JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: Florida Today   Date: 02/2008 Writer: n/a

New Blood courses through Ricci's veins.

Award-winning harp player makes his case for
the modern-day blues Momentary rest.

Blues artist and harmonica player Jason Ricci
performs more than 300 shows a year.

The details 
Who: Jason Ricci & New Blood 
When: 1 to 8 p.m. Sunday 
Where: Earl's Hideaway, 1405 Indian River Drive, Sebastian 
Admission: No cover 
Information: 772-589-5700 
Also performing 
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 16 
Where: The Beach Shack, 1 Minutemen Causeway, Cocoa Beach 
Admission: No cover 
Information: 783-2250 

Space Coast blues fans get two chances to enjoy the sounds of one of the premier blues artists on the music scene today: Jason Ricci & New Blood. 

The Portland, Maine, band will play Earl's Hideaway in Sebastian on Sunday and the Beach Shack in Cocoa Beach a week later. 

With a fresh take on the blues, Jason Ricci & New Blood have quietly begun redefining the sound of modern-day blues and, in the process, have forged an impressive following. 

Ricci has quickly compiled a musician's resume and blues credibility that most musicians don't achieve in a lifetime. By the time he was 21, he had won the Sonny Boy Blues Society contest, performed on the main stage at the King Biscuit Blues Festival and worked with Susan Tedeschi, Billy Gibson and Bobby Little. 

Ricci is touring in support of the band's latest CD, "Rocket Number 9," an exhilarating album full of vivid raw emotion. 

I spoke with Ricci about his new CD, his earliest influences and his take on the blues. So let's Shake, Rattle & Know: Jason Ricci. 

SRK: What first got you interested in playing the blues? 

Ricci: I think it was the sincerity of the music at the time. As a harmonica player, it was also the most sincere for the music. All the "real" players were blues artists. There were other guys who played harmonica in rock songs and such, guys like Neil Young, but it was more of a novelty type of thing and not sincere. 

SRK: When did you first start playing the harmonica? 

Ricci: When I was 14 years old. I had one as a kid, but I wasn't crazy about it. I thought I needed a better one, so I got one and really got into it. Later, I found out the original one I had was one of the best you can buy, and I have been trying to find one on ebay ever since. I had a really good harmonica teacher named Dave Daniels. He gave me a lot of records and taught me a lot. He was a great teacher and knew so much about the harmonica and the artists who played them. Even in today's Internet age, the guy knew more than most people do today. 

SRK: While touring nearly 300 days a year, how hard is it to maintain a life outside of the music business? 

Ricci: That's actually getting a little easier now, because we are starting to slow down a bit. With the new record label and more visibility, we can ask for more money per show and don't have the need to play as often as we did. We are a hotter commodity now that more people know who we are. But if the label wanted us to maintain that same grueling schedule, we would, because of the work ethic I have. It is really hard to maintain any type of social life outside the music scene, though. 

SRK: Who are some of your earliest musical influences? 

Ricci: Probably not what you would guess. Bands like The Dead Kennedy's, The Misfits, the Ramones, Fugazi and bands like that. 

I also liked the Pixies and still listen to them quite a bit. 

In the blues, I listened to guys like Little Walter; he was the guy. One of my biggest influences was Pat Ramsey. I have so many influences from jazz artists, to tenor sax guys from the '60s to modern music. I go through phases where I only listen to one style of music. 

I guess you could call it an obsessive burst of interest. Right now I am into classic violin. I went from punk music to the blues, and that consumed the longest part of my musical interests. 

SRK: In the past, you have been verbally abused and even had death threats made against you just for being an openly gay musician. How hard has it been to be judged by some members of the music community on your personal life rather than on the merit of your music? 

Ricci: Oh, it's horrible. It is really hard, and it begins to wear on you after a while. I just didn't want to lie about who I was anymore. 

People would always ask, "Where's your girlfriend?" or questions like that, and I didn't want to have to make up stories anymore. When I came out of the closet, I thought maybe it would be done with. But it's almost like I have to "come out" every single day, because you meet people who just don't know and it surprises them. 

It can be very confrontational sometimes. For every gig we don't get because a promoter or booking agency finds out I am gay, we wonder how many more gigs we may have missed out on because of it. It hurts, but it is worth it to me to be sincere to who I am. . . . Is it too much to ask that someone just listen to the music and judge me based on that alone? It doesn't seem like too much to ask for, but I guess sometimes it is. 

SRK: How does your newest CD differ from your previous recordings? 

Ricci: It is a complete album. All the tunes were carefully planned out for well over a year. 

Before this album, we put together whatever music we could record in about a six- to eight-hour window, because that's all we could afford. It was done in a day and all for about $1,000. 

We also had band members come and go. So by the time they would learn a song, we had to record it in a hurry before they would be gone off to something new, so we couldn't think anything through. 

With "Rocket Number 9," we had more time. We got to work with the Grammy-winning producer John Porter, and we recorded in the House of Blues Studio. That's the same studio where Michael Jackson recorded "Thriller," and we had a lot more money to record this one -- $25,000 goes a long way. 

SRK: If you could do one thing over in your career, what would it be and why? 

Ricci: I grew up around legendary artists Jr. Kimbrough and R.L Burnside, both of whom are not with us anymore. I wish I had listened to them more, and spent more time getting to know them and learning from them more than I did. 

I worried so much about wanting to be like them, that I didn't take the time to learn from them and enjoy the time I had with them. I would have done whatever it took to spend more time with them, even if it meant driving their bus. I would have videotaped them and taken photographs, and documented everything. 

There isn't much about what they taught that was written or passed down for future generations. I would have been the geeky white boy and asked them more questions. No one had the kind of access to these guys that I had.