Search - Nightcaps :: Wine Wine Wine

Pop Blues

Bronto | 05/15/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The white blues band, the Nightcaps, are legends in Texas, at least among blues fans who lived in or around Dallas in the early 1960s. Outside the state, they're known for their cult classic "Wine, Wine, Wine," ZZ Top's cover of their "Thunderbird," and the fact that Steve Miller, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and other Texas musicians have often mentioned them as inspirations. This CD is a reissue, with two extra cuts, of the Nightcaps' album of the same name that appeared on the tiny Vandan label in 1960. It includes about two-thirds of everything they recorded.The Nightcaps' approach to the blues was odd and almost unique, nothing like that of the white blues bands that they preceded by several years. The playing is precise and the songs hooky. For lack of a better term, I'm sure, I think of this music as pop blues. I don't know of much like it beyond Duane Eddy's "Forty Miles of Bad Road" and, to an even greater degree, the Fireball's "Blacksmith Blues," which would fit well on this CD. I suspect that Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, a group whose music has always struck me as more carefully executed than they let on, learned a lot from the Nightcaps. It occurs to me that someone who's familiar with the blues that Steve Miller recorded before his mid-1970s run of pop-rock hits might notice that he did too. If pop blues strikes you as a wretched idea, believe me, I agree. Had the Nightcaps' sound or one similar to it become a blues or rock sub-genre, it would probably have become insufferable, but that never happened, and I consider Wine, Wine, Wine one of my luckier musical finds. I'm sure others will feel the same. People familiar with Collectibles Records and its wild swings in quality over the years will want to know that this CD's liner notes are informative and its sound good. This CD is available, by the way, from Collectibles' sister company, Nina's Discount Oldies, for only $3.99 (or perhaps $2.99), plus $3.50 for shipping. Unfortunately, the CD will come with a hole drilled through the jewel case and liner notes. You'll want to replace the former. You'd think that Nina's could come up with a better way to mark its discounted CDs than by going at them with a power tool."