We lost Nick Curran to mouth cancer this week, and it's a huge blow--my God, 35 years old. Someone whose feel for the rockin' side of rhythm & blues was rare among young musicians. The albums I've heard, Doctor Velvet (2003), Player! (2004) and 2010's Reform School Girl could have been cut at Cosimo Studio in New Orleans during Little Richard's glory years. Ebulient, flowing guitar and the gutsiest vocal screams this side of John Lennon, and drumming more persistent than artificially amped up. So good!
Curran postponed his solo career in 2005 to join the Fabulous Thunderbirds and contributed to Painted On, their best set in ages. And then he came back with the manic, positively inspired Reform School Girl, hardly for the faint of heart, which is why it wasn't all over traditional blues radio.
He took 1950s songs by Etta James and Hank Williams and wedded them to his own compositions, not to mention covers by the Sonics and AC/DC, and there just aren't many musicians who would even think of that, let alone pull it off. Curran realized that R&B back in the '50s was nothing less than punk rock. His music has had a galvanizing effect on me, and I will truly miss what Nick Curran brought to the modern age.