JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: Blues Revue Date: 03/2008 Writer: Autumn Long

JASON RICCI Gets His Rock Off by Autumn Long, Blues Revue

For most of us, a two-week vacation means time to hit the beach, the ski slopes, or a favorite fishing hole. But for harmonica wizard Jason Ricci, two weeks off from a hectic touring schedule provides a rare opportunity to enjoy some quiet time at home, indulging in his latest musical passion: violin concertos. "I really wish I had become a classical violinist," Ricci muses from the Nashville home he and Brady Mills, his partner of four years, purchased in 2007. But when I suggest that it's never too late to try something new, Ricci dismisses the idea with a laugh, saying, "At least right now, it is too late. A lot of people would be really bummed if I did that now, if I just started over on another instrument." He's right, of course. Ricci's profile as one of today's hottest young harp players is on the rise, thanks to his speed, his imaginative licks, his skill at the technique of overblowing, and his breath-defying stamina. Ricci is one of the few "new school" harp players who garners respect from blues traditionalists as well as the blues-rock and jam-band crowds. But blues fans needn't worry about losing this road warrior to the Nashville Symphony; after all, learning a new instrument takes time, and free time is something Ricci hasn't had in years. "[In 2006] we played 319 shows," he says. "And for the past five years we played at least 300 [shows annually]." Ricci and his group, New Blood, recently signed with Delta Groove Productions (via the label's Eclecto Groove imprint) and Intrepid Artists, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based management firm that represents such blues artists as Walter Trout, Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials, Bernard Allison, and Watermelon Slim. Many up-and-comers would fall all over themselves to secure such a deal, but the decision wasn't an easy one for Ricci. "There were a lot of reasons not to sign a record deal," he explains.

"Contrary to the popular belief of most kids who grow up putting a band together in a garage, there were a lot of questions as to whether or not a label was going to do anything for us. It was my research over the last five years that, no, a label could not help the band, and it would only end up getting us into debt or tying us into some kind of alternate program, artistically and musically, that would be counterproductive. Why spend time and money working with a third party for a product that's not going to be sold or distributed any better than we're doing on our own?" Ricci weighed the pros and cons of signing with Delta Groove for a full year before agreeing to join the company's roster. Label honcho Randy Chortkoff assured Ricci that he would remain free to follow his muse, and after years of promoting himself as an independent artist, the harpist decided that a major blues label like Delta Groove could provide his band with greatly increased funding and marketing support. But it was the creation of Eclecto Groove that sealed the deal, the new label striking a suitable balance between Delta Groove's blues roots and Ricci's unconventional approach to the genre. "As far as blues labels that are out there right now, there's nobody else I'd want to be affiliated with," Ricci says. "[Eclecto Groove] understands artists like us, and they're not afraid to put out records of bands that don't exactly fit the mold of blues as it was played 50 years ago." Ricci stands today as an innovator, a champion of progress in the way his instrument is played, and a rebel who disregards musical categories and preconceptions. But he was once an ardent devotee of traditional harp players such as Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and James Cotton. "I spent a long time really studying those styles of music and playing nothing but traditional blues as it was recorded in the Fifties, mostly on the Chess label," he says. "That was everything I was about. I dressed that part, I sang that part, I talked that part, and I did my best to live that part." In the 1990s Ricci moved to Mississippi, where he befriended Junior Kimbrough's son David. He performed with the Kimbrough family and with R.L. Burnside in juke joints throughout the South, and in 1997 Ricci recorded his second album, Down at the Juke, with Kinney Kimbrough. Ricci recalls the time as a positive one in terms of his musical growth, but what began as a youthful fantasy of being a bluesman eventually turned into a nightmare.

"When I was wearing suits and had a pompadour and all those types of things," Ricci says, "it was one big identity crisis. Because the thing is, I'm not black. I wasn't born in Mississippi. I've never Œreckoned' a day in my life. I only eat collard greens because I live in the South now. I had never heard of 'em before I was 21. Playing with Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, I learned a lot more about who I'm not than who I am. The main thing I realized was that blues music for the Kimbroughs and the Burnsides was a cultural tradition. It was just something they did. They were born into it, and I wasn't. And I had to make that okay in my life. That was really hard, because I had such a love of the music. It was really hard for me to not be black. I wanted to be a part of that in every way." Ricci's life spiraled downward in a haze of drug addiction, alcoholism, and crime. He endured periods of homelessness, feeding the fire of an addiction to crack with idealized visions of tragic rock stars and tortured geniuses. "I knew I had a problem," he says. "I just didn't care. I didn't care if it killed me, because I was so delusional that I was putting myself in the category with great musicians that were drug addicts: ŒI'm like Janis' or ŒI'm like Charlie Parker.' ŒI'm like Jimi Hendrix.' I had all these slogans I'd throw around. ŒThe flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,' and all this melodramatic shit that I would use to romanticize my situation." Today, Ricci speaks frankly about the mistakes he made, but at the time he chalked it all up to the blues. "There's no question that at some point in my life drugs and alcohol played a part in me living the Œblues mythology,'" he says. "And the sad and dangerous fact for anybody [who] might be thinking about that now is that eventually it becomes a very real part of your life. Eventually it becomes something that you can't live with or without. And when that happens, your options are: You're going to jail, you're going to die, or you're gonna get sober. And that's it." Ricci found himself facing a year and a day in jail. Today he credits the time behind bars with saving his life. With help from a recovery program, he's been sober for nine years. Ricci also resolved to live openly as a gay man, a decision that has affected his personal life and career in ways both positive and negative. "We did lose gigs from some clubs and festivals," he says. "In no uncertain terms [people said], ŒThe fact that you're gay is not going to work for us.' [But] what I did expect, also, that didn't happen, is that we would get some new venues because of it. And that did not happen. The [gay] community doesn't like drum sets and guitars and actual live music. They're used to lip-synching, and dudes in dresses, and Madonna, and Cher, and techno beats. Those are the things that kept me from coming out earlier. I felt like I had nothing in common with the gay community, and I still don't feel like I have a lot in common with the community. I'm hoping that changes, but the majority of their icons are press-friendly little Mickey Mouse-doll figureheads that you're more likely to see on a show redecorating somebody's house than onstage at a blues festival."

Still, coming out gave Ricci the confidence to widen his musical interests and to explore facets of his personality that previously had been hidden behind the façade of a hard-living bluesman. "At that time I really wasn't allowing myself to love, listen, or interpret other music into what we were doing on a nightly basis," he says. "And then I started going back and listening to rock 'n' roll bands and punk bands and jazz bands. I started worrying less about, ŒIs this music blues?' and just playing music as I was hearing it. So there were some definite freeing qualities." Ricci's new album, Rocket Number 9, can only be described as wildly eclectic, with the emphasis on "wild." From the opening guitar-and-harmonica riff of "The Rocker" to bassist Todd Edmunds' funky jazz explorations on the disc-closing Sun Ra cover, Ricci and his bandmates run the gamut from grungy garage-punk and dirty blues to sweeping ballads and far-out jazz. Through it all flows a tough streak of in-your-face honesty and hard-won self-assurance. Ricci's unflinching lyrics examine everything from the perils of addiction to the mysteries of love and spirituality. He says, "When I came out of the closet as a gay white male from an upper-middle-class suburban home, I came out as not just gay, but as a white guy, and as a guy who likes punk, and as a guy who didn't come from total poverty, and all those things that we associate with being Œblues' things. And when I did that, I wanted to sing about that. I wanted to write songs about what my life was like, and I wanted to use terminology that was modern." Ricci's unabashedly intellectual approach to the blues is complemented by guitarist Shawn Starsky's tasteful arrangements and by the even-handed production of John Porter, who has worked on Grammy-winning recordings by Buddy Guy, Keb' Mo', Taj Mahal, B.B. King, and Los Lonely Boys. Ricci says working with Porter made for a more rewarding recording experience than any of his band's self-produced efforts. "Take everything I've ever done combined, and it's not half as good as [Rocket]. We made every [previous] record for under $800, in a day. We recorded Blood On the Road in less than eight hours, and we recorded Live at Checkers Tavern live in an hour and a half. We also didn't have direction.

Working with a producer like John Porter, having somebody bring that kind of experience to the table ‹ it's beyond helpful. It's almost like working with a fifth member of the band. So I love recording now, and I can't wait to go back and do it again. We're already writing for the next album." Rocket Number 9 might be Ricci and New Blood's label debut, but the band's professionalism and experience are evident throughout the disc. Nowhere is there a hint of indecision or of slavish deference to tradition. In that respect, Ricci is following in the footsteps of the greatest blues innovators ‹ and he knows it. "When I listen back to guys like Sonny Boy Williamson [II]," he says, "I hear Œmodern' for that time. I hear innovation. I don't hear Sonny Boy dumbing down his language to sound like somebody else. I hear him bringing an intellectual quality and humor to the music that was brand new at the time." Young by blues standards (he's 33), Ricci has experienced a lifetime's worth of highs and lows. From his days on the streets to his current standing as a rising star on the blues scene, music has remained a grounding force in Ricci's life. He has armfuls of tattoos and brightly dyed hair, and he got his start playing harmonica in a punk band ("I wasn't a very good singer, even by punk standards," he says, "and I think the band picked that instrument for me because they knew it couldn't really mess the songs up that bad"), but blues is Ricci's true love. Ever the boundary-breaker, Ricci sees similarities between the two seemingly disparate styles of blues and punk. "Blues bands are a lot like punk bands," he insists. "They [both] seem to really mean what they're talking about. The punk world is about sincerity and speaking your mind, and the thing that attracted me to the [blues] was that integrity and honesty." With that, Ricci drives home a compelling argument for playing his music his way. "I don't wanna get up there and do some kind of an act where I pretend that I've done this or I am that," he says. "I think there just need to be more people rocking, and telling people, ŒYou know what? We're rocking!' I mean, we've got funny hair, and we dress funny, and we go onstage, and we rock."