Cover photo © 2024 Jim Hartzell

Chris Cain fell in love with the blues as a child, spurred on by his father, an amateur musician born in Louisiana and who grew up on Beale Street in Memphis. Cain, an accomplished blues guitarist, is set to release his 16th album, Good Intentions Gone Bad on Alligator, July 19.

Cain said he is intimately influenced by blues legends like BB King, Albert Collins, Albert King, and Freddie King that he saw often in concert with his father when growing up.

“We never missed Ray Charles or BB King, because it was just obvious that those guys were doing something beyond just singing a song. And I saw BB King one time and he’s playing a solo and tears are rolling down his cheeks. You could have knocked me over a feather right there, because I’ve never seen anybody feel it like that. Like tears are rolling down his cheeks.”

Without shame, Cain said that at 65 he often has tears in his eyes when he plays. Midway through tunes, Cain, engrossed in the music, will not notice as he begins to weep.

“My father always tells me, baby, if you don’t feel it, don’t do it. But if you feel it, do it,” Cain said. “So that’s the way I’ve always approached playing my guitar, and I’ve always been open to letting whatever it is come in there. I realized that my emotions were a big part of what the heck I was trying to do.”

Several classic blues guitarists inspire Cain’s approach to playing, but he tries to foment his own sound.

Cain said BB King plays with a unique tone and reverb, prominently displayed on Live at the Regal (1965). “I was blown away by the unique sound of Albert Collins. I never heard a guitar sound like that.”

With time, Cain developed a singing style crafted after the blues shouters Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Joe Turner. As he was first emerging as a musician, Cain simply sang in his speaking voice. All this changed spontaneously at a jam.

“When I got up to sing, this thing came out of my throat. It never happened before. It was like this big low thing, and I go, holy shit. Everybody looked at me. The sound came out right so I went to Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Joe Turner because I knew I could never do that falsetto thing.”

Originally, Cain had to borrow money to record his first album, Late Night City Blues (1987), in hopes that a recording would lead to more gigs. The LP found success and Cain continued to record every couple of years.

Cain incorporates elements of jazz into his music. He recalled diving into the genre after his brother came home from Vietnam with six albums, including Wes Montgomery, George Shearing, Lee Morgan, and the Montgomery Brothers.

Jazz helped Cain become more adaptable. Cain said he was inspired by guitarists like Robben Ford who could create an arrangement out of 10 seconds of chatting.

“I was like, I gotta learn this music, because he seemed that he could communicate with this music, create an instant arrangement.”

Cain attributes part of who he is as a guitarist and musician to the instructors at San Jose City College that saw talent in him and gave him extra time and attention. Cain went on to teach jazz improvisation at San Jose City College and San Jose State.

Cain said he is proud of all his records and shocked at the number he has put out. Raisin Cain (2020), his first on the Alligator label, represented turning a corner, Cain said. Good Intentions Bad (2024) builds off that momentum.

“I felt when I made Raisin’ Cain, that I had… got the emotion I want onto the record, so that when somebody else listens to it, they can kind of feel it. I think that this record is the obvious next step.”

The new album has more variety in tunes, but still has a cohesive sound, according to Cain.

On earlier records, Cain said he was both overly ambitious and overly hard on himself. Early in his career, Cain worked hard to make sure he was qualified to be on the stage and that he would not embarrass or humiliate himself.

“I saw too many of my pals get up just to try to jam and get, like, humiliated by not knowing what the hell they were really doing.”

“I took it way too seriously really. But that’s just the way I approached it. And I made a lot of progress by kind of looking at it like that, because I would just be in my room, and, you know, as soon as I would hear something that I never heard before. I had to know what that was. I had to know how it worked.”

Cain said he spent most of his days and nights practicing, listening and playing to records. Despite beating himself up, playing music remained a process filled with joy for Cain.

Early on as a songwriter, Cain created musical tracks first, and later fit words to them. Girlfriends were a common inspiration. Later, he would try to write the lyrics of a tune without thinking about the music. Rhymes were featured often.

The blues offers an emotional outlet and space for vulnerability for Cain.

“It’s like an outlet for all the stuff that I had inside. The guitar was like the outlet so I could get all that kind of stuff out of my soul.”

Cain became a contemporary and friend of many of the blues legends he listened to in concert and on record growing up. On one occasion, in a room filled with pipe smoke, Albert King played slow blues, with Cain onstage.

The two guitarists raged back and forth, with King trying to “crush (Cain) like a bug.” After they both exchanged some gnarly solos, King told the crowd that Cain reminds him of another young blues guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Afterwards, Albert King came to all of Cain’s gigs in Memphis.

“When he (Albert King) passed away, it was devastating,” Cain said. “I went to the funeral man, and I couldn’t listen to his records for like, two years or something, because it was, my friend.”

Albert Collins was another close friend of Cain. Collins showed Cain’s father a video of the two playing together.

“Dad was floating on that for like three weeks after that.”

On one occasion, Cain and his father went backstage to meet Freddie and Albert King. Cain met Collins, who “looks like he’s eight feet tall when you’re a kid”, who folded a match to put under his E string because the string was fretting out on the fretboard. Cain, who idolized Collins, was amazed the old bluesman didn’t have a team of people polishing his guitar for him.

“He’s like, just the sweetest. I mean, he looks like a panther stalking his prey when he would play, but he was so sweet.”

While Cain has toured across the globe, he said Argentina is one of his favorite places to play.

“I was in tears. People were in tears (in Argentina). I was so blown out at the fact that they knew about this music, and they would be moved like that. I never played in rooms that big, that were full of people with tears in their eyes.”

At the encouragement of Argentine guitarist Rafael Nasta, Cain leads guitar clinics in the country as well. Cain also teaches clinics in New Zealand.

While he has performed all over the world, Cain had to learn how to fully tap into the energy and connect with a crowd. For his first 15 years of performing, Cain closed his eyes, before realizing that he was missing out on a stronger connection with audiences.

Cain said that after he opened his eyes on stage, he immediately saw positive effects and felt a tangible connection with crowds.

“Being able to tap into my emotions has really had a great effect on just what happens at the gig. For me, the feeling washes over me, like, like ocean waves. It’s like, I surrender to it.”

Cain said that performing and sharing the music is what he loves to do and is most proud of. Several people have come up to him and told him that his records helped them through a difficult time in their lives.

Over time, Cain has shifted his guitar playing style. As a young man, he tried to squeeze notes into about as many blank bars as he could. Big bands and Sinatra helped him find merit in ballads. With time he started playing what he was feeling, in what he described as an unconscious decision.

Through the years, Cain has amassed an impressive collection of guitars. Many of them he received as gifts, like his first ever, a $75 ax from the pawn shop, from his mother. After staring through the window at an SG Standard 1969 for 30 minutes, Cain’s middle brother bought the guitar for him. As he became interested in jazz, Cain bought a 1960 Byrdland, after saving up money. Cain said the Byrdland is easy to play and looks fantastic. Cain also owns a Stratocaster with the versatility to sound like pretty much like any guitar in the studio.

Cain hopes to become more fluent as both a singer and guitar player. He said the search for musical knowledge and improvement as a guitarist is endless. At the core, playing the blues is what gives him the most joy.

“It’s like medicine. I love playing it, you know? I mean, I really do,” Cain said. “It’s like I go somewhere else for a minute.”