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Posted on Sun, Jun 27, 2010 : 5:57 a.m.

Madcat & Kane's blues partnership marks 20 years with Top of the Park show

By Roger LeLievre

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Peter Madcat Ruth and Shari Kane mark 20 years of performing together on Thursday.

When Grammy award-winning harmonica player/vocalist Peter Madcat Ruth and guitarist/vocalist Shari Kane perform Thursday night at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s Top of the Park, it will mark 20 years to the day the blues pair began their musical marriage.

“I had the idea Madcat should give me a new guitar,” Kane joked of the milestone. “He should buy me a new National and I should buy him a new harmonica.”

Kidding aside, the first time Madcat and Kane performed together, they knew they had hit on something special.

“When we started playing, it was like 2 people who finish each others’ sentences. I could hear what he was going to do and he could hear what I was going to do. It was really easy,” said Kane.

“I knew it was better than I expected,” Ruth agreed. “We were on the same wavelength with the kind of music we like.”

The pairing came about by chance, Ruth recalled.

“In 1990 I had a gig at Top of the Park and the guy who was going to be my main accompanist called up and said he couldn’t make it. … She was just this kid,” Ruth said of Kane, who was 10 years younger than him, “but I knew she played guitar. I’d heard her play on the porch at Herb David (Guitar Studio). I called her up and asked if she wanted to come down and do a few songs. She said yes.”

“I said yes really calmly, then I hung up the phone and started shrieking,” Kane remembered.

PREVIEW

Madcat, Kane & Maxwell Street

  • Who: Ann Arbor’s Grammy award-winning blues harmonica player/vocalist Peter Madcat Ruth and blues guitarist/vocalist Shari Kane.
  • What: 20th anniversary celebration at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival's Top of the Park.
  • Where: Ingalls Mall stage in front of Rackham Auditorium, 915 East Washington Street.
  • When: 8 p.m. Thursday.
  • How much: Free.
  • Info: Ann Arbor Summer Festival website or 734-764-2538.

One gig quickly led to another, and in two months their musical partnership became official.

Not that the two were total strangers before they played their first show together; they had been friends for more than 10 years before that fateful TOP gig. Trading records back and forth, they shared a love for blues that crossed the lines between electric and acoustic, delta and Chicago, jump blues, folk blues and jazz. That shared passion is part of the reason for their longevity, Kane explained.

“One of the things that has made us so compatible is that a lot of people who play blues have really strong attitudes — they either like acoustic blues and despise electric blues as the anti-Christ, or they love electric blues and they think acoustic blues is the rankest, stupidest, raunchiest waste of time,” she said. “The thing about us is we really love both, and many other types of roots music. If one of us wants to do a tune, we don’t have to come up against that attitude, that wall.” Listen to Madcat & Kane "Act Like You Love Me" (MP3).

Ruth, 61, got his start in the Chicago area in the early 1960s. In the early ‘70s he moved to Ann Arbor, where he was a member of the progressive rock bands New Heavenly Blue and Sky King. By the mid ‘70s, he was touring the world with jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. In 2006 Madcat — a nickname from his high school days — won a Grammy Award as featured soloist on William Bolcom’s CD “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” Hering Harmonicas even has a Madcat model harp that comes with his signature and logo on the chrome case.

Kane, 50, started playing guitar when she was 5, and began teaching the instrument when she was 16. Her influences include the work of Delta blues masters such as Robert Johnson, Robert Junior Lockwood and Mississippi John Hurt. She and Ruth have toured extensively in the United States and worldwide.

For their TOP show, Madcat and Kane will be accompanied by bassist/vocalist Mark Schrock and drummer/percussionist Mike Shimmin. When the four perform together, they are known collectively as Maxwell Street. The quartet recently released the CD “Live at the Creole Gallery.”

“I grew up in Chicago and Maxwell Street was this open market and it was also the place where blues bands would traditionally set up and play on Sunday mornings. It was a great bluesy scene. We took that name,” Ruth said.

“We love playing Top of the Park. This is our 21st consecutive TOP, which is wonderful,” he added. “We don’t really play here that often — almost all our gigs are out of town — so it’s always great to play for the hometown fans, and we definitely have fans, we’ve been here so long.”

Kane, who is married to local singer/guitarist “Big Dave” Steele, said she’s delighted the pairing has worked out long-term. “After 20 years, we’re better friends than when we started playing. That’s rare, and that’s a testament to Madcat, not to me, and a testament on how easy he is to be friends with.”

So are they up for another 20 years?

“I will if he will,” Kane said. “Yeah, why not?” Ruth agreed.

Roger LeLievre is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com.

Madcat & Kane performing live at the Old Town Blues Festival: