Jason Ricci live visiting Europe was not possible for him for a long time. In 2010 and 2013 he had to cancel his European shows due to personal problems.
Ricci struggled with addiction and manic depression, which led to legal problems that prevented him from leaving the United States. He managed to overcome all this and made a comeback. Since then, he has signed a contract with Mike Zito’s Gulf Coast Records and has won several awards, including the 2024 Blues Music Award for the harmonica. His category included Kim Wilson and Bob Corritore.
This is really a big prize and certainly deserved after the release of his last two albums, “City county city” from 2021 with Joe Krown and “Behind the veil” from 2023. In Weert his backing band consists of guitarist Brent Johnson, Bill Blok on bass, Rick Shelton on drums and not to mention Jason’s wife, Kaitlin Dibble, on vocals. The concert in Weert was the second concert, after the Priessnitz open air festival, in Europe.
With the opening song “Baked potato” it was immediately clear that this was going to be Ricci and Johnson’s show. A wonderfully long guitar solo followed by harmonica violence. There was an immediate atmosphere at a well-filled Bosuil. “Badger the Witness” was more of the same but went down like a charm. All the people I spoke to were loyal fans who had waited a long time for Jason and after the concert there were many hugs from Jason with his fans.
The emergence of Jason’s wife, Kaitlin Dibble, takes the music to a different atmosphere with the Ruth Brown cover “5-10-15”. At the first notes of ‘Broken toy’ the audience started cheering. This is and remains the crowd favorite. Still a great song and from the feeling Jason gives you can tell that he is also having a nice afternoon in Weert. The funky “Feel good funk” showed a bit of the old Ricci, pulling out funky and crazy notes from his harmonica.
Ricci talked about childhood and how he regularly saw RL Burnside at a very young age, he honored him by playing RL’s “Jumper on the Line”.
The highlight of the day was certainly not “Broken toy” but “St. James infirmary”. What a force this traditional remains, but especially the way Jason plays it, there is something more to it. What a beauty. With the end in sight, the show picked up the pace again, with the highlight being “No way”, sung by Kaitlin. This song contains a nice “Spoonful” riff. Encore the very sensitive “Terrors of nightlife”. Everything from this afternoon happened again. Great guitar solo by Brent Johnson, sensitive harmonica and harmony vocals by Ricci and Dibble. Jason grabbed her and showed the crowd that he is proud of her.
Conclusion, it was a fantastic afternoon. Jason Ricci looked good, played fantastic and clearly had a good time. Hopefully it won’t take another 8 years before he comes to Europe.
