Paging Doctor Velvet
Local R&B swingers Nick Curran & the Nitelifes won Best New Artist for their Doctor Velvet CD at last Thursday’s W.C. Handy Blues Awards in Memphis, but nearly missed their chance to accept. Waiting backstage to perform (or so they were told), they met their new booking agent for the first time and adjourned to the lobby to get acquainted. “This girl came in yelling, ‘You won!'” recounts Curran. “We never even heard the announcement.” Once they reached the podium at the Cannon Center’s ballroom, “we didn’t know what to say,” says Curran, whose new Blind Pig LP Player comes out June 29. The Nitelifes’ other thrill was performing the Fabulous Thunderbirds‘ “True Love” with Kim Wilson, reuniting Wilson with Nitelifes and ex-T-Birds bassist Preston Hubbard. (Completing the circle, Curran sits in with Wilson from time to time.) Other locally connected folks taking home Handys were Marcia Ball for Female Contemporary Blues Artist and Contemporary Blues Album (So Many Rivers), Antone’s mainstays Pinetop Perkins (Male Traditional Blues Artist), and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (Blues Instrumentalist – Drums).
This article appears in May 7 • 2004.