Sweetheart, we've got to get out the door. What in the hell is taking so long in the bathroom?  

I’m moisturizing…Damn it.

If we don’t leave now, we’ll hit traffic and we will never find a parking space, let alone a table. You don’t expect me to stand all night long in these shoes?  

I caaaan’t heeeear you…

That’s it…if you aren’t out of there and ready to go in the next 30 seconds, we won’t be able to waste fossil fuel just to go somewhere to get knocked around and stepped on by all the amateur photographers who can’t wait to share with the world that they are at the Rick Estrin & the Nightcats show and you’re not.

TA DA…How do I look?

Gee sweetheart, those athletic shorts look great. That hoody sweatshirt looks good too. Gray is a good color for you. It still has some of the salsa on it from taco Tuesday the other night. Nice touch…those flip flops tie the whole ensemble together nicely. Your clothing is sufficiently baggy, hiding some of that puffy shelter in place bod you got going on their stud.

Thanks baby…how long till showtime?

Rick and the fellas will be on five minutes. I have everything set up. Can I get you a drink?

Just like my mother waking up on a Sunday morning and watching a Catholic Mass on T.V. in her pajamas, Saturday nights have changed as well. Her son, along with all of his night crawling friends, got to stay home and watch Rick Estrin & the Nightcats on a flat screen of our choosing on Saturday, May 16^th.

By now many of you have become familiar with the concept of our favorite musicians performing streaming digitally. It is all part of the new oxymoron; we call it “the new normal.”  

I saw one of these presentations earlier in the week on Sunday, May 10^th. Somebody put together one of those harmonica blowdowns, which kind of just plain blew. It was an ambitious affair billed as a tribute to Little Walter. It was nice that some thought went into the program. However, like most things associated with the presentation of blues music, there was simply not enough thought put into the program. The entire affair suffered from bad editing and some technical difficulties. Who am I to say anything?  I’m a longwinded bastard who can barely operate a toaster.

I figured that this type of presentation will take time to get right. We are all new at this. I’ll be patient. I reasoned that by the time someone waves the all clear flag and things get back to something vaguely resembling the old normal, someone will have ironed out all the kinks and will have perfected this new artform and marry it to the blues.

I was wrong. As it turned out I didn’t have to wait long…six days to be exact. If somebody was going to get this right, it would be a band who is the leader in their field. They are the best at what they do and virtually adapted their talents as the premier live blues and recording ensemble to this new virtual reality in which we have found ourselves.

They are of course Rick Estrin and the Nightcats. Estrin is backed by three extremely talented musicians. They are multi-instrumentalist, who in the context of this band is the guitarist, Kid Andersen. He is also the man in charge of the communications satellite and all manner of sub-orbital electronic wizardry. The drummer is Derrick “D’Mar” Martin, who Andersen calls the 8^th Wonder of the World. Lorenzo Farrell is the band’s bassist, a talented organist who has spent a lot of time behind his keyboards in recent years, as he does for this performance. He adds the bass lines using his left hand. Farrell is kind of the glue that holds the Nightcats sound together.

The band has released one terrific album after another on the Alligator label for 35 years or so now. First under the name Little Charlie & the Nightcat, until the recently departed guitarist, Little Charlie Baty left the band to pursue what he called a soft retirement, Kid Andersen stepped into those rather large shoes. That was eleven years ago. Rick Estrin, the band’s songwriter, harmonica player and singer remained at the helm. With the logical name change, the band continued with the same performance and recording schedule more or less. The recordings and their shows offer blues music fans a level of professionalism, musicianship and humor rarely, if ever, found in blues music anymore.

This band seems to always be moving forward and back at the same time. The Nightcats record and perform a steady stream of new songs, with fresh ideas, while embracing the traditional aspects of this music in almost equal measure.

A Facebook page entitled, “Can’t Stop the Blues” was set up as a platform for blues men and woman to share their music with an audience when it became evident that our various shelter in place orders and social distancing protocols would require some very creative alternatives for musicians. That is where we found this evening’s entertainment.

Rick Estrin & the Nightcats have been on the prowl for a very long time, yet they have retained their edge. This world-wide pandemic is the biggest challenge to date that blues musicians have had to face.  These Nightcats, veterans of the blues trenches, may have shown us a way to cope with this calamity.

The show felt like a live Nightcats show. When talking to the band’s drummer D’Mar a few days ago, he said that this was the idea. In band meetings leading up to the performance it was agreed upon that the song selection, sequencing and pacing should replicate one of their live performances as close as possible. To that end, they were successful. Let’s face it Rick Estrin & the Nightcats shows are nothing if not fun. It was reasoned…why change now?

After a brief intro by Estrin and Andersen, D’Mar counted Estrin in and the band was off and running with The Blues Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere from their 2017 album Groovin’ in Greaseland. The song which has made for a strong concert opener, now carried with it an even more affirmative quality. With Estrin’s amplified chromatic leading the charge, it sounded like business as usual.

New Shape is the first of four songs from the band’s most recent release 2019’s Contemporary. Estrin sets the song up about weight change in the context of the new shelter in place bodies some of us are sporting these days. This was a perfect example of adapting material to our current situation.

He and the band would continue to strike a balance between reality and some much needed whimsey throughout the program. The reality pretty much speaks for itself, as you can see all four Nightcats playing their instruments in their own homes. The various split screen formats kept the visual aspect of the show compelling. Obviously, the pandemic has forced the band off the stage. This allows us to see them in the relative comfort of their own homes and reveals a little humanity not experienced in a normal concert setting. I enjoyed trying to see the vinyl record albums in the background, while Lorenzo Farrell played the organ for instance.

The Main Event another new tune is a slow contemplative blues. The decision to go with a photo montage that included shots of Estrin at different points in a long career was very effective.

Resentment File returns Estrin to the type of material in which he excels and his fans have come to expect. Also, from the new album, this song has an upbeat tempo which is juxtaposed with the dark humor of Estrin’s lyrics.

Too Close Together is an acoustic number from the pages of the Sonny Boy Williamson 2 songbook that goes back to the Little Charlie & the Nightcats 1995 album Straight Up. Andersen plays upright bass and D’Mar demonstrates some fine brushwork, while Estrin channels Sonny Boy without losing his own identity. With the use of some ingenious camera work and staging Andersen takes a tasteful guitar solo, making this mid-set sorbet something very special.

Now it is time to return to Contemporary and the instrumental portion of the set with Andersen’s House of Grease. This guitar-based number yields to a drum solo by D’Mar. It was also time for us longtime fans of this drummer and his live stage exploits to speculate if, or more precisely how, he is going to pull off his drum leaping maneuver. He went outside to his backyard to perform this piece of performance art. It was during this portion of the program that he was joined by his two seven-year old twin sons, Patrick and Nicholas. It was a touching moment. We thank D’Mar for sharing his kids with us from his home to ours, as many of us are missing our own families these days.

Calling All Fools has been a popular live song since it was introduced to audiences way back in 2012 and the band’s One Wrong Turn album.

Then Estrin reflected on the success of the song Dump That Chump from the band’s 1998 album Break Out which was a break out hit for Little Charlie and the Nightcats. The song can also be found on Alligator’s Deluxe Edition from the band, as well as the 2014 release You Asked For It: Rick Estrin and the Nightcats Live.

The song has been reinvented and reemerged with new life, new meaning and a new purpose as, Dump That Trump. With no less than 64 (by my count) blues musicians joining in on the chorus and singing “DUMP THAT TRUMP,” it was a real show stopper and closing number.

This one tune has garnered as much attention as the entire set of music. Estrin’s lyrics to the song are explicit, on point and hit the target square in the mouth. As the song made its way around Facebook there were those who suggested that maybe the Nightcats have alienated a small percentage of an already small blues audience by performing this song.

Let’s stop here for a moment and let me suggest that those folks who couch their arguments against this song in the form of trying to give career advice to Rick Estrin and the Nightcats are the kind of dip shits that make up the infamous Trump cult in the first place. As Andersen has pointed out, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. He stated that there is a ten to one positive versus negative reaction on social media to Dump That Trump. The song had over 10,000 hits on YouTube within 24 hours of the live stream. The entire performance has easily surpassed the most watched podcast on the fledgling Can’t Stop the Blues Facebook page.

Yet, more importantly the band has grown their fan base. Many people who might not otherwise pay attention to blues music have streamed the YouTube video of this song. What they found is music that is fun and danceable. It is also carrying with it some very relatable story telling beyond our near universal loathing of Trump. The video and this band may have coattails (to use a popular political term) and be the gateway band to expand the base of support of this music in general.

The band wasn’t done yet…they had time for an encore and we had time to hang around. It wasn’t like we had someplace else to go.

They out did themselves with a song entitled Jam for Little Charlie Baty, which turned into a jam with Little Charlie Baty. This song was the perfect closer and a touching tribute to the recently departed genius of the guitar.

This “live concert” review barely scratched the surface of the visual as well as musical precision and professionalism that went into the program. The production values were off the hook. In visiting with D’Mar he said, “You really have to watch it a few times to catch everything.”  That, of course, is now possible.

D’Mar went on to say, that to some degree we all take our relationships for granted. These performances reminded him how much he misses playing with these three other gentlemen.  “We really like each other and get along on stage and off. When we did this show, even though we were in our own separate homes, it reminded all of us just how much we have missed playing together.”

Those harmonious sentiments are something the whole world feels right now. The team work, empathy and soul exhibited by this band is an example of what it will take for all of us to make a better future.

- David Mac   

Editor’s Note: To view this show in its entirety, check it out on YouTube.  Click here for just the video for ‘Dump that Trump’.



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