all turned out well for you yeah so it turned out turned

SPEAKER_00:

out perfect because i was too immature to i'd have gotten killed or something man i you know i didn't know how to act and i was an idiot i could have grown into the job playing wise but i didn't have good sense as a as a as a young person so it's it's everything worked out for the best. Plus, Jerry ended up getting the gig eventually, so that was really cool.

SPEAKER_01:

So after this, at some point at least, then you went back to the West Coast and this is where you met Little Charlie and then Little Charlie and the Nightcats formed.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, that was like 1976. So

SPEAKER_01:

you've been with Little Charlie and the Nightcats and then Rick Esther and the Nightcats since, well, this band has been in existence for well over 40 years, so an amazing longevity. How do you put down your a long success in this band?

SPEAKER_00:

No skills and no education. I don't know. The band started with myself and little Charlie and our mutual love of Chicago Blues, really. He was so great. You know, we both had this desire to just get inside that music and play it. We had just a real deep mutual love for the music.

SPEAKER_01:

So you talked about, you know, maybe being immature, you know, when you were young. But when you're in this band, certainly, you know, you've got a very strong image. You know, you've got this kind of, you know, pencil-lined mustache and pompadour haircut and sharp dressing. And, you know, the band were playing quite a mixture of, you know, kind of obviously blues, rockabilly, some jazzy stuff, some swing stuff. So was there a transition early on where you're playing more kind of Chicago blues stuff and then you transitioned into this more?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's what we were bonded over, that love of Chicago blues. Little by little, we started bringing in other elements because we were just listening to all kinds of things, and we started introducing other elements into the music. You know, the swing thing actually came from, we really got into Bluebird blues, RCA Bluebird, you know, Sonny Boy and Jazz Gillum and stuff like that, and Willie Lacey blues. was sort of almost like a bluesier charlie christian type guitar player you know he was he was a session guy he wasn't a blues guy but he was on these records little charlie we just got fascinated with willie lacy and through willie lacy little charlie got into charlie christian and and it just went on and on i mean i can remember one year we were we just were so into like brother jack mcduff and soul jazz and i mean it's just it was just a never-ending journey of discovery

SPEAKER_01:

so you're very well known for songwriting as well and you write largely blues kind of lyrics yeah for the for the songs that the band do i knew this singer in the band. So at what stage did you start writing songs for the band?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we'd have to go back to the time when I was first playing in clubs. My first gig that I ever got was I was 18 and I got a job opening for ZZ Hill at a ghetto nightclub which was, but it was a kind of a nice, wasn't it like a tavern, you know, it was a sort of a nightclub type place and they had, it was a more formal show. So So at that time, that was when I met Philmore Slim. He lived across the hall from a friend of mine. And I met him because I heard him playing blues guitar across the hall and I just knocked on the door. So it just so happened that that week I was going to... begin my first engagement, which was like a week-long opening for ZZ Hill. So I invited him to come to the club Long Island. So he came down there and he had another guy with him who I thought must be another pimp because he had all kinds of diamonds and he was, you know, dressed up and had processed hair and all that. But who he was, was he was a singer and he had had a big number one hit a couple of years before called She's Looking Good. And this was a guy named Roger Collins.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_00:

I met him that night when Fillmore came down to see me at the Club Long Island. And Roger Collins was He became a friend and a mentor and took me under his wing. We didn't live that far from each other. He would come by and pick me up. Whatever business he had to take care of in the daytime, I would just hang out with him. He would teach me different things. He taught me about show business. He taught me about showmanship. He taught me about different kinds of music. One of the things he would teach me about was songwriting. and principles of songwriting, you know, methods of songwriting. And I think I always had good instincts for writing songs, but he encouraged me to really get into it. So on and off, I started trying to write songs. And then when I got with Little Charlie, you know, years later, and people were writing songs in that genre, people started not just covering the blues standards which is what we were doing but we've people started trying to write songs i started writing a few songs and yeah i can remember one day this was when jerry had started the legendary blues band right after he quit muddy you know we would talk on the phone and he told me he had written all these songs because they were going to make a record i forget it was on rounder they made a their first album and he had written all these songs and i got off the phone i thought i could right song. I got off the phone, drank a bunch of coffee, and I wrote a song called TV Crazy, which turned out to be the first song on our debut Alligator album.

SPEAKER_03:

so

SPEAKER_01:

were you deliberately trying to write it from you know to kind of bring a modern approach to the blues rather than just playing all the standards as you say

SPEAKER_00:

It's a balancing act. I can't write about things that I don't know about. So I can't write about chopping cotton and plowing mules and stuff. But I had immersed myself. I understood always that blues and African-American culture were kind of inseparable. And I was attracted to the culture even before. I mean, it all happened simultaneously. And it was the culture that brought me into it. It wasn't the other way around. So I understood, I think, or I had my own understanding of the language and the spirit of the vantage point.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I think a big part of the success and longevity of the band, you know, maybe is to do with the fact that, you know, you were writing original blues songs, yeah, then people weren't just hearing the same old thing. And they had modern lyrics that they could maybe relate to a little bit better. So, yeah, I mean, listen through Little Charlie back catalogue, as I've been doing. There's a song called... Poor

SPEAKER_00:

Tarzan. Okay, this is really where it came from. I was just... thinking about Tarzan and that whole, the books or whatever. I mean, I never read the books. I think I saw a part of a movie or something, but it just seemed so stupid that here's, you know, the whole continent of Africa with millions of people, and here's the one white guy lands there by accident, and he's all of a sudden, he's bossing everybody around. All the animals are obeying him. All the natives are... subservient to them and i just thought it was such a bunch of bs you know where you know it's just total you know white supremacy type of deal you know so so i i i just wrote that song making fun of of that whole concept

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so yeah so you're picking uh topics from all sorts and another one which i know well from yours is dump that chump

SPEAKER_00:

so

SPEAKER_03:

Drop that chump Drop that chump

SPEAKER_00:

that was a good one i actually heard a woman say that i think she had just come back from alaska i overheard her and this is something roger collins taught me to do was to listen to conversations you know when you're in a club keep your ears open for different conversations so this woman was talking to her friend she was talking about her ex and she said oh he wants to play ditch the bitch so that's all that's all right because i can i Yeah, great. Yeah, a

SPEAKER_01:

little notebook made that, wrote that one down. Yeah, it's a great way to do it, isn't it? A song which you won the Blues Music Award for Song of the Year in 1994 was My Next Ex-Wife.

SPEAKER_00:

The guy that cut my hair for many years, when I first met him, he was like this real super good looking dude, you know, and got, you know, was very social. So he got around a lot, right? So he was, you know, kind of a ladies man, right? When I met him, he was single and he was working in another guy's shop and he started doing a little better and a little better because he cut my hair for years. And then eventually he got popular enough, he got his own So then he got somebody pregnant and got married. Then that marriage fell apart, got divorced. So he had to give her half of the shop, even though she didn't cut hair or anything, but half of his income went to her and his baby with her. So then he's going along trying to make it on half of what he was taking in. And then he got somebody else pregnant, got married. That didn't last. He either, got a divorce. So then she got half of the half that he still had left. So the song was really about him. I think at the time, I don't think I was even married yet. That's how that song came about, was I was writing about my barber.

SPEAKER_03:

and

SPEAKER_01:

so what about the harmonica in the band i mean listen to some of the albums there's Plenty of harmonica on there, but there isn't necessarily harmonica on all the songs. So how were you using the harmonica in the Little Charlie and the Nightcats?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think harmonica doesn't belong on everything. There are people that try to apply it to everything, and there are people that sound good doing it and everything. I never really thought of myself as primarily a harmonica player. Harmonica is like a tool. It's something to enhance music. songs where it fits. I know that people can play harmonica and put it on anything, but I just was... Pretty much a fan of and I tried to play in these particular styles and particular settings. I just don't think every song needs a harmonica.

SPEAKER_01:

Any particular reason why you did put a harmonica in certain songs?

SPEAKER_00:

Because I thought it fit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, one thing that you certainly do play a lot of is chromatic harmonica. And so what about your journey with the chromatic?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think I started focusing more on the chromatic a little later. I didn't start out on the chromatic because little Charlie and I started getting into, and of course he got into it a lot more than I did, jazzier type of stuff or more swinging type of stuff. The chromatic kind of lends itself to that type of feel, maybe more than a marine band. So that probably has something to do with it. It feels more right on a lot of real swinging type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

you say you picked chromatic a little later did you anyone you've you know listened to for that or did you you know play with anyone along with the chromatic

SPEAKER_00:

you know i i i listened to walter and george smith they're really the principal blues guys that played the chromatic that i listened to but there are other guys that i and i think larry adler was probably the greatest ever on the chromatic so for technique and texture i would listen to everyone because i I feel like there's a lot that can be done with the chromatic that isn't typically done in blues and I'm not even talking about all the different like playing like a legitimate instrument like Larry Adler but just even in the ways that you can shape notes a lot more than most people do you know more like a marine band would do you can do that to a greater extent than most people seem to attempt there's a lot of textures and things on there people usually play like single notes or octaves in blues, right? But I play chords, I play, there's so many different little intervals on there, harmony intervals, blocking out one note, one hole, blocking out two holes, you know, in addition to blocking out the three holes and playing an octave. So there's just a lot of, a lot you can do on a chromatic. And in a lot of ways, playing blues on a chromatic is kind of easier than playing the marine band really

SPEAKER_01:

yeah in some ways yeah you know little charlie left the band i think didn't he in uh in sort of 2000 truth

SPEAKER_00:

that he

SPEAKER_01:

left in the

SPEAKER_00:

beginning of 2008 2008

SPEAKER_01:

right and then that's when the band transitioned into rick estrin in the night catch yeah and then

SPEAKER_00:

uh yeah

SPEAKER_01:

and then it took your name but um you know you were the singer all this time and writing the songs yeah but uh so you took took your name on and uh and the band's continued then with some different members i think you got kid enderson on playing the guitar was uh was he replaced little charlie did he

SPEAKER_00:

yeah that was the only personnel change at first

SPEAKER_01:

again you've continued to have you know great success and you know you were more awards and i think you won the the blues music award band of the year in 2021 with these guys so you're still having great success with these guys and you've had i think is it five albums out with them the first one uh twisted in in 2009 and one of the songs i picked out was was back from the dead i

SPEAKER_00:

ain't joking

SPEAKER_01:

i came this close to croaking Was this about the re-emergence of the Nightcats?

SPEAKER_00:

It was. That was my idea to begin with. But I kept... I was so frustrated trying to figure out a way to write that idea. Just couldn't make any progress. I couldn't find a door. So I thought, well, what if I made it more literal, like some guy that almost died? Then it was easy. Then it was fun.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you talk about this Back From The Dead. You're doing an album, a song called Main Events on your most recent album, which is about your own funeral, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I got another one on that. on that latest album too that's about mortality called I'm Running. That's got some cool sounding chromatic on it, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, brilliant. And they're trying to outrun time is the idea,

SPEAKER_00:

I think, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So you did a live album with these guys called You Asked For It and you do a good Sonny Boy song on there, Too Close Together. Right. You do the trick which Sonny Boy does about playing, holding the harmonica just in the mouth, don't you, Rob?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so that doesn't translate that well to just a CD, but I did it anyway So luckily I could get a pretty good tone doing it. So it doesn't, I don't think it really lost a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

And then 2017 you did grooving in Greece land, which is the name of kid Anderson studio. Yeah. We recorded the albums. So, and again, you won, um, blues music song of the year for Blues Ain't Going

SPEAKER_00:

Nowhere I thought that was a good song you know I guess I'm known for humorous songs and for quirky songs but that was a more serious political statement which for me is harder you know because it's real easy to sound corny doing that or pretentious trying to write about bigger subjects i thought that one came out good

SPEAKER_01:

and then your latest album which is called contemporary the so there's a fantastic video of the of the title track contemporary i'll put a link on to the podcast page i'll watch the video and it starts off with a kind of silent movie doesn't it there's a kind of old-fashioned style uh sounding piano and there's a silent movie with with subtitles on the screen in sort of right and then i laughed my head off rick when it came up and it said we might have to get jobs yeah that was hilarious that and then and then you burst into a kind of quite a modern obviously the title contemporary is quite a modern song and uh you know there's a bit of rapping in there and it's it's all it's all quite you know it's got a modern slant on it the sort of blues so yeah a great song and i definitely recommend people check out the video

SPEAKER_00:

yeah that was so much fun man that's the great thing about this band you know was little charlie little charlie was was great super unique guitar player and a just a great soloist but it was a different pride You know, I would write the songs myself, and I would bring them in there, and sometimes I would try to write them with Little Charlie's preferences in mind. You know, we'd rehearse, and then we'd do the songs. With this band, Kid is kind of a genius, and Little Charlie was a genius, Kid's a genius, too. It's more of a collaborative thing. effort in putting these records together now like that video and and just making that song before we did the video we had another one uh albums ago called i met her on the blues cruise which we did a video for as well you know we're just i mean i can just remember just being in the studio recording that stuff and just laughing so you know just we just had so much fun putting this stuff together and i think it it translates to the recordings and definitely to the videos.

SPEAKER_01:

Another thing you've done is you've released a DVD about how to play the harmonica. A bit of a different approach, this one, than some of the other ones.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I did that. I also made an album at that time called On the Harp Side in between Little Charlie and Rick Estrin and the Nightcats. I wasn't on Alligator for a minute. I knew I needed to enlighten some people to the fact that my name isn't Charlie Because for decades, people just called me Charlie and I didn't bother correcting them because they didn't hear it anyway. So I knew I needed to teach people my name if I was going to continue to have a career. So I made that DVD and I made an album called On the Harp Side. And with the DVD, I just sat down and I started thinking about, okay, what are my opinions about blues harmonica? Because in the beginning, all I had was I had the title, which was Rick Estrin Reveals Secrets, Subtleties, and Tricks of the Blues Harmonica. I thought that would be a good title because, in truth, you know, nobody wants to do the work. They want the secrets, right? And then I didn't know what the content would be, so I just started writing down my opinions. In my opinion, that DVD is great entertainment, but it also contains a lot of, it's almost like a And you could apply a lot of those principles to almost anything.

SPEAKER_01:

And is it still available through your website?

SPEAKER_00:

It's still available. I mean, I still have some.

SPEAKER_01:

So on that topic, a question I ask each time, Rick, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing? 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_00:

Spend the 10 minutes listening because hopefully that would inspire you to practice more than 10 minutes. Because 10 minutes ain't going to do you any good. But if you spend 10 minutes and you're listening to something that gets you excited and makes you want to. What I felt like when I first was playing and first was hearing that stuff is I was hearing things that made me feel ways that I wanted to try to make people feel. I wanted to be able to what was occurring in me as I was listening, I wanted to do that to other people.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's talk about gear now and the sort of harmonica gear that you use. So first of all, I think you're a Horner endorser, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Which Horner harmonicas do you like to play?

SPEAKER_00:

I play marine bands. I've always played marine bands.

SPEAKER_01:

Any particular flavor of marine bands you like these days?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I play some marine band deluxes and some crossovers. But what I've noticed recently, and this is just in the last couple of years I started getting some straight marine bands and they are really good again, man. They play really, really well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, a lot of people say they like the old ones. So this is where the comb swells up and they don't have screwed in replays.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the comb doesn't swell up on me because when I was first playing, they didn't make sealed combs and they didn't make plastic combs. You had to learn how to refrain from spitting in the harmonica so that's what makes the comb swell up if you just play wooden comb harmonicas eventually I think your salivary glands and the reflexes in your brain figure out that okay this isn't food and you just stop slobbering in the harmonica that's what

SPEAKER_01:

yeah and chromatic wise what do you like to play?

SPEAKER_00:

I play honers, again, a 270s because I use a B-flat sometimes, and I play a 280C. I prefer the older 280s. They have sort of a smaller mouthpiece, and they don't have the staggered holes, which doesn't make any difference, but the smaller mouthpiece just feels more comfortable to me.

SPEAKER_01:

What about any different tunings? Do you use any different tunings yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I don't. I've done one overblow on a record, on a song contemporary.

SPEAKER_01:

Very contemporary of you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but no, I just use the notes that are on there.

SPEAKER_01:

Which overblow was that? The sixth overblow?

SPEAKER_00:

The sixth hole, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so what about embouchure-wise? Are you tongue-blocking, puckering, or both?

SPEAKER_00:

Tongue-block. I very rarely pucker, sometimes maybe for a certain type of articulation on the low end of the heart, but generally I tongue-block the whole thing

SPEAKER_01:

is that something you picked up early on when you were learning

SPEAKER_00:

yeah it was jerry and i when we were trying to learn figure out how to play and all that here's the thing that really made me know that tongue blocking was that was the the sound i was looking for was i think i was about 16 and i went and saw muddy at the avalon ballroom in san francisco and paul osher had just got with muddy he was brand new in the band and the band was uh span and S.P. Leary and Sammy Lawhorn and Snake Luther Johnson, Luther Georgia Boy Snake Johnson and Pee Wee Madison. I met Paul and we actually became friends that weekend. I met him when I saw the band three nights in a row and we remained friends his whole life.

UNKNOWN:

.........

SPEAKER_00:

At one point, he just played for me, right? When they were on a break and we were talking and he just played the last verse of Juke right in my face, you know, just right. I could hear, you know, this, when you hear somebody play like that, there's an added dimension to it where, you know, okay, this is not the amplifier. This is not anything. It's there's, and there was so much sound and so much groove to it. I think prior to that, I was thinking that, okay, well, there's the harmonica that just is the added thing on top of the band, and that's what makes it live, you know, like that is the combination. But when I heard him doing that, I could tell there's a whole dimension to this thing that's missing for me. Tongue blocking was the beginning of finding that. That made me see that, gave me something to shoot for, like, you know, because I can play a shuffle with no accompaniment and sound Somebody could understand what's going on and listen to it and hear it and feel it and dance to it. And I can do that by myself because of that. If you don't tongue block, I think there's something thinner and less buoyant about your playing. That's an important element. It's not everything, but it's very important.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it definitely fills up the sound, doesn't it? The diatonic allows you to put chords in between and all those good things and other techniques.

SPEAKER_00:

And some of that is even inaudible, but it's there.

SPEAKER_01:

So obviously the acoustic sound is critical, but what about amplifiers? What sort of amplifiers do you like to use?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I started using a Harp King with little Charlie. I was tired of getting drowned out.

SPEAKER_01:

Or competing with those electric guitars.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I have a couple of these 610 Harp Kings, which are good. They kind of limit the character of your sound in a way, but you don't have to worry about volume anymore, that's for sure. So those are good for that. And then I also have a 19... Man, I don't know the year exactly. It might be 59 or 60. Fender Concert Amplifier, which is really good. And that thing's loud as hell too.

SPEAKER_01:

So a lot of time, obviously, with a band, you're playing in a full band and bigger venues. So you need that bigger amp to get the sound out.

SPEAKER_00:

You do. But here's the thing is that the last few years, increasingly, we haven't been driving to gigs because we play other places just as much. as we play Northern California, which wasn't always the case, you know. So we're flying in and I'm using whatever they have. So in that case, I mean, there are pedals I bring with me, you know, not a bunch of them. But one thing that really I have found really helpful is a thing called an EP booster. And that is just like a little preamp. And it costs like a hundred bucks or something, maybe more now. But it's just A little preamp that you can plug it into almost any amplifier and sound closer to the way you want to sound, you know.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's just a preamp. That's a helpful item. And then sometimes if the back line is like a reissue basement or something, then I will use a Boss reverb pedal that looks like a brown fender, but it's not. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a little boss pedal, reverb pedal. So I use that, and with a bassman, if they have that, I don't need that EP booster. But with that EP booster, I can play through a Fender Twin or anything, and it will sound okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Great, yeah. And what about microphone-wise?

SPEAKER_00:

Microphones, I had to learn this years ago from Dennis Grunling, because I've never been much of a gear person. I'm not that interested in gear stuff. But I once did a recording and I had some amp that really had sounded great at this guy's house. And then all of a sudden, it sounded terrible. I was freaking out in the studio and I called Dennis and he told me that it was possible that the mic was just not matched to that amp. It's just not a good match. And I had never thought, I thought, well, if you have a good sounding amp, it's a good sounding amp. You have a good sounding mic, it's a good sounding mic. But it seems like that shouldn't be the case. It could be obvious, but they have to be compatible, but I had never thought of that. So now what I do is I bring, in my harp case, I'll bring three or four mics with me, two gigs, because I often, when I'm trying to amp, if one mic seems like it's not going to work, I can try another one. Yeah, that's a good idea. All mics are different. That's what I have found. Even the Shure CRs and CMs, they vary. And crystals really vary a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you get your mics from Dennis as well?

SPEAKER_00:

I've got mics. I got a lot of mics from Dennis. I've gotten some mics from a guy named Mark Overman. I have a couple of mics from Greg Newman. I got one mic a long time ago from Rod. That was a real good mic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you've got a nice selection there. Good stuff. Yeah. Do you use a small amplifier at all?

SPEAKER_00:

In the studio, I've used a small amplifier. I have a Fender Champ that I've used in the studio. I also have a, I don't know what you call it, because like I said, I'm not a big gear guy, but I have an old beat-up Gibson amp that has four eights. That's pretty cool. I have also some Masco heads, and I also have a couple of these Dan Electro yeah so yeah but

SPEAKER_01:

yeah generally the smaller in the studio as you say because you i guess you don't really do smaller gigs yeah you've always got the full-on band and don't really go for the smaller sound

SPEAKER_00:

yeah there i mean there are times occasionally when we've played in smaller places and and it might have been better to have a smaller lamp with me but if we're you know we're on the road I got to take something that's going to work everywhere

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah sure so then final question then Rick and again thanks so much for the time so what about your future plans coming up I can see on your website you've got dates in all through 2022 yeah so we're hoping obviously to get out gigging on this hopefully upsurge in the virus isn't going to last too long

SPEAKER_00:

I hope not because I've really enjoyed you know I've really enjoyed being back playing and being back to work you know we didn't work at all for like a year and a half and it was you know it was fine I got used to it but when we went back to work I really got used to that again too so that and I appreciate it I feel you know not to sound too corny or anything but I feel a love for the music and for the audience and appreciation and a love for the guys in the band and you know like you You had mentioned we won Band of the Year this last time, and I think we won it a couple years ago as well. And there's a reason I feel that is a well-deserved award, you know, because it's... Man, I got the best band in the world, man. It's a great band.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great. That sounds like, you know, it's made you appreciate it, showing what you missed, not being able to gig all that time. Absolutely. Did you spend the time over the pandemic, particularly, you know, writing new songs, or did you just take a bit of a break?

SPEAKER_00:

I should have, but, you know, I'm pretty lazy, man. I write songs when we need a record, you know. So when I was thinking, wow, I wonder if we'll ever go back to work, I'm not going to write a song for nothing. It's a lot of work, man. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

but no, great. I mean, it's funny how they had people reacting somewhere. Some people went and practiced loads and some people just took a break. You know, maybe we need a break sometimes. Yeah, but hopefully this break isn't going to be too long.

SPEAKER_00:

I hope not, man.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So thanks so much for joining me today, Rick Estrin.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Neil. Thanks. It's been fun talking about things and I appreciate what you do, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks so much to Rick today for joining me and thanks everybody for listening. Remember to check out the new website, harmonicahappyhour.com, all one word. And on there, if you so wish, you can find the donate button and donate some money to help with the running costs of the podcast. Just over to Rick now to make sure he handles that big chromatic with care.

SPEAKER_03:

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UNKNOWN:

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