Chris Cain biography

Chris Cain’s jazz-tinged, blues soaked guitar and deep, warm vocals have the maturity and authenticity of bluesmen many years his senior. His expressive style is the result of a lifetime of study and the relentless pursuit of music mastery. His passion and intensity are a blend of his mother’s Greek ancestry and his father’s soulful black heritage. Chris Cain was raised on stories of his father’s childhood upbringing on Memphis’ Historic Beale Street and attended his first B.B King concert at the tender age of three. Blues music played continuously on the home stereo and family outings were often trips to concerts. At the age of eight, Chris Cain taught himself to play guitar and began playing professionally before he was eighteen. Chris Cain studied music at San Jose City College, and was soon teaching jazz improvisation on campus. Over the next twenty years, Chris Cain would also master piano, bass guitar, clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone. The combination of his blues upbringing and his jazz studies melded to form the searing guitar style that sets Chris Cain apart and has moved him to the top ranks of the blues music scene. Chris Cain’s debut recording, Late Night City Blues (Blue Rock’it Records-1987) garnered four W.C. Handy Blues Award nominations, including Guitarist of the Year. Dan Forte of Guitar Player wrote, “An impressive debut album by a top notch guitarist.” Chris Cain’s next two releases; Cuttin Loose (Blind Pig Records-1990) and Can’t Buy a Break (Blind Pig Records-1992) collected a long list of awards and accolades. In August of 1995 Blind Pig released Somewhere Along the Way his 4th compilation of his unique brand of original music sophisticated blues, funk, jazz and gospel. In 2003 Patrick Ford produced Chris Cain’s latest CD, Hall Of Shame (Blue Rock’it Records-2003).