JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: Natchel Blues Network Date: 11/2008 Writer: Jack Campbell

Jason Ricci - vocals, harmonica, and nose flute; Shawn Starsky – guitar and back-up vocals; Todd “Buck Weed” Edmunds - bass, clavinet, hells bells, and back-up vocals; Ron Sutton - drums and back-up vocals; Michael Peloquin - tenor sax on track 4

Jason Ricci continues to stretch the boundaries of blues, stretch our imaginations, and stretch the limitof how the harmonica can be played. The band is tight. Ricci can take them on a wild ride from low down blues to exotic experimental jazz--sometimes in the same song--and they stay right with him.

“The Way I Hurt Myself” is the most well crafted blues song I believe I have ever heard. Like the rest of the CD, it has a theme of past addiction. As Ricci so eloquently puts it, “… even though I’m nine years sober, I still feel a sinister force battling for my soul… although it comes in other forms than it used to.” It’s basically an ode to self-destruction and to people that seem to have that need genetically imprinted within themselves. I’ll drink to that! But anyway, this song…. it’s in the key of C minor. Ricci starts out with a soulful harmonica solo, followed by slow smoking vocals, intermixed with searing guitar fills, then a poignant guitar solo, more emotion-drenched vocals, then the money shot--a classic Ricci harmonica solo (Bb harp in 3rd position) complete with overblows, overbends, octaves, and finally a musical quote of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”…Lord, it will make you smack yo’ mama!