Fresh Catfish

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		High-heeled Sneakers	3:22	Play
2		Way Out West	4:28	Play
3		Sweet Patootie	3:22	Play
4		Happy All the Time	3:02	Play
5		Way Down in Texas	5:23	Play
6		Kohala March	2:42	Play
7		You May Think Funny	3:34	Play
8		Uncle Ned, Don't Lose Your Head	3:11	Play
9		Cairo	4:51	Play
10		Asked You For a Favor	3:37	Play
11		Streamline Train	3:38	Play
12		Down Bt the Wishing Well	4:19	Play
13		Getting Away With Something	2:21	Play
14		God Don't Never Change	3:18	Play

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Description

"Fresh Catfish" CD (FTRCD004) 1995 Nominated for a W. C. Handy Blues Award for BEST ACOUSTIC BLUES ALBUM, this stomping all-solo album has been called "a potent brew, with sparkling guitar picking, evocative lyrics and emotional vocals" -Blues & Rhythm

Featuring Catfish Keith on vocals, National and acoustic guitars, and feet, recorded live in the studio.


PRESS QUOTES:

"Catfish Keith has as much fun playing prewar acoustic blues as anybody around today. Fresh Catfish is a real treat." -Living Blues

"Catfish Keith is the new slide king of the National steel guitar."
-Reg Brenlo, Blueprint (British Blues Connection)

"Catfish Keith is a young, astoundingly accomplished steel guitar player originally from East Chicago, Indiana...an individual style...Keith's vocals are impressive; he's not just a guitar player but puts everything into his performance. If you like powerful well-played country blues, this is for you!"
-Norman Darwen, Blues Life (Austria)

"Blues Wizard." -The Boston Globe

"Keith's raging slide guitar, intricate fingerpicking and infectious vocals tab him as one of the idiom's top acoustic revivalists." -Bill Dahl, Living Blues

"Breaking new ground for blues, Catfish Keith is a solo revelation. He makes each song sound new...See him if you can...Catfish was the star of the (Edinburgh Jazz & Blues) festival." -Bob Flynn, The Guardian (UK)

"Catfish sings and plays with grit and a growl, and he obviously has a blast...So do we." -Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, Acoustic Guitar

"Catfish Keith is one of the most exciting and skilled bluesmen of his generation. A man with drive and real swing." -Robert Tilling, Blues & Rhythm (UK)

"There is an excitement that jumps out of the speakers. His slide work is a joy to hear. The tension of the strings with the pleading wail is eerie and touching at the same time -- highly recommended." -Richard B. Kamans, Cadence

"The dynamics and intensity of this new release had me jumpin' . . . a new atmosphere in the blues." -Bob Vorel, Blues Revue Quarterly

"Catfish Keith is one of the best blues entertainers in the USA." -Dave Van Ronk

"Catfish Keith is a personality kid who takes charge right off...dazzling acoustic guitar work. Growls and falsettos alternate in the same number, as if he's doing duets with himself. Catfish is fearless...he reshapes and recycles the gems he's plucked from the past." -John Douglas, Blues Access

"Catfish Keith is one extremely dynamic, energetic blues performer . . . uncanny blues ability. MY HIGHEST RATING. LOADS OF FUN." -Victory Review

"He's our era's premier exponent of the classic delta blues. Those who saw him were universally overwhelmed with his veritable one-man show on the National Steel Guitar and fingerlickin' cool country blues. -Catalyst

"Keith's brand of delta blues radiates an infectious, life-affirming buoyancy. He tells stories and plays roles through his songs, and his picking displays a rhythmic and harmonic richness not always associated with the blues." -Daily Iowan

"He's great!" -Des Moines Register

"Catfish Keith satisfied a standing-room-only crowd of blues hungry souls. It was DYN-O-MYTE!!" -Louisville Music News

"Catfish will give you goose bumps (and) will leave you howling for more." -James Jensen, Dirty Linen



PLAYING THE BLUES, CATFISH STYLE
Article from Icon, Iowa City, IA, April 11, 1996
by Steve Horowitz

World-class blues musician makes Iowa City his home

Catfish Keith is an international, blues music hero. The knowledgeable English musicologist society, the British Blues Connection, have selected the singer, songwriter and slide guitarist as the Best Overseas Artist. His first four discs have all charted at number one on independent radio stations around the globe. Keith is not only touring the United Kingdom and Europe this fall, he's also performing at the Hong Kong Folk Fest and the Kuala Lumpur Folk Fest in Malaysia. In America he's been nominated for the W. C. Handy Award for Best Acoustic Blues album for a second time. He recently returned from playing Alaska. And he lives here in Iowa City.

Seeing the world is one of the best benefits of being a musician, Keith explained in a recent interview. One also gets to hear world music firsthand. He expressed great admiration for Irish musicians and Island songs. Catfish Keith picked up his moniker while working on a sailboat crew down in the Caribbean. "When I was a teenager I was lobster diving in the Virgin Islands, and this West Indian fellow started calling me 'Catfish-Swimmin'-Around' and 'Catfish-Steel-Guitar-Man.' I think he was making fun of me." He now takes pride in his Piscean name. He mentioned that some of his fans in Alaska had given themselves fish titles, such as Pikeface Pete and Walleye Willie, in advance of his visit. He jokingly noted there are lots of animals in the blues universe. Of all the places he's been, he considers Iowa City the best place to call home.

"I like Iowa City. That's why I live here," Keith said with a gentle smile. He met his wife Penny Cahill at an Iowa City show, and has called Iowa City home for almost nine years. Together they started their own label, Fish Tail Records, in 1990. Fish Tail handles all aspects of Keith's career from bookings and management to production, promotion, and distribution of his discs. "Having our own label lets us follow our artistic vision;" Keith said. Other record companies have expressed interest in his work, but he's afraid they might try to influence his music in ways in which he's uncomfortable. Besides, he likes working together with his spouse. Now the cumulative value of all the effort they've put in is paying off. Keith's career has made steady improvement, and his future promises to be even brighter.

Before Keith takes off on national and international tours, he'll be playing a number of local venues, including The Mill on April 14th. "I played some of my first gigs in Iowa City," Keith reminisced. "Iowa City was about the hippest place you could find in Iowa, meaning they had two or three places where you could actually play. One of my first gigs was at The Mill." He looks forward to being on the Iowa Grandstand at the Iowa Arts festival on June 22. Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, Craig Erickson and other premier local talent will join him on the fetival's bill. These Iowa musicians also have their roots in the blues.

"Here in Iowa there's all kinds of different roots music, old time country and jazz, that can be tied to the blues," Keith said. He noted that playing the blues doesn't always mean the same thing as having the blues.

"Iowa's a good place to live. We're friendly." Keith spent most of his formative years growing up in Davenport. "My first gig was at the Saint Anthony's Church at Hippie Mass. Folk Mass they called it. Instead of having part of the service with an organ or just standing there with a hymnal, we'd take out guitars. I could barely play chords, but they put me in that church band. It was my first performance in front of people." He discovered country blues on his own "from dusty records at the local library."

Keith's early influences include Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Lightnin' Hopkins and Son House. "The Son House record was kind of a turning point in my life. I don't know why, but I was about 14 or 15 years old when I put it on, and it knocked me back in my chair. What amazed me most about the music was that one person could make all the sounds. When I first heard the blues I thought it was two or three guitar players at the same time, so when I discovered it was one person making all that noise I said, that's great." Later, Keith heard the recordings of legendary Davenport jazz cornet player from the'20's, Bix Beiberbecke.. Beiderbecke, along with Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden, has had a strong influence on certain aspects of Keith's work.

Keith still loves Country blues and early jazz, as well as Delta blues, Piedmont blues, ragtime, gospel, syncopated island rhythms and everything from the Mali African stylings of Ali Farka Toure to old-time American folk music. He uses a piece of a wine bottle for his slide and plays a 1930 National Steel-bodied resonator guitar and a 1993 Tony Revell Ragtime Model Guitar on his latest disc, Fresh Catfish. The disc includes covers of Bahamian Joseph Spence's lively "Happy All The Time," Barbecue Bob's "You May Think Funny," Lonnie Johnson's "Uncle Ned, Don't Lose Your Head" (originally an answer song to Louis Armstrong's "I'll be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You") and a number of original tunes purposely reminiscent of such blues greats as Blind Blake, Big Bill and Junior Parker. The disc was recorded on an old-fashioned two-track recorder ar former Chess Records engineer Jamie Goldsmith's OM Sudios in Boscobel, Wis. Most of the disc was recorded informally in Goldsmith's living room.

There's a common ecological motto found on bumper stickers and T-shirts that says, "Think Globally, Act Locally." It means that if one wants to clean up the world, the best place to start is at home. Keith has extended this program one step further. He not only acts locally, he takes this program one step further. He not only acts locally, he takes his act across the globe. He makes the whole world his home through his music.


A BRIEF CATFISH KEITH BIOGRAPHY:

Blues singer, songwriter and bottleneck slide guitarist Catfish Keith has established himself as one of the most exciting country blues performers of our time. Catfish's innovative style of foot-stomping, deep delta blues and American roots music has spellbound audiences the world over.

A two-time W. C. Handy Award nominee for BEST ACOUSTIC BLUES ALBUM, Catfish has ten NUMBER ONE independent radio chart-topping albums to his credit, and packs houses from coast-to-coast with his dynamic stage show. The 25-year veteran has toured the U.K. and Europe dozens of times to wide acclaim, headlining major music festivals, and appearing with legends John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, Robert Cray, Koko Taylor, Taj Mahal, Leo Kottke, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Johnny Shines and many, many others.