Jerry McCain

about

JERRY "Boogie" McCAIN (1930.06.19/Gadsden, AL – 2012.03.28) claimed to be the greatest post war harp player alive in 2012. Born in 1930 in Gadsden, Alabama, Jerry began playing his harp and singing along with jukebox records at his fathers barbecue stand, the Green Front Cafe. McCain began playing music semi-professionally in his teens. During the 1950s he gained celebrity status in the southern jukebox market with singles such as Wine-O-Wine, Stay Out of Automobiles, Courtin' in a Cadillac and other jaunty pieces for the Trumpet and Excello labels. Record collectors discovering southern downhome blues in the 1960s were especially excited by his coupling of the harmonica instrumental Steady and She's Tough (1960), a sly, sinuous blues in the manner of Jimmy Reed. And not only record collectors: She's Tough was covered, almost 20 years later, on the first album by the Texas band the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and recalled in the title of the group's later album Tuff Enuff. In the 1960s McCain gigged around Alabama and Georgia and made further recordings for Okeh and Jewel, but music could not support him and he worked as a bounty hunter. Welfare Cadillac Blues (1970), a response to an implicitly racist country song, put his name back on the jukeboxes, but soon afterwards his recording career faded, not to be fully revived until the late 1980s, when he signed with the soul label Ichiban and made albums such as Love Desperado and Struttin' My Stuff. He had to wait longer than m

top songs

albums

American Roots: Blues

I've Got the Blues All over Me

Abolutely The Best: The Complete Jewel Singles 1965-1972

Boogie Is My Name

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Jook Joint Blues: Good Time Rhythm & Blues, CD B

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Underground Blues Essentials

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Blues Masters, Vol. 4: Harmonica Classics

Retrospectives: Jerry McCain

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Tuff Enuff - Ace (MS.) Blues Masters Vol. 3

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Blues Harp Heroes

Love Desperado

Struttin' My Stuff

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