"I'd been going to the Newport Folk Festivals to hear the country blues-men, but by the mid-60's something else was happening there and I'd often go home with my ears ringing from sitting too close to the Muddy Waters band, or (Howlin') Wolf's band. I was trying to sneak up and look at what Hubert Sumlin or Muddy was doing to make those sounds. So after that, I couldn't just play the country blues...and playing in blues bands soon became an important part of my life."
	And that's the way it's been for Nick Katzman ever since. The music of B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins form the foundation for his electric playing and although he's lived through every decade of the "rock" era, he is and remains a blues picker. "You hear a lot about 'Chicago' this and 'Texas' that... there isn't much difference. The T-Bone Walker influence is in both, and so is the Mississippi delta. Earlier in the century, country blues was more differentiated from region to region because musicians were more isolated from each other. But by the time blues started coming out of amplifiers in Chicago in the 50's, radio and the recording industry were already starting to work on the music like a big homogenizing machine. That's the reason I feel comfortable taking different styles and applying them pure or mixed, depending on what the individual song calls for, how the guys in the band are playing, what kind of mood I'm in or what the evening seems to require to get some GOOD BLUES going!"
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	Photos copyright Günter Brattig