Scott Moss

Many so-called blues releases are actually filled with bluesy R&B, soul, pop, and rock. There is no such stylistic confusion in Sadie Mae from Nick Moss & the Flip Tops. The music is no-nonsense blues, played with spirit, drive, and swing. Most of the selections are concise, getting their message across and not overstaying their welcome. By varying tempos and moods plus including occasional instrumentals, the quintet performs enjoyable and memorable music, with an emphasis on cooking straight-ahead grooves. Lead voices are Nick Moss on guitar and vocals, harmonica player Gerry Hunot, and pianist Bob Welsh (doubling on organ), but the tight yet loose rhythm section is not to be overlooked either. This is a fun set, well worthy of several listens.

Time Ain’t Free finds an inspired Nick Moss extending his creative streak, offering an intelligent, updated take on ’70s rock and R&B, marked by daring arrangements and surprising juxtapositions. The set encompasses Muscle Shoals sweetness, stormy postmodern boogie, greasy roadhouse R&B, soul-tinged rock, and gospel-inflected ballads, all filtered through Moss’ deep-blue lens. Distinct, honest, and intense — a blend of traditional blues and progressive, jam-oriented blues rock. Face-melting guitar solos that rise above the crowded field of pretenders, and a versatile band that brilliantly delivers unparalleled improvisational jams to packed houses night after night, city after city.

Chicago guitarist Kenneth "Buddy" Scott hailed from an extended musical brood, to put it mildly. His brothers, singer Howard and guitarist Walter, are mainstays on the local scene; his son, guitarist Kenneth "Hollywood" Scott, leads Tyrone Davis' Platinum Band, and even his grandmother Ida knew her way around a guitar – she played on the South Side with the likes of Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson back in the 1950s. Buddy Scott left Mississippi for Chicago at age seven. Both his mom and local legend Reggie Boyd tutored him as a guitarist. Like several of his brothers, Buddy was a member of a local doo wop vocal group, the Masqueraders, during the early '60s, and recorded a few singles with his siblings as the Scott Brothers later in the decade.