Review | Chicago Calling, Blues Alert

A prince among Santa Barbara cultural institutions, and with street cred intact, the Santa Barbara Blues Society (SBBS) crosses the rubicon into its milestone 50th anniversary next year. This lofty status adds to its already impressive reputation as the oldest continuously running Blues Society in the United States.

Doing the math, that works out to make premier modern Chicago blues artist Nick Moss a 6-year-old kid at the birth of SBBS. There he was last week, showing his considerable guitar and vocal prowess and tradition-hugging acumen at the Carrillo Recreation Center, with his ace band. The large crowd gathered seemed glued to his sound, while dancing feet kept the Rec Center’s historic spring-loaded dance floor duly seismic.

Material-wise, Moss dipped into songs from his now several albums on the go-to blues label outta Chicago, Alligator Records, and dipped into new songs from a forthcoming album.  

Moss, a beefy singer and a stronger guitarist, issued steamy solos all night, on his Gibson 335 (BB King’s choice), a Fender Jazzmaster, and a compact Gibson model for some tasty slide guitaring in the second set. In his slide moment, a Bo Diddley beat segued a fast boogie groove, on “Send You Back to Georgia.” 

Moss is very much the main attraction in his band, but the company he’s keeping also rises to his high standards. A secondary spotlight was fixed on blues harp master Dennis Gruenling, in his shiny tiger-skin coat, serving as Moss’s chief foil, instrumental conversation partner and slick riff slinger. Filling out the band’s ranks were the youngster/old soul on the stand, drummer Pierce Downer, and Brazilian-in-Chicago bassist Rodrigo Mantovani (no relation to the Muzak king).

Brandishing his solid, slap-happy standup bass savvy, Mantovani, in fact, stole the spotlight and served as a literal subject of Moss’s tribute song “It Shocks Me Out” (the title comes from one of Mantovani’s charmingly mangled English phrases). That song hails from Moss’s superb 2023 album Get Your Back Into It! (hear here) the title tune of which — an insinuating shuffle — appeared come encore time. 

Moss teasingly addressed the innuendo factor of the song’s lyrics. “People say, ‘You’re from Chicago, a working-class town. Is the song about working?’ I say, ‘I think you’re misinterpreting it,” he said with a sly sideways grin. “I guess you could call it work. Good work if you can get it.”

Over its many years, SBBS has paid due respects to older blues masters, from the blues ground zero of Chicago and elsewhere. This year, the attention has been on strong and award-winning mid-career (and yes, fiftysomething) singer-guitarists keeping up the tradition of blues legacies while bringing along the contemporary sidecar of a more blues-rock and rock ‘n’ roll. Guitarist-singer Mike Zito, out of St. Louis, tore it up in May and Moss laid down in a mighty, meaty way last week.

This was the second to last SBBS show, before the November 21 show by Teresa James and the Rhythm Tramps closes out this year, the last of the organization’s fortysomething status. For his part, Moss delivered a fine — and in the right degrees, rough — tip of the true blues hat to the SBBS and the city that supports it. See sbblues.org for more information on the next show.