Swingin’ & Jumpin’ the Swing Shift

By Robert Sawyer

If you want to put on your dancing shoes, perhaps dress up a little for each other (cruise is cool, too), and dance the whole night away, catch a real party with Tim Casey and the Bluescats. The Bluescats lay down a fearsome swing/jump blues groove and are always entertaining, not to mention usually being the best-dressed folks in the house.

This story is a little more than a year late and it’s my fault entirely. Now that Carol and I are no longer WBS officers, we both have something we lost about six years ago, TIME! Ya know what I mean? So I recently used some of that time doing something I really wanted to do — I made that long-overdue appointment with Tim. Here’s what I learned over three hours and a sirloin at the Salmon Bay Eagles.

Tim is a native Californian born in San Mateo in 1952, the third child of four to Robert and Gloria Casey. The music started at home. Robert Casey played first chair trumpet at Loyola University, which landed him some side jobs around town. Robert introduced the trumpet to Tim’s brother Patrick, who still plays today, although his main instrument is guitar. Trumpet was also Tim’s first instrument, but as he couldn’t sustain the high notes, Dad bought him his first set of drums, Ludwigs he wishes he still had.

By seventh grade Tim joined his first band, The Grogs, with neighborhood kids and brother Mike on bass. They covered “Gloria” and “Dirty Water,” and bands like the Animals and (still Tim’s favorite rock ‘n roll band) the Stones. In high school Tim formed The Jokers with school friends, playing all the usual sock hops and the like.  Tim stayed behind the drum kit for the next 25 years, playing and the music on the radio with up to three bands at a time — “whatever paid the bills.” Eighteen years ago this March Tim met Sherry on the Los Angeles music scene. They married and two years later had a daughter, Kimberly, who is now 13 and into dance and the current music trends. She recently performed at her school’s talent show and “rocked the house,” Dad states proudly.

Tim and older brother Patrick formed a ten-piece pop band called “Casey;” they played all the popular clubs in LA and had labels sniffing around, but all the beautiful, backslapping, lets-do-lunch industry people eventually left them with no deal.

This gave the brothers one classic case of the blues and the band broke up.

Tim decided it was time to start playing music from the other side of the drums, so he bought a guitar and started practicing and working on entertainment skills. Once Tim realized one good blues lick will work on any style of music and that the blues is where it all started, he jumped headfirst into the blues and never looked back.

In 1990 Tim, Patrick, and Mike formed The Casey Bothers Blues Band (CBBB). With a new band and a new genre they needed new places to play. Tim found a place that needed a change also, The Classroom. Tim started booking the club, the CBBB played one weekend a month, and he started a Thursday night blues jam. After a year the band dissolved.

Tim stayed with it; now it was time to front his own band. Free of the have-to-be-nice-to-the-brothers and compromising decisions, the first version of Tim Casey and the Bluescats was born. Tim modeled the band along the lines of Duke Robillard’s Roomful of Blues, with a repertoire of West Coast jump/swing blues, because of his love of horns and harmonicas. He believes that “a big band is much more entertaining to the audience than a three or four piece group; you never know what’s going to happen next.”

Tim threw himself into it, making The Classroom and the band a lot of dough. The jam was better than the weekends; “you never knew who would show up.” Tim got to play with the likes of Joe Houston, Coco Montoya, Rick (LA) Holmstrom, Smokey Wilson, Harmonica Fats, Louisiana Guitar Red, Blind Joe Hill and players from William Clark’s, Rod Piazza’s and James Harman’s bands. One night Tim remembers asking Smokey Wilson for a guitar lesson. Smokey told him, “You want a lesson? Go to the 505 club (Watts). You play your way out of jam night there, that’ll be the best lesson you’ll ever get.”  The LA Times and The Daily News rated The Classroom third best blues club two years in a row. Tim says, “That’s where I paid my blues dues,” while also booking all the great Southern California blues acts, supporting the Southern California Blues Society, and working for Southland Blues Magazine for three years.

In early 1997 Tim’s first CD, Blues Bidness, was released to good reviews. By late ‘97 Tim’s day job (Spacelab Medical) offered him a position in Redmond, Washington. Tim and Sherry decided, “better schools for Kimberly, new adventure, let’s do it.” Tim did worry about how the Seattle blues scene would receive him, but just before making the move to Seattle Tim took a gig in New Orleans and loved the music vibe there. Upon later visiting Pioneer Square, it reminded him of New Orleans, with cobblestone streets, gaslights, and horse drawn carriages, along with club after club with plenty of blues and a joint cover concept that Tim thought was fabulous.

After settling in, Tim’s first night out was to Jamie Sheets’ and Henry Cooper’s jams in the Square. He met Shannon Love, who liked what he saw and booked Tim at his weekly invitational jam at Larry’s. He put Tim on shows with great bluesmen like Tim “Too Slim” Langford, Mark Dufresne, Curtis Salgado, Lee Oskar and many more. After a couple of months Tim rented a studio, put an ad in the WBS Bluesletter and started auditioning musicians for a Northwest version of the Bluescats. When Tim showed up for his next Shannon Love gig, the Monster Guitar Bash, he had a new band with him.

The first new Bluescat was Brian Gewertz, “A great drummer who knew the difference between a rock shuffle and a Texas shuffle.” Brian was also from LA and had played the same circuit as Tim. Although they didn’t know each other, they knew a lot of the same musicians.  Brian brought in Jeremy Smith on sax, who passed the audition after one tune. He is known as “The Texas Tenor,” hailing from Dallas. Jeremy’s a veteran of Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets’ first two recordings, and also has worked with John Lee Hooker and Smokin’ Joe Kubec, as well as doing a lot of session work with Texas’ best before leaving the Lone Star State. Jeremy sings, plays keyboards, guitar, bass, and “probably anything you give him,” making him Tim’s choice for the Bluescats’ Musical Director. Next in was Mike Fish on bass, originally from the Midwest. Mike toured through Canada and settled in Washington. Anyone who knows Mike knows this guy has personality, endless smiles and energy, “and a positive attitude to succeed.” Mike brought in Chris Kleimann on piano and Hammond organ; they had played together in Snake Oil Daddy. When Tim realized Chris could play honky-tonk and boogie-woogie so naturally, he nicknamed Chris “the boogie man.” Tim says Chris is the best keyboard player he has ever worked with, and his organ work is just as pleasing.  He also contributes back-up vocals to the combo.

This original version of the Bluescats’ first gig was Bumbershoot ’97; they went on to record Tim’s second CD, Live in Seattle, while opening for Billy Branch about six month later. Don Montana replaced Brian on drums shortly after that. Don sings and is a veteran of the East Coast blues scene.  Being a drummer himself, Tim knows a good drummer when he sees one. “Don really kicked the Bluescats in the shorts by the time he had the show down, and night after night he is one of the only drummers who can keep the dance floor full during his solos.”

Jeremy knew Tim wanted to build a horn section and recommended Brad Chatfield on baritone sax; the band knows him as “Goldie.” Tim says, “Brad added the bottom end the band was looking for as well as singing. He brings a sense of showmanship we are realizing more and more at every show.” Brad has played all the saxes in different Northwest bands. Rounding out the Triple Shot Horns is the latest addition, Bret “Cleanhead” Jacob on trumpet. Bret has toured the world with the armed services, playing for the Queen of England as well as the President of the United States. “Bret put the high end of the horns in gear and is another pleasure to work with.” Tim says, “These guys are like family to me; we practice once a week and discuss every aspect of our future collectively. I don’t use subs. They never let me down and they are always up for the excitement that comes with respecting the musicians you’re playing with and giving the fans just a little more of yourself; that’s show business.” Tim prefers to call it blues bidness.

The band has recently signed up with a corporate sponsor, Cycle Barn of Washington. The Cycle Barn and the Bluescats will list each other on their respective websites and will co-promote various activities. Cycle Barn will also sell the band’s three CD’s, video, and T-shirts. Both will collaborate on producing a fourth CD to be used as a fundraiser for Riders for Health, a London-based charity that provides dirt bikes, training and resource management for medical staff in Africa; the Cycle Barn provides U.S. funding for this international organization. This collaboration allows the Bluescats to contribute to something they believe is a very worthy cause.

Tim Casey and the Bluescats have a new CD, Swing Shift, out right now. A year in the making, they have their CD parties set up all over town over the upcoming weeks. The Bluescats have a distribution deal with Hepcat distribution here in the States, and are working out the details for distribution in Europe and Japan. As a companion to the CD, the band has released a video featuring eight songs performed live on the television show American Blues Scene; this is a professional video shot with four cameras. It provides a way for fans to bring the band home for some private dancing. Tim says, “The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. With DVD, it can’t be long until we buy music and video on the same disc, watching as well as listening.”

So there they are - Tim Casey and his Bluescats! They work over 150 gigs a year and still rehearse once a week. They have garnered WBS nominations for Best New Band in 1998 as well as Best Band in 1999. They would love to see you dancing and having a ball at one of the upcoming CD release parties. As Tim states, “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!”

CD release parties at the Oxford in Snohomish on February 9-10, Larry’s Blues Café with Little Charlie & the Nightcats on February 22-23, Angie’s Italian Steakhouse in Edmonds February 24^th, and concluding next month at The Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville on 3-2.

by Robert Sawyer

Robert Sawyer was WBS president from 1997 - 2000.  He started his volunteer tour of duty as Media Rep in 1996. Robert was suffering from an impacted tooth when he organized and conducted this interview, and went to great lengths to submit it on time.  Thank you for all your heartfelt hard work, Robert, past and present. Editor.

Return to main page