Photo: Jean Frank Photography
Harmonica Master Jason Ricci And The Bad Kind Announce New Album ‘Behind The Veil’
Gulf Coast Records announces a September 29th release date for Behind the Veil, the solo label debut from New Orleans-based harmonica master Jason Ricci and his band The Bad Kind. Gulf Coast will release the album’s first single, “5-10-15,” (which features keyboardist Joe Krown) on August 11.
Behind the Veil was produced by Jason Ricci and Tony Daigle and recorded at Dockside Studio, Maurice, Louisiana. The band is Jason Ricci – diatonic and chord harmonica, vocals, and backup vocals; Ricci’s wife Kaitlin Dibble – vocals and backup vocals; Brent Johnson – guitar and backup vocals; Jack Joshua – double bass, electric bass, vocals, and backup vocals; and John Perkins – drums and backup vocals. Special guests include Joe Krown – piano and Hammond B3 organ (tracks 2, 8, 12); Gulf Coast labelmate Joanna Connor – guitar (track 10) and Lauren Mitchell – backup vocals.
Jason Ricci talks about each of the singles: “5-10-15” – “This was actually the song that made me want to record this CD. Singer Kaitlin Dibble has been singing this number for a few years and the wheels in my mind started turning on how to capture it the way I heard so many tunes I on Bob Murret’s WWOZ show. I love the New Orleans R&B feel and I really think we captured it here thanks to Tony Daigle, Kid Andersen and the band, of course. The whole reason we recorded this CD live in one room was centered around this number.”
“St James Infirmary” – “This old standard is almost the ‘Mustang Sally’ of New Orleans music so if I didn’t think we had something really special here I would have never let it on stage – much more this record.”
“Why Don’t We Sleep On It” – “Kate and I were having a rare argument and the band was in need of some more music. So I sat down to write a tune about how much better I would be doing without her and then kept hearing her voice or my own telling me the truth or her side… So I wrote both our parts; she loved it; we made up and had this fun duet.”
Jason Ricci, born in Portland, Maine, is an award-winning and decorated singer and harmonica player. In his youth, Jason’s mother brought him to many blues shows in his early teens to witness performances from James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite, Eddie Clearwater, Rod Piazza, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Marcia Ball. After studying at the feet of local New England harmonica players and blues musicians, Jason moved west to Idaho to attend college.
In Boise, he found mentorship under blues club owner and Hammond B3 player Ken Harris. Ken Harris and music patron Dara Longabardi would aid an 18 year old Jason to perform with the likes of Sam Lay, Norton Buffalo, Eddie Shaw, Mark Hummel, Mel Solomon, Smokey Wilson and many more. Harmonica player and blues singer Madison Slim spent many hours teaching Ricci, who would then join his first band in Boise with blues singer Cyndie Lee and Streetwise.
In 1995, Ricci moved to Memphis to be near and informally study with Johnny Winter sideman, harmonica player and singer Pat Ramsey. Ramsey would become Jason’s mentor on and off stage and a surrogate father for many years until his death. Also in 1995, a 21 year old Jason would win the Sonny Boy Blues Society Contest in Helena, Arkansas. A year later, Ricci was living in Potts Camp, Mississippi, with Junior Kimbrough’s oldest son, David Malone Kimbrough.
Every Sunday for over a year, Ricci played juke joints and small clubs in Oxford, Senatobia and Holly Springs with David Kimbrough, RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Ricci cut his first record in 1995, the self-titled Jason Ricci for Blues Music Award- Winner Billy Gibson’s label, North Magnolia Music, featuring Earl Hooker’s drummer Bobby Little and other prominent Memphis musicians. A year later for the same label, Jason recorded his second release, Down at the Juke, with Kent “Kinny” Kimbrough, Eric Deaton, Enrico Crivellaro and many more notable musicians. Ricci would also return home to Maine a few times and perform with his friend, guitarist and singer Nick Curran.
By 1997, troubles with drugs and alcohol would result in Ricci spending a year in jail in Florida. After his release in 1998, while working two day jobs, Jason went on to enter and win the Mars Music National Harmonica Contest, beating out hundreds of other harmonica players. After spending three years in Florida playing with Keith Brown, Mark Telsca and local South Florida blues hero “Famous” Frank Ward, Jason would join New Orleans’s national touring outfit Big Al and The Heavyweights. With Big Al, Ricci would tour the country, playing clubs and big festivals and appear on national television for the first time with two appearances on “The Emeril Lagasse Show.”
In 2002 Ricci started his own nationally touring band, “New Blood,“ which played 300 days a year all over North America and Europe for 10 years straight. After a few independent CDs, in 2006 New Blood signed with Delta Groove, releasing two records: Rocket Number Nine and Done with the Devil, the latter of which would be nominated for a 2010 Blues Music Award for “Best Blues Rock Album.”
In 2010, Jason was also nominated and won The Blues Music Award for “Best Harmonica Player” and went on to record and tour Europe with blues rock legend Walter Trout.
Interspersed with his many years of musical success, Jason’s personal battles with alcohol and drugs became a continuing struggle; but in 2012 Ricci would cut two critically well-received albums and tour with celebrated New York City singer songwriter JJ Appleton. In addition to recording and touring with Appleton, by 2013 Ricci also formed a new band, “Jason Ricci and The Bad Kind,” with New Orleans guitarist John Lisi. Signing with the EllerSoul label, Jason Ricci and The Bad Kind would cut two records: Approved by Snakes and My Chops Are Rolling.
Working with Appleton, The Bad Kind and occasional tours with Chicago blues guitarist Nick Moss would mark the start of a successful return. By 2015, Ricci was nominated and won another Blues Music Award for Best Harmonica. Also in 2015, Jason Ricci was invited to induct The Paul Butterfield Blues Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame ceremonies, Ricci appeared on the televised HBO special in front of twelve and a half million viewers, performing Butterfield’s classic “Born In Chicago” with Zac Brown, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, Paul Shaffer, Anton Fig, Felicia Collins and Willie Weeks. The same year, Jason Ricci would go on to work with and record on Johnny Winter’s Grammy Award-winning final studio album, Step Back, as a featured performer alongside Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Dr John, Brian Setzer, Paul Nelson, Joe Perry, Ben Harper and Billy Gibbons.
By 2016, Jason Ricci continued to tour as well as teach music, forming the Harmonica Collective, an instructional harmonica teaching convention with celebrated performer, harmonica scholar, teacher, recording artist and published author Winslow Yerxa. In 2017, Jason Ricci won the S.P.A.H. (Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica) Bernie Bray Award for “Harmonica Player of the Year.”
Today finds Jason Ricci touring with The Bad Kind and other bands. Additionally, Ricci can be found frequently playing locally in New Orleans, nationally and abroad with New Orleans pianist and organist icon and Kenny Wayne Shepherd sideman Joe Krown in a jazz, funk, blues and New Orleans-music based outfit.
Ricci and Krown signed with Gulf Coast Records in 2021 and released their debut duo album, City Country City, in October of that year to rave critical acclaim. Ricci has also been collaborating, touring and recording with acclaimed guitarist and singer JP Soars, as well as multiple tours and performances with the “Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowout” project, performing with Curtis Salgado, Charlie Musselwhite, Duke Robillard, Charlie Baty, Anson Funderburgh, Wes Star, Sugar Ray Norcia, Lazy Lester, Howard Levy, Corky Siegel, Jerry Portnoy, Rick Estrin and many more.
Today, Jason Ricci is living in his beloved city of New Orleans, sober, healthy and touring with his many projects, recording and teaching music. Jason is married to Boston singer, guitarist, songwriter Kaitlin Dibble, who tours and records with Jason Ricci and The Bad Kind.
Watch Jason Ricci And the Bad Kind HERE
In addition to touring, recording and teaching, Ricci works developing various signature harmonica effects pedals and his signature harmonica microphone for The Lone Wolf Blues Company. Jason Ricci is additionally endorsed by Blue Moon Harmonicas and Harp Gear Amplifiers. Jason has an extensive online presence including a very popular YouTube channel featuring hundreds of free harmonica lessons, product reviews, addiction awareness videos, stories, interviews and more.
Ricci has appeared as a guest harmonica player on albums with Johnny Winter, Ana Popovic, Joe Louis Walker, Cedric Burnside, Walter Trout, Mike Zito, Joanna Connor, JP Soars, Nick Moss, Peter Karp, Nick Curran, The Mannish Boys, Too Slim and The Tail Draggers and Walter Trout. He’s toured or played on shows with John Fohl, The Iguanas, Damon Fowler, Papa Mali, Walter Trout, Nick Moss, JP Soars, Mike Zito, Eric Johanson, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Anders Osborne, Joe Krown and many others. Jason Ricci is one of the most influential, recorded, celebrated, interviewed and famous harmonica players working in the world today.
Behind the Veil Track Listing
Casco Bay – Jason Ricci
5 -10 -15 – Rudy Toombs
Baked Potato – Jason Ricci / Stachurski Shawn Dustin
Cirque du Soleil – Jack Joshua
Wrong Kind of Easy / Nobody But You – Kaitlin Dibble (Wrong Kind Of Easy) – Walter Spriggs (Nobody But You)
Ain’t She Fine – Bobby Rush
St. James Infirmary – Irving Mills / Don Redman
Why Don’t We Sleep On It – Jason Ricci (Lyrics & Music) / Brent Johnson (Music)
Terrors Of Nightlife – Dax Riggs
No Way – Kaitlin Dibble
Shipwreck – Jeff Turmes
Hip Hug-Her – Booker T. & The M.G.’s. (Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones)
Jason Ricci Tour Dates See Here
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