Cool blue: Chris Cain stars this Tuesday at Squaw Valley’s Bluesdays

Chris Cain is often mentioned by his peers as being one of the greatest contemporary blues guitarists. However, many fans bypass him when talking about today’s best.

But that can’t be said of Bluesdays concertgoers in the Village at Squaw Valley.

Cain has played the Tuesday night summer tradition more than anyone else.

At his Bluesdays appearance last summer, Cain, who has released 10 albums since 1987, cooled a hot summer day where temperatures reached 90 degrees.

Reno bluesman Jason King was in attendance.

“He’s probably one of the most underrated guitarist-musicians today,” King said. “I hear a lot of B.B. King and Albert King in his playing. He has this uncanny ability to take jazz, blues and rock styles and create a sound that’s all his own. By the way, he’s also a pretty amazing pianist.”

Cain comes from a musical family.

His father was raised in Memphis, where he spent his early adulthood listening to music on Beale Street. He took his son to a B.B. King concert when the toddler was just 3 years old.

With a deep singing voice, Cain even sounds a bit like B.B. King.

While Cain sang his first song of the evening someone in the parking lot told a Tahoe Onstage photographer, “That sounds like B.B. King!”

Jason King recalled when Cain complained about a music critic who said he was trying to “sound black.”

The writer was unaware Cain’s father is, in fact, an African-American.

Cain’s band has Greg Rahn on keyboards, Steve Evans bass and Mick Mestek on drums.

Related story: Hamish Anderson’s impressive Bluesday appearance. LINK

Related story: Memphis does John Nemeth good. LINK

  • Bluesdays
    6-8 p.m. Tuesdays; free
    Aug 4: Chris Cain
    Aug. 11: Terry Hanck
    Aug. 18: The Stone Foxes
    Aug. 25: The Blues Monsters
    Sept. 1: Carolyn Wonderland
    Sept. 8: tba

 

ABOUT Tim Parsons

Tim Parsons
Tim Parsons is the editor of Tahoe Onstage who first moved to Lake Tahoe in 1992. Before starting Tahoe Onstage in 2013, he worked for 29 years at newspapers, including the Tahoe Daily Tribune, Eureka Times-Standard and Contra Costa Times. He was the recipient of the 2011 Keeping the Blues Alive award for Journalism.

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