With last year’s release Hot Pulldown still surfing the blues charts and picking up air time on college radio, commercial and satellite stations…Pow! Wildcat strikes again with New York City Chill. Iconic Wildcat. Wisdom and wisecracks. Brainy laugh out loud lyrics and political commentary set to searing electric guitar licks by a guy who can play that guitar. Wildcat teases out the best of his players with a rhythm section- drummer Mark Chouinard and bassist Dr. Kathy Peterson, so solid you wouldn't know it was their first time recording. Wildcat's skillful and playful arrangements, featuring saxophone virtuoso Dr. Emily Duff, Dave Bartley on keyboard and Wally "Sweet Daddy" Greaney on harmonica, ride the waves of acoustic and electric blues like dolphins frolicking.
Wildcat has been thrilling audiences in Western Mass for over twenty-five years, opening for all the blues giants passing through Northampton and Springfield including Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Stray Cats and Greg Allman. Recording under his own Dove's Nest Record label, Cat proves he can still multi-task, impressing young and old, keeping the blues alive and generating new fans. If you've been around the Pioneer Valley since the '80's, you remember Wildcat paying his dues to play the blues, flipping pancakes early mornings at his Dove's Nest diner in Sunderland after late nights playing at Sheehan's in Northampton..
From the first song, Van Wyck, named for a street in New York, an original so good you think it’s a cover, the listener can relax knowing she is in the hands of a seasoned professional- think Booker T and the MGs with better solos. The languid virtuosity of Emily Duff’s saxophone contrasts with the Cat’s raw electric guitar in a flirty, soaring and diving dragon battle of the sexes. Wildcat's "Cookin' Little Mama" features intricate curlicues of Wally Greeney weaving colorful ribbons around the melody like pagans around the maypole. In "Can't Get it like That", Chouinard struts his stuff with the sis-boom beat driving Wildcat’s flourishes in a classic shuffle as spicy as the siracha sauce the song laments “..our special comes with siracha sauce and remoulade reduction."... "If you think that’s something I might eat, that’s not your most brilliant deduction”; then Dave Bartley tempers the heat with a cool, jazzy adventure up and down those 88 keys as refreshing as a riverboat breeze.
Just returned from their first Mid-west tour, thrilling audiences and making new fans at blues clubs and dives from Albany to Chicago, the band has had a busy summer but getting ready to release New York City Chill. If you email Wildcat at bluemondaytoo@hotmail.com and tell him you're a fan, he might send you a pre-release track. And check out wildcatohalloran.com
Wildcat O'Halloran emerges as one of the most entertaining songwriters in contemporary blues, with a merciless wit and wordplay to keep the listener on their toes. The word "dull" not in their vocabulary, this band has a good time stamped on their foreheads
