2005 MOBBAY AWARD WINNER
This year’s Monterey Bay Blues Artist of the Year is sort of a local-kid-makes-good kind of story. Chris Cain is a native Californian who grew up in the Alum Rock area in East San Jose. Although blues purists might prefer their artists to hail from places like the Louisiana bayou, or the gritty streets of Chicago, the Silicon Valley turned out to be amply fertile ground for Chris to develop his blues style.
While no one would ever confuse the Civic Auditorium in downtown San Jose with the Harlem Apollo, the Civic showcased its share of legendary performers. “That’s where all the big cats would play,” Chris remembers. “Big cats” like Ray Charles, B.B. King, and Fats Domino would serve as an early source of inspiration.
Chris grew up surrounded by music. His dad liked to play guitar and both his parents enjoyed listening to their enormous and eclectic record collection. As Chris describes it, “their record collection is like the Smithsonian.” The music of Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Elmore James were familiar sounds in the Cain household.
It was San Jose in the Sixties and Chris Cain loved it. “It was great. In 1965 my dad on Christmas day said, ‘Hey, put on your suit, we’re going to the Fairgrounds.’ It was James Brown right when ‘Papa’s got a Brand new Bag’ came out. Believe me, I was terrified but I loved it. I thought the place was going to blow up.”
Cain says he first started playing guitar when he was nine or ten. In high school he was influenced by guitarists like Elvin Bishop and Michael Bloomfield, as well as B.B. King and Albert King. By the time he got to San Jose City College he was also playing piano, saxophone, and drums, and teaching jazz improvisation on campus. After he finished college he put together his first professional band and right away started gigging around town, and even overseas.
In 1987, Cain released his first album, “Late Night City Blues,” which earned him immediate acclaim. He received four W.C. Handy Blues Award nominations, including “Guitarist of the Year.” His debut recording also drew notice from Guitar Player magazine as “an impressive album by a top notch guitarist.” In addition to his recording career and heavy touring schedule, Cain was commissioned in 1997 to write a music score for the San Jose Repertory Theater. Chris reflects, “everything I end up doing always turn out to be musical.”
Chris Cain has without a doubt established himself as a bluesman of world acclaim. One music critic writes, “With a voice that recalls B.B. King and a thick toned Gibson guitar sound reminiscent of Albert King, Cain is forging a unique style.” And San Jose Mercury News music critic John Orr said, “Chris Cain, more than anyone else, anywhere, represents the future of the blues.”