John Nemeth in Russia!
The first Russian tour of the outstanding modern blues vocalist and harpist John Nemeth (USA) will take place at the end of February 2010. The tour is arranged and supported by "The Jumping Cats" blues band (Moscow, Russia).
John Nemeth is a rising blues star; a singer steeped in the tradition and reminiscent of B.B. King, Ray Charles and Junior Parker, and a harmonica player of riveting intensity and virtuosity. He grew up singing in a Catholic church and started playing in local bands as a teenager.
Performances of John are influenced by classical music of 50-60th: soul and blues, R&B, chicago blues with a touch of funk and rock. Blind Pig Records signed him the first time they laid ears on him. Finally John Nemeth will visit Russia!
He was nominated as the Best New Artist Debut (Magic Touch) at the Blues Music Awards 2008 and as a Best New Artist Debut (Magic Touch) and Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year in 2009. "Either John Nemeth is one of the greatest vocalists in the world or this was the best performance of his life, or both." - Washington Blues Society.
"The Jumping Cats" were formed in 2003 in Moscow by guitar player Vladimir Rusinov. Since then the band has played numerous club gigs and successfully participated in festivals all over Russia and abroad. Some of the highlights include Moscow International Blues Festival (Russia), Belgrade Blues Festival 2009 (Serbia), Blues Nights 2009 (Lithuania), Minsk Blues Festival 2009 (Belarus), Neva Delta Blues (St Petersburg) and all the festivals organized by the Russian Blues Society (blues.ru).
Every week the band presents a blues show "The Jumping Tuesdays" at the Moscow's renown Roadhouse Blues Club. More than 40 musicians from Russia, Norway, Belarus and Ukraine were featured in these series of gigs as special guests. The Jumpin' cats earned a reputation of a very reliable band, which is why the foreign musicians often choose it as an accompanying band when touring Russia.
Gigs schedule
February 24, 20:00. Saint-Petersburg, "Jagger" club.
Phone: +7 (812) 92 312 92
Web: www.jaggerclub.ru
Free entrance!!! VIP places from 300 to 500 rubles
February 25, 21:00. Moscow, "BluesTime" club.
Phone: +7 (495) 691-65-13
Web: www.bluestime.ru
Ticket: 500 rubles
February 26, 20:30. Moscow, "Cotton Club" club.
Phone: +7 (495) 933-4986
Web: www.myspace.com/moscowcottonclub
Ticket: 700 rubles
February 27, 20:30. Moscow, "Roadhouse" club.
Phone: +7 (903) 145-3716
Web: www.roadhouse.ru
Ticket: 600 rubles
Article about John Nemeth from "Blues Beat"
John Nemeth - He Does It All with His "Magic Touch" by Stacy Jeffress
Uncle Bo's Blues Bar, Topeka, Kansas. December 4, 2009
Few things delight me as much as taking a friend to the live performance of an artist she hasn't seen before and watching her jaw drop in wonder at the talent on stage. This year I've had the pleasure of taking the uninitiated to concerts by Candye Kane and Curtis Salgado, and I knew that John Nemeth's debut appearance at Uncle Bo's was going to be another opportunity to introduce friends to a Blues artist of stellar talent. I corralled people at my day job; I broadcast on FaceBook: you don't want to miss this man's show.
So you already know I won't have a bad thing to say about Nemeth; if I did you wouldn't believe me.
Blind Pig Records signed him the first time they laid ears on him, so who am I to question their judgment? He has Blues Music Awards nominations in his past and his present: in 2008 for Best New Artist Debut (Magic Touch) and in 2010 for Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year. Let's see if I can explain why he merits such attention.
John Nemeth is the kind of vocalist who is so good that, when you croon along with his soulful ballads and whimsical shuffles, you become convinced that you can sing, too, but that's just the light reflecting from this man's flame. Talent as deep as Nemeth's comes along only so many times in one generation, and the Blues is lucky to have sunk its claws into him the first time he heard a Junior Wells record.
Born and raised in Boise, Nemeth, now thirty-four and based in San Francisco, started performing at age 16 at the Grub Stakes Saloon in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, and he has been performing five to six shows per week ever since. His eighteen years of experience show as he takes the stage with charisma dripping from every pore. A dapper dresser in suit and fedora, Nemeth never met a Blues style he couldn't master.
With his three-octave range, he delivers low-down Blues ("Blues in My Heart"), funk ("Love Gone Crazy," "Breakin' Free"), surf ("Where You Been," "You Were Wrong"), rock ("Magic Touch," "Love Me Tonight"), and boogie woogie ("Late Night Boogie"). If that's not enough variety for you, add some Latin vibe ("Late Night Hour"), shuffles ("Blues Hit Big Town," "Country Boy"), and soul ("Fuel for Your Fire"), and you begin to wonder if there is anything this man can't sing.
Nemeth is no slouch on the harp, either, and his riffs complement the outstanding support he gets from Bobby Welsh on guitar, Smoky Davis on bass, Nick Fishman on drums, and Oyvind Stolefjelle, fresh from Norway and on only his third gig with Nemeth, on piano. Nemeth's rendition of Junior Wells' "Come on in This House" is a prime example of his ability to growl through the vocals and the harmonica solos and to make a cover his own. When he trills, "I'm begging you," he holds the audience in the palm of his hand.
Another song Nemeth reinvents is "Wake Up, Baby," an old Irish fable made popular by Sonny Boy Williamson II as the B side to his 1958 release "Your Funeral and My Trial." When Nemeth first heard Williamson's version, he thought the song had potential for the Nemeth treatment: "I decided I was gonna twist it and twist it." The song is a conversation between a cheating wife and her suspicious husband - "There's a mule in my stable where my mule's supposed to be" - and he brings the house down when he sings both spouses' parts, using a falsetto for the wife's lame excuses. As he introduced the song, Nemeth wryly commented, "You have to be careful about the songs you record, 'cause then you get requests to sing them."
Humor is a tool Nemeth has often employed in his original songs, and you want to hear every word for fear you'll miss whichever odd turn the story might take. The 1950s-style "You're an Angel" is a prime example of a song that starts out one way: "You're an angel/You can't do nothin' wrong," and ends up somewhere unexpected: "Sent from heaven down to earth to wreck my life/ Well the Good Lord must be trying to drive me crazy sending me an angel like you/I'm going to send you back to your maker pretty baby/'Cause I'm damned if I don't and I'm damned if I do."
The one criticism I would have of Nemeth's material is that, try as I might, I could not locate that wit in any of the songs from his latest release Love Me Tonight. Don't leave out your warped humor on the next CD please, John. When you deliver your devilish lyrics in that angelic voice of yours, it's like a one-two punch rarely found in modern Blues.
During his show, Nemeth appropriately gave props to resident sound technician Jim Beilman for making the one-hundred-and-fifty-seat room sound so good. Much credit is due to Beilman and to Uncle Bo's manager and talent buyer Suki Willison for bringing such a variety of national Blues artists to humble Topeka and then providing the equipment to enhance each performance. As Nemeth said, "I like the way it's set up, nice and cozy. There's not a bad seat in the house."
Nemeth's two-set show left the audience hungry for more, and we hope he comes back to our hometown venue very soon.