Short version:
Nick Moss learned his craft with guidance from the best in the biz (Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Dawkins, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith among them) and obviously retained his lessons well. Now hailed by DJs, critics and fans alike as the “torch bearer” of Chicago Blues, Moss takes pride in keeping the genre going strong. Nick Moss and the Flip Tops (nominated for 14 Blues Music Awards over the years) have developed into one of the top Chicago blues outfits on the current national and international scene (garnering three “Band Of The Year” BMA nods in as many years), and personify the perfectly-tuned ensemble approach that defined the classic 1950s Windy City sound. As an extra bonus on several tour dates this summer and fall, the band is joined by fellow Chicago blues great, Lurrie Bell, voted “Most Outstanding Guitar Player” in the 2007 Living Blues Magazine critic’s poll. You can also hear them together on the latest release from Blue Bella Records, Live At Chan’s: Combo Platter No. 2.
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Long version:
In 2006, Blue Bella Records released Nick Moss & The Flip Tops’ Live At Chan’s, the Chicago blues guitarist’s first live album. Recorded at Chan’s Eggroll & Jazz in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the acclaim it garnered, along with its subsequent success, convinced everyone concerned that a return to the same cozy club for another round of live recording was definitely in order—and the sooner, the better. Thus we have Nick and the band’s new CD: Live At Chan’s: Combo Platter No. 2, with special guest Lurrie Bell. The set once again captures what this uncommonly hard-hitting, endlessly versatile crew does best: live and lively Chicago blues, deeply rooted in postwar tradition with a heady infusion of contemporary energy.
Moss’ blistering lead guitar and expressive vocals are backed by multi-instrumentalist Gerry Hundt’s bass, mandolin, second guitar or blazing harmonica, Willie Oshawny’s two-fisted piano (and sometimes bass), and veteran drummer Bob Carter’s rock-solid rhythms. Nick Moss & The Flip Tops have developed into one of the top Chicago blues bands on the current national and international scene, personifying the perfectly-tuned ensemble approach that defined the classic 1950s Windy City sound. Add Lurrie Bell’s riveting guitar and vocal attack on three numbers, and this Combo Platter is worth salivating over.
No less a Chicago blues legend that the late Jimmy Rogers saw Nick as a protégé, torchbearer, and colleague. Buddy Guy also sanctions his talent: “Nick Moss is one of the local favorites at my club, Legends. I always enjoy the way he plays and works hard to please our audience.” Chicago-based music journalist Bill Dahl raves over Nick’s guitar playing, saying he possesses “mastery of the classic Chicago sound.” Acclaimed blues producer Dick Shurman numbers himself among Nick’s legion of admirers, calling him “an increasingly centered artist who can rightly be called a master.”
Nick fully understands the debt he owes his predecessors and how important it is to carry on tradition in an honorable fashion. “I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel,” he says with characteristic modesty, “or trying to bring things into the new millennia. I’m just playing what was handed down to me and do it justice. I have a lot of respect for the guys who taught it to me. I played with Jimmy Dawkins, I played with Willie Smith, I played with Jimmy Rogers. And in my heart, I love [this music] and I don’t feel it has to be changed much.”
Passionate blues fans around the world gravitate to Nick’s playing in live performance and on recordings because of that stylistic link to the Chicago blues past. But Nick’s music also holds enormous appeal for casual fans of blues and even novices. “I’m trying to find that fine line of not compromising the integrity of that classic music,” he says, “and yet still make it a little fresher-sounding and contemporary-sounding where I can get across to the element of the crowd that isn’t hard-core.”
Nick’s no imitator. He has his own distinct voice on the guitar. “I’ve listened to just about every blues guitar player from the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, especially the Chicago guys, and tried to take in all of it,” he offers, “but I don’t consider myself a note-to-note copier. I absorbed their style and feel and timing. I try to listen and capture the essence of what they were doing.”
For Nick Moss, the rise to Chicago’s top tier of blues musicians had its beginnings in his boyhood home. “If it wasn’t for my brother Joe, I wouldn’t be playing. I used to watch him play guitar growing up, and still today he’s one of my favorite guitarists, a musician’s musician, playing blues, jazz, funk, soul, and rock. He pointed me in the right direction.” As a teenager, Nick sneaked into local blues clubs and soaked up the classic ensemble sound played by the venerable elders. “My first influence was Jimmy Dawkins because he gave me my first real gig playing bass for him. I just happened to be at a blues jam when I found out he needed a bass player. I really didn’t know who the guy was. I found out how heavy he was after I started playing with him and doing research.”
Nick’s schooling began in earnest when he hooked up with the Legendary Blues Band, featuring Muddy Waters Blues Band alumnus Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums. “That was one of my favorite bands,” he recalls. “I still love Willie. He is like my second father.” The next deep-blues learning period for Nick, who’d switched over from bass to guitar, was in the band of Jimmy Rogers for three years in the mid-’90s. From Rogers, he learned all about the special ensemble sound of authentic Chicago blues, coming to understand the importance of listening closely to and reacting to his fellow players on the bandstand. “Listen to early Muddy Waters stuff with Jimmy and Otis Spann and Little Walter,” says Nick of the original model. “It almost sounds as if they’re playing on top of each other, but they’re staying out of each other’s way. It almost sounds like they’re all soloing at the same time.” When he wasn’t performing as second guitarist for Rogers or listening to his mentor regale him with story after story, Nick kept busy listening to the recordings of Chicago blues greats Louis Myers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Earl Hooker and Johnny Littlejohn.
With his blues graduate studies completed by the late ’90s, Moss launched his own band, The Flip Tops. Their first album, First Offense, was followed by Got a New Plan in 2001 and two years later a third album, Count Your Blessings, all on Nick and Kate’s Blue Bella Records. The latter two received W. C. Handy award nominations, and Count Your Blessings included ace contributions by Nick’s friends Sam Myers, Anson Funderburgh, Willie Smith, Curtis Salgado and Lynwood Slim. June 2005 saw the release of fourth album Sadie Mae, named after his beautiful baby daughter.
Nick says of his growing discography, “I think slowly but surely with each CD I’ve grown a little bit more confident in the ability to add the contemporary element. If people go back and listen to all four of the CDs, they’d see a growth with each disc of more contemporary elements. My first album is straight-up ’50s-style blues, and the next two are a really good mix [of classic and contemporary blues styles of the ’60s and ’70s]. Sadie Mae became a clearer picture of what we did live at the time.” Sadie Mae was nominated for 2006 Blues Music Awards as Album of the Year and Traditional Blues Album of the Year.
Cut in July of 2005, the first Live At Chan’s happened because Nick had been approached by some east coast blues fans earlier that year who had wondered when he was going to make a live record. Moss replied that he had always wanted to, but there weren’t any plans to put one out. They convinced Nick to let them make the arrangements. Current Flip Tops Gerry Hundt and Willie Oshawny were there, along with special guest Monster Mike Welch. Nick commented in the liner notes: “I wanted to make sure that the CD reflected the spontaneity of our live performances. I’ve been blessed with an extremely talented band; each one of us is a multi-instrumentalist and has no problem switching it up during our shows! We have had nothing but compliments from our audiences after they see how the guys and I take turns on different instruments as we did on this particular night.” Live At Chan’s earned 2007 Blues Music Award nominations for Album of the Year and Traditional Blues Album of the Year in addition to nods for Band of the Year and Instrumentalist: Guitar.
Fresh from the nominations and an electrifying live performance at the 2007 Blues Music Awards ceremony, Nick Moss & the Flip Tops followed it that same year with a two-CD set showcasing the band’s incredible versatility as performers and songwriters. In addition to Nick on guitar and vocals, Play It Til Tomorrow once again featured Oshawny on keyboards (he switched over to bass on four tracks and second guitar on another) and Hundt on harp and vocals (he also played bass, rhythm guitar and mandolin on the disc). Special guests Eddie Taylor, Jr. and Barrelhouse Chuck made their presence felt too. The first disc featured the band at their most rollicking Chicago blues sound, while the second disc unveiled their previously undocumented “unplugged” side.
Nick Moss and his Flip Tops sizzle in live performance hundreds of times a year, bringing their blues to clubs from Cape Cod all the way west to southern California, with countless stops between. Festival appearances abound each summer and fall, and stops overseas have become more frequent with each passing year. Back home, Nick considers Buddy Guy’s Legends as his favorite haunt, due in part to the great support Guy has shown him over the years.
“I feel like I’m one of the only bands from Chicago that’s actually still playing Chicago blues the way people think of Chicago blues,” says Nick. “I’ve gotten [praise] from a lot of the old-timers that have seen us play, even guys that are not from Chicago like Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza, and Charlie Baty and Rick Estrin of Little Charlie & the Nightcats. [They say] it’s great to see there’s actually a band from Chicago that actually plays Chicago blues.”
No question about it.
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