NICK MOSS & THE FLIP TOPS: Sadie Mae

Nick Moss & the Flip Tops

Sadie Mae

© 2005 Blue Bella Records, LTD (800595100426)

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Real and raw Chicago blues at its finest.

notes

"His top-shelf guitar work, incisive songwriting and vocals whose effectiveness increasingly matches their passion have made Nick an asset to the Chicago blues that inspired him."

"(Sadie Mae is) a well-grounded statement by an increasingly centered artist who can rightly be called a master."

"Sadie Mae makes it apparent that Nick Moss has reached new heights and become a serious musical force to be reckoned with. Moss' formidable command of the timeless 1950s Chicago sounds-and all its musical twists and turns since then-captivates the listener via his top-shelf guitar work, vocals showing a new level of effectiveness and expressiveness, and a program heavy on personal songwriting about topics ranging from his own family to one of Chicago's most notorious ghetto scenesters."

-Noted producer & journalist Dick Shurman

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NICK MOSS BIO

"Nick's just got it in him...The blues feeling ain't nothing you can teach someone. He's just got that feeling." -Jimmy Rogers, late great guitarist

Chicago blues. Those two words conjure up the most powerful and evocative images in the entire history of American music. Think smoke-filled taverns on the South or West Side nearly ablaze with tremendous displays of electrified Delta beats from dignitaries named Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and so many more. Imagine sidewalk curbs and street corners on busy Maxwell Street where storied performers like Hound Dog Taylor and Robert Nighthawk wailed the blues for spare change.
Chicago blues is now also synonymous with guitarist Nick Moss. Though the golden era of Chicago blues is long past with many of its key players deceased or retired, this young Chicagoan stands tallest in the current generation of blues performers that honor the letter and spirit of the great urban African-American music. No less than Jimmy Rogers saw Nick as a protégé, a torchbearer, and a colleague. Leading Chicago-style guitarist Buddy Guy 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." Noted Chicago-based music journalist Bill Dahl, never one for gratuitous praise, has raved over Nick's guitar playing, saying he possesses "mastery of the classic Chicago sound," while acclaimed blues producer Dick Shurman numbers himself among Nick's ever-growing legion of admirers, calling his Windy City neighbor "an increasingly centered artist who can rightly be called a master."

A musician of consummate skill, 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 country 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."

To his credit, Nick's no imitator. He has his own distinct voice on the guitar, what all musicians in all genres strive for yet very few achieve. "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 the top tier of blues musicians out of Chicago had its beginnings right 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." Too young for legal admission into clubs, aspiring teenaged blues man Nick literally sneaked into local blues dens 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." How heavy? Dawkins was one of the true stars of electric blues in the '70s, an acclaimed star in Europe but always criminally undervalued in the States.

Nick's schooling began in earnest when he hooked up with the Muddy Waters-styled Legendary Blues Band that featured 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. He basically taught me two things: 1) to take pride in myself right now, and
2) the timing and feel of blues, how it's suppose to be." The next deep-blues learning period for Nick, who'd switched over from bass to guitar, was in the employ of Jimmy Rogers for three years in the mid-'90s. From this major figure in the story of blues 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 hard to the recorded work of other Chicago blues players, among them Louis Myers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Earl Hooker and Johnny Littlejohn.

With his blues graduate studies completed by the late-'90s, Moss started fronting his own band, the Flip Tops. Their first album, First Offense, was followed by second effort Got a New Plan in 2001 and then two years later a third album, Count Your Blessings-the latter two received W. C. Handy award nominations, all bear the imprint of Nick and Kate Moss's Blue Bella label. (Not incidentally, Count Your Blessings included ace contributions by several of his famous friends, among them Sam Myers, Anson Funderburgh, Willie Smith, Curtis Salgado and Lynwood Slim.) June 2005 sees the release of fourth album Sadie Mae, named after his beautiful baby daughter. Among the 16 tracks on the latest release are his wise and heartfelt interpretations of Jimmy Rogers' "Crazy Woman Blues," Earl Hooker's "You Got To Lose" and Lefty Dizz's "If I Could Get My Hands On You." 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]. The new one, Sadie Mae, is a clearer picture of what we do live."

Nick Moss and his Flip Tops sizzle in live performance hundreds of times a year, bringing their superior blues to clubs from Cape Cod all the way west to southern California with countless stops in between. Back home, Nick considers Buddy Guy's Legends and the House of Blues, where he and the Flip Tops were the original "House" band, his favorite haunts. Also on home turf this year, at the prestigious Chicago Blues Festival, Nick's getting billed under his own name for the first time. Nick's fortunate to record and perform gigs with players that excel not only their primary instruments but on others as well. Gerry Hundt, who teamed up with guitarist John-Alex Mason in Colorado before joining the Flip Tops, usually plays second guitar and harmonica but sometimes bass too. Bob Welsh, whose previous credits include three years working with harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite, ordinarily plays piano and organ yet switches over to bass or guitar on occasion. Valuable to the ensemble sound, too, are Dave Wood on bass and Victor Spann on drums. In addition to his guitar playing, Nick ably handles the singing duties; he's also a first-rate songwriter.

Nick Moss knows he has something special happening. "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. 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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  • Awesome!!!!
    author: Dawn

    I was so happy with the CD. But I have to say that dealing with CD Baby would have been worth it even if the CD sucked. Thanks for the great experience.

  • He nails it time and time again...
    author: Pete Alinovich

    The opening track is a stunner- Hound Dog Taylor re-incarnated! And it keeps getting better from there. Nick Moss just has a feel about his playing and singing that can't be bought or faked. Tasty, thoughtful playing also from the band, and some of the best production values I've ever heard. YOU WILL DIG THIS DISC.

  • Couldn't be more pleased.....
    author: R Hauser

    The CD ordering process was a very smooth one. Click on the hyperlink and follow the path. I am very pleased with the turn around time and the efficiency of CD Baby's ordering process. I wish other CD companies were this easy. Thanks for the good experience.

  • 75 minutes of open-mouthed listening
    author: Paul Bondarovski, Midnight Special Blues Radio

    "Sadie Mae" demonstrates how contemporary may sound the traditional Chicago Blues. More than that, with this album Nick Moss takes the real, authentic Blues up to the level of classical music. There, the words "old" and "new", "now" and "then" loose their sense in the face of an everlasting beauty.

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