Chris Cain

Chris Cain Live at the Rep is Chris' sixth recording, his first independent release and his long awaited 'live' recording debut.
In 1997, San Jose Repertory Theater commissioned Chris Cain and Michael Butler to compose music and lyrics for the award winning play Thunder Knocking on the Door: A Blusical Tale of Rhythm and the Blues by Keith Glover. Though Cain had an international reputation as a top blues musician, he had virtually no theater experience, and had never collaborated with another musician. Michael Butler, having worked in theater and film, offered the perfect compliment to the partnership and together they created thirteen original songs and underscoring for the production………

This debut album was rewarded with four Handy Award nominations.This was the first in a long series of releases by Chris Cain and still remains one of his strongest. The music is fresh, the songs truely original, the band performances solid, and both the vocal and guitar performances by Chris are on a level that few musicians attain after years of trying.Praises have been heaped on Chris by masters like BB king and Albert King as well as by next generation heavy hitters like Robben Ford. Chris is 100% the real deal and is one of those who keep the blues idiom alive and well.

This is a wonderful, big-voiced, contemporary West Coast bluesman and superb guitar player. There are several horns in the band, giving it a great, huge sound. Even better things will be coming.

Guitarist Chris Cain has some stories to tell on his Unscheduled Flight, and each song is a masterful combination of vocal and instrumental elements. Most of Cain's tales deal with agony of being born under a bad sign…. Cain describes the situations with poetic empathy…. Cain's lyrics avoid trite emotions and situations; in "Do You Call That a Buddy," a slow blues about a friend who repays the singer's generosity by stealing his woman, Cain focuses on the disintegration of the male friendship rather than the tired-and-true themes of love triangles or wrong-doing women…. He can also play lyrical lines, as emphasized in the funky "Bad Situation," while other songs find him bending notes or making them squeal…. Unscheduled Flight proves that Chris Cain can do it all–write, arrange, play, and sing–with all the sincerity and power that the blues demands.