The Cash Box Kings

(continued from previous page) and vibe, it’s Muddy Waters. Oscar was born on 43rd Street in Chicago and that was known as Muddy Waters Drive. Muddy was a legend in his neighborhood, so that’s him kind of paying homage to Muddy and that was a song I honestly wasn’t familiar with in Muddy’s catalog and Oscar knew it. I was like ‘wow that sounds great.’ Little Walter played some steel harp on the original recording and I’m like, ‘let’s do it.’ So we tried to really recreate that stripped down raw. That’s our approach on that tune. We’re pretty happy with that one.

Rock And Blues International: I’m loving your treatment on those songs.

Joe Nosek: I appreciate that because they’re two of my favorite harp players, so anytime I get to try, I may try in vain, but nonetheless, I try to pay tribute to Sonny Boy and Little Walter. It’s important to acknowledge the past masters.

Rock And Blues International: And do you really want “What Chaz Has?” (talking about the song “I Want What Chaz Has”)

Joe Nosek: Yeah man, if you knew Chaz and what he has, you too would want what Chaz has.

Rock And Blues International: Two girls in back and one by his side.

Joe Nosek: One by his side, man. Yeah, unlike Oscar’s Motel, Chaz is a real character. He’s a buddy of ours and one of the coolest cats you’ll ever meet. He looks like a little Santa Claus. He’s a Vietnam vet, combat vet, who really came back and got into the peace movement and he’s got this killer, vintage VW bus. He’s got one of the best record collections you’ll ever find anywhere. He loves to dance, loves Blues music. Let’s put it this way to give it a Texas reference. He and Willie Nelson… they would get along well with their recreational habits.

Rock And Blues International: I can understand that.

Joe Nosek: He’s also very generous. We may have embellished his prowess with the ladies. He’s got a steady girlfriend, Jeannie. He’s just such a lovable guy that everyone always wants to hang out with Chaz. It was like, ‘man, we’ve got to write a song about Chaz.’ That’s how that came about.

Rock And Blues International: And tell me about “Ride Santa Ride.” You’ve got a Christmas song on the end here.

Joe Nosek: It is… It’s about Santa. That one is interesting because I wrote it with a cousin of mine that I grew up with. He’s a good writer. He’s not a musician, but he’s a writer. He would talk about, ‘why don’t you do a Christmas song.’ He bugged me for years to do one and finally I said, ‘you know what, let’s do it.’ I’ve always been a huge Chuck Berry fan. The whole band and me thought, let’s kind of take that “Run, Run Rudolph” vibe and set the story of Santa’s sleigh getting tragically wrecked on Christmas Eve and him asking Oscar for a ride to get those toys delivered. So that’s how that came about. You hear about people recording Christmas songs in June and that’s just what we did. We recorded it in June. I think we caught the holiday spirit even though we were in the middle of summer.

Rock And Blues International: Well, if you write the right Christmas song, there’s a lot of money to be made on that. Paul McCartney wrote the Christmas song, “Wonderful Christmastime” and he makes over $500,000 on it each Christmas, off that one Christmas song.

Joe Nosek: My God! I would be happy making half of that for the entire existence of that song. But, you’re right. That gets played every year no matter how old that album gets.

Rock And Blues International: That’s right, every year.

Joe Nosek: I will admit that was a consideration. That wouldn’t hurt the pocketbook. So, we’ll see. I hope we get just a sliver of what Sir Paul gets on royalties.

Rock And Blues International: You’ve got a song on here called “Trying So Hard” that Billy Flynn wrote. Can you give me a little insight on that one?

Joe Nosek: Yeah, I think we co-wrote a couple of songs with Billy in the past. He’s a great songwriter and probably a phenomenal guitar player. He’s a great songwriter and it’s a song that he gave Oscar and Oscar just really connected with it because at the time, what was going on in Oscar’s life was directly mirrored in that song. It’s got that Muddy (Waters) vibe again and we thought, ‘hey, let’s hit it’ and Oscar really wanted to do it because it’s one of his favorite songs to perform. That’s how that one came about.

Rock And Blues International: You’ve been writing and recording with Oscar for some time now. How did that come about and how did the two of you meet?

Joe Nosek: Of all places, when his wife passed away, he had two young daughters that were still high school age on the south side of Chicago and he decided to move up to Wisconsin to get away from the violence and drugs that were in his neighborhood. He just happened to go to a Blues jam one night and he met one of our original guitar players at that Blues jam. They hit it off and Oscar came out and sang a couple of songs and my buddy said, ‘hey, we’ve got to get this guy to play with us one of these times.’ He asked Oscar if he wanted to perform and he said, ‘I’d really like to play Buddy Guy’s with you guys sometime…’ My guitar player said, ‘no problem, next weekend come on down.’ Well, I’d never met Oscar, continued on next page