Fixin’ Your Head is Nick’s first solo album. It was released in 2000 on the independent label Texas Jamboree Records. It is a jaw dropping exercise in low–fi retro cool. Nick used vintage equipment and recorded these tracks live in one take. The album’s producer and engineer, Billy Horton should also receive credit for channeling Nick’s talent to achieve a wonderful post war r&b sound that is steeped in that tradition but is also exciting and fresh. From Fixin’ Your Head I chose the tune, It’s My Life, Baby. I think the message of this tune is a great metaphor for Nick, who always did things his way. The first time I ever saw Nick play was at his first ever blues festival. The headliner that day was Roy Gaines. While Nick was on stage that afternoon in 2001, he spotted the legendary blues man as he walked into the room. Nick launched into this tune. It was Gaines who played guitar on this Bobby Bland classic that was originally recorded in 1955.

Nightlife Boogie came out in 2001 and again was released on Texas Jamboree Records. Producer/engineer Billy Horton and Curran followed a similar formula that was so successful on Fixin’ Your Head. The results are just as spectacular. Nick’s approach, while steeped in decades of old jump blues, blues and r&b traditions, again comes off sounding original. Lord only knows how many people took a new look at this type of material and how many others were exposed to it for the first time through these first two Nick Curran albums. Nick again chooses some excellent and often overlooked covers and sprinkles them with originals that fit very comfortably with songs written thirty years before he was born. I could have gone in any number of directions here but I chose an original tune entitled, Come Back to Me Baby. Like everything else on this album, it swings hard.

Junior Watson’s second solo album, If I had a Genie came out in 2002. The title track along with the tune Spring Roll also featured the guitar of Nick Curran. This was the start of a trend where players from the previous generation would collaborate with Nick. This inter-generational mutual respect would become one of the hallmarks of Nick’s career and become an integral part of his legacy. The title track, a Johnny Otis tune has both guitar slingers swapping licks. On the Johnny Otis original it is one of Junior’s mentors and heroes, Pee Wee Crayton who handled the guitar duties a generation before. The torch just keeps being passed.

2003’s Doctor Velvet was Nick Curran’s official coming out party. This Blind Pig release represents his major label debut. The album sadly turned out to be a mid–career release as only two more solo projects were on the horizon. Reflecting back on this “middle child” Doctor Velvet captures much of what made his first two solo outings so artistically gratifying and points to the future. It also may be the most varied record of his career. Covers include tunes by Freddy King, Nappy Brown, Hank Williams, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and a Seattle garage band, The Sonics. This time out Nick has a couple of very special guests, harmonica ace Gary Primich as well as Nick’s idol, Jimmie Vaughan. Doctor Velvet could have been a disjointed mess but somehow Nick makes everything work. The result is one of the great contemporary blues albums of all time. I chose the Nick Curran original Drivin’ Me Crazy that features Gary Primich flexing his prodigious harp chops just a couple of years before he died at the age of 49.

Player is Nick’s 2004 release and his second on Blind Pig Records. The album mines some of the successful styles Nick’s fans have by now come to expect, but with a harder edge. Guests on this album include the Providence Horns. They are Doug James on baritone, Gordon Beadle on tenor, Carl Querfurth on trombone and John Abrahamsen on trumpet. The album’s other featured guest, like Vaughan who played on Doctor Velvet, is the other founding member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Kim Wilson. Wilson plays on three tracks. Wilson is in familiar company as by this time Nick’s band, The Nightlifes, features 80’s era T-Bird bassist Preston Hubbard. Again originals are mixed in with some pretty diverse cover material such as songs by the Stooges and Little Richard for instance. My favorite just might be the haunting T-Bone Walker slow blues classic, Evening. Nick does this spectacular tune justice.

In 2005, veteran harmonica player, organist, vocalist and songwriter John “Juke” Logan went into the studio with an all-star band of Austin, Texas, based musicians. The band included Nick Curran along with guitarists Denny Freeman and Johnny Moeller. The result is a great album entitled, The Truth will Rock You. The record is imbibed with big chunks of blues funk along with some deep grooves and some sharp edges that are a little ragged. Sounds like a good place to find Nick Curran. The CD is full of original music written by Logan. The album features a song that sounds like it could be written about Nick, Rockin’ Like a Wild Child.

Also released in 2005 was the album Painted On by The Fabulous Thunderbirds. This incarnation of the T-Birds featured not only Nick on guitar, but a contemporary of the young man, Kirk Fletcher. This constituted one of the toughest guitar tandems in recent memory. Also rounding out the line-up were Ronnie James Webber on bass and Jimi Bott on drums. This Tone Cool Records release has the boss, Kim Wilson yielding a writing credit and even the vocal mic to Nick. The Curran original, You Torture Me features Nick’s in your face vocals and guitar, with Wilson blowing harp.

As has become their want, The Mannish Boys recorded their 2010 release, Shake for Me, with various players from their roster and guest stars aplenty. On the Johnny “Guitar” Watson tune, Too Tired, original Mannish Boy, Finis Tasby steps up to the mic and delivers a solid performance as always. It just might be Nick Curran’s guitar however that steals the show on this track. He channels the great Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s signature stinging guitar licks from the opening hammering intro with a classic over play by Watson, intact thanks to producer Jeff Scott Fleenor insisting that it by left in because, “It just sounds cool.” Nick lets er’ rip and even rings out the last note Jimmie Vaughan style. Great stuff.

It would be several years before Nick would make another solo blues album. In between he again hooked up with Kim Lenz and, as previously mentioned, dabbled in the world of punk. By the time Delta Groove Music’s subsidiary label Eclecto Groove Records released Reform School Girl in 2010 no one knew exactly what to expect. This CD is not a straight ahead blues album in the tradition of Nick’s first two independent releases. It is a no holds barred retro rocker that pulls from a variety of source material and inspirations including blues. On the song Flyin’ Blind, Nick again finds himself collaborating with a man who, like previously mentioned players Vaughan, Wilson, Logan and Watson, is old enough to be his dad, Phil Alvin. The tune is a fun rave up where two generations of bad boys swap vocals.

The most recent release to feature the guitar of Nick is the 2012 release and the tenth album by R.J. Mischo, Make it Good. It is also his first on Delta Groove Music. The Minnesotan recorded the bulk of the album save two tracks in Austin, Texas, where he recruited a band that included drummer Wes Starr, bassist Ronnie James Webber, pianist and organist Nick Connolly along with guitarists Johnny Moeller and Nick. The album features thirteen tracks, all original written by the vocalist and harmonica player. The album’s opening track, Trouble Belt is a favorite here, as it has Moeller and Nick swapping guitar licks. Also check out the tune Elevator Juice as Nick even plays drums on the instrumental.