Jason Ricci Biography

 

Jason Ricci is one of the most popular harmonica players on the planet today. Listed in almost every top ten list of players on the internet today Jason Ricci is a polarizing force always in the spot light and on the tips of critics, artists and fans tongue's everywhere. Through two plus decades of endless touring, TV appearances, recordings and the internet Jason Ricci's style of playing is so revolutionary and influential that there exists an entire younger generation of players imitating his music, clothes, gear, and even stage presence. Nick named "Moon Cat" (a street name he once used in Nashville and New Orleans to avoid police detection) Jason has been an almost constant force for decades in the studio, festivals, club dates and press. Love him or hate him, through performing, singing, song writing, teaching, harmonica playing and activism in the fields of L.G.B.T., mental health and addiction, it is not an overstatement that this young, white, queer, skateboarding, punk rock loving, multiple convicted felony having Moon Cat from Maine is currently changing world through music and education.

2015 was a significant year for a Moon Cat. Ricci was invited by Paul Shaffer and The Rock and The Roll Hall of Fame to perform at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony to induct his harmonica hero Paul Butterfield. At The Hall of Fame Ceremony tribute to Butterfield, Jason Ricci played with Tom Morello, Zac Brown and The Paul Shaffer Orchestra. The event was televised via HBO to over 12 million plus viewers. After the hall of fame performance Ricci released a collaborative acoustic CD titled "Dirty Memory". The CD topped the charts and received rave reviews. Dirty Memory's departure from Ricci's very, hard and electric sound was a shocking and necessary tool in establishing Jason as a well-rounded blues performer, serious about the roots of blues music and harmonica. JJ Appleton and Jason Ricci currently tour all over and are working on a follow up release. Maybe the biggest event of the year was the formation of Jason Ricci and the Bad Kind with old friend and New Orleans’s guitarist John Lisi. The Bad Kind, is a Moon Cat's five-piece band and is currently Ricci's primary touring, recording and writing outfit hitting every state and much of Europe and beyond. In 2016 Jason was invited to tour with Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blow Out featuring Anson Funderburgh and Charlie Baty. Additionally, a Moon Cat is part of Harmonicon a touring show case featuring Sugar Blue, Billy Branch and Ricci with Sugar Blue's Band. Harmonicon and working with Branch and Blue is a dream come true for Ricci and is the pinnacle of any festival line up anywhere.

Like any real blues man Ricci has paid his dues directly at the feat of the masters’ year after year. Whether it be on stage at the Rock and Roll hall of Fame for 12 Million people or at Junior Kimbrough's juke joint in Holly Springs Mississippi for 30 locals, Ricci has been there. His life has seen some of the greatest highs the world can offer and some of the hardest lows any human being can endure. From the highest awards and honors the music industry can bestow upon any artist to the most deplorable lows of homelessness, male prostitution, mental institutions and jails Jason Ricci has experienced both sides at length and is here, playing his harmonica, living, singing, writing, and telling us all: what it was like, what happened and what it's like now.