Sugar Ray Norcia
New England is home to a parade of serious blues cats, including some who can belt out a tune and wail on harmonica with equal passion and panache. And as anyone familiar with the regional scene will attest, one of those cats is Sugar Ray Norcia, who’s been a constant presence in the area’s blues joints for over 50 years. With a voice that’s been called “one of the most distinctive, well-defined and recognizable instruments in modern blues” and the harp chops of a seasoned club veteran, he’s widely known as one of the most magnetic and naturally gifted artists of any genre.
A three-time Grammy nominee, Norcia’s fronted several groups over the years, most notably Sugar Ray & The Bluetones (from 1979 until today) and Roomful of Blues (from 1991 through 1997). In addition to recording with those bands, he’s appeared as a sideman on over 50 albums by others, among them J. Geils and Pinetop Perkins, and is in the Knickerbocker Music Center’s Hall of Fame along with fellow former Roomful of Blues members Duke Robillard and Greg Piccolo. Sugar Ray & The Bluetones have taken home two Blues Music Awards, earned 26 Blues Music Awards nominations and were inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
Known nearly as much for his songwriting as for his soul-stirring vocals and harmonica playing, Norcia says The Bluetones’ particular sound is basically a modern-day take on what was happening in blues seven decades ago. “We’re described as a ‘1950s, Chicago-blues, Chess Records-style band that features searing guitar solos with extended harmonica improvisation,’” he told David Mac of Blues Junction in 2016. “That’s the easiest way to put a label on us, but let’s face it, we’ve been playing together as a band longer than many of those old Chicago-blues guys even lived.”
MUSICAL BEGINNINGS
Raymond Alan Norcia was born on June 6, 1954 in the quiet, coastal town of Westerly, Rhode Island and lived there until age three, when his family moved to his grandparents’ 80-acre farm in Pawcatuck, Connecticut. “It had the whole deal, the cows, pigs, chickens, selling milk and all that,” he told Alan White of Early Blues in 2012. “We didn’t have to drive to anything, picnics or whatever, the farmhouse being the focal point of the property – the red farm house on the hill where we had Sunday School and we all sang. It was a nice way to grow up, musically speaking.”
Norcia was surrounded by music as a child, as two of his uncles played guitar and bass, his brother sang and played piano, his mother was an amateur jazz singer and his father was a voice and piano teacher in the local schools. “When I was going to bed, I’d hear a band rehearsing in the basement, my family band playing jazz tunes, so I took a liking to music, obviously,” he told White. Also in the basement was his father’s studio, where he gave private voice and piano lessons, and Norcia says he learned a lot about singing just by watching him. “Through osmosis I picked up on his teachings, which was great,” he told Al Olson of the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in 2016. “My father said he sang to me in the womb. That’s how early I was listening to the voice and all.”
Most auspiciously, perhaps, Norcia’s father also played harmonica – mostly campfire and cowboy songs, not blues – which partially inspired Norcia to pick up the instrument in his late teens. “My dad playing at family gatherings made him the life of the party,” he told Olson. “I always said to myself, ‘Yeah. I wanna do that.’ It looked like a lot of fun.” Norcia sang in the chorus and various stage productions during high school, which prompted some blues-loving classmates to invite him to be the lead vocalist in their new blues band. “I was 15 or 16 and a couple of guys said, ‘We’re starting a band. Would you be interested?’ They gave me an Elmore James record and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll try that’ and I’ve never looked back,” he told Olson.
EARLY BANDS, SUGAR RAY & THE BLUETONES
The group called themselves Linseed Sam & The Oilers and, unlike most other cover acts of the era, they played mostly old blues tunes, not the rock hits of the day. Norcia cites his introduction to blues harmonica as Little Walter’s 1955 single “Hate to See You Go” and says he never took lessons since there weren’t any harmonica teachers in his area when he started playing. “I never had anybody to teach me what key they were using or how to get that sound. It took years and years,” he told White of Early Blues. His decision to play blues harp came about gradually, largely driven by the fact that the harmonicist in one of his early bands was a heavy drinker who often missed shows. “He’d get drunk and I played whenever he didn’t show up. Then, finally, we told him to stay home because we didn’t need him no more,” Norcia told RIMHOF’s Olson. He’s said that his earliest harmonica influences include Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Sonny Boy Williamson II, George “Harmonica” Smith and Big Walter Horton.
In the early ‘70s, after acquiring the nickname “Sugar” from Linseed Sam & The Oilers’ drummer “Jocko” Wimpfeimer (who said Norcia’s voice was “as sweet as sugar”), Norcia formed The Arm & Hammer Blues Band, playing harmonica and singing lead, followed by Sugar Ray & The Blues Stompers. Both played clubs in the area, among them the Knickerbocker Café, and they collected old blues LPs when they weren’t gigging/rehearsing, often driving two hours north to Boston to find the best selection. “We’d come home with an armful of records, then have record-listening parties,” he told Blues Junction’s Mac.
In 1979, 25-year-old Norcia auditioned in Providence for Ronnie Earl’s band The Deuces, which included bassist Michael Ward and pianist Anthony Geraci and led to the formation of Sugar Ray & The Bluetones. “[My drummer Neil] got a call from Ronnie, who wanted to hire him, and he told Ronnie, ‘I’ve been working with this guy named Sugar Ray and you might want to check him out,’” Norcia told Mac. “I went along for the ride to Providence and we clicked like crazy. Not long after, we changed the group’s name to Sugar Ray & The Bluetones.”
Earl left the band later in ’79 to join Roomful of Blues, replaced by Doug “Kid” Bangham, and the group spent the ‘80s touring New England and other parts of the US, including shows at The Shaboo Inn in Connecticut and Great Scott in Boston, while working as the house band at The Speakeasy in Cambridge, backing blues greats such as Otis Rush, Big Joe Turner, J.B. Hutto and Big Mama Thornton. The band recorded the EP Sugar Ray & The Bluetones in 1979 for Baron Records, backed Big Walter Horton on his live disc Little Boy Blue in 1980, cut their first album, Knockout, in 1989 on the Varrick label and recorded their second LP, Don’t Stand in My Way, in 1991 for Bullseye.
JOINING/LEAVING ROOMFUL OF BLUES, REVIVING THE BLUETONES
Later in 1991, Norcia joined Earl in Roomful of Blues after an invitation from the group’s then frontman, Greg Piccolo. He’d known the band members for years, had sat in with the group on many occasions and the timing was perfect, he told Blues Junction’s Mac. “That was a dream band, especially in those days since they were at the top of their game,” he said, noting RoB’s remarkable versatility. “I’m a blues singer, but I can sing a little jazz, swing, jump blues, Louie Jordan, Kansas City, Count Basie and they could do all that. Having that strong horn section behind me was also a dream. I never figured I’d get the call, but I did.”
Norcia spent the next seven-odd years with RoB and appears on five of their albums, including 1996’s Grammy-nominated Turn It On, Turn It Up. During his tenure, he also worked on projects outside of the band, including trombonist Porky Cohen’s Rhythm and Bones (Bullseye, 1996), Little Anthony and Sugar Ray: Take It From Me (Tone-Cool, 1994) and Otis Grand’s Nothing Else Matters (Sequel, 1994). Norcia left RoB at the end of 1997, largely because he wanted to get back to playing more harmonica than he did with that group, he told Don Wilcox of Blues Blast in 2018. In 1998, he formed The Sugar Ray Norcia Band with guitarist Rob Nelson, pianist Matt McCabe and Bluetones drummer Gouvin and cut the Bullseye release Sweet & Swingin’.
In 1999, when he and fellow blues harpists James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite and Billy Branch recorded the Grammy-nominated LP Superharps on the Telarc label, Norcia reformed The Bluetones with its 1980s lineup (Bangham, Geraci, Ward, Gouvin), guitarist Paul Size and occasionally guitarists Troy Gonyea and Johnny Moeller. Since reassembling, they’ve appeared at a variety of venues in New England, among them Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining, Jazz & Blues, toured North America and Europe multiple times and recorded eight studio albums on Maryland-based Severn Records: Rockin’ Sugar Daddy (2001); Sugar Ray & The Bluetones featuring Monster Mike Welch (2003); Hands Across the Table (2005); My Life, My Friends, My Music (2007); Evening (2011); Living Tear to Tear (2014); Seeing Is Believing (2016); and Too Far From the Bar (2020).
Asked about his future plans, Norcia said he intends to keep playing live and recording well into the future because every gig is still an adventure. “For the most part, it’s different every night. You can ask my band members who’ve heard me play the same songs for the last 40 years, but I never really play it the same way twice,” he told Wilcox of Blues Blast in 2018. “They know me so well that it’s almost telepathic, so it’s hard to trip ’em up since they’re right on top of me. They always go, ‘Whatcha got up your sleeve tonight, Sugar?’ I’ll say, ‘Keep your eyes open and your ears open. You’ll find out.’ I might pull out tunes that we haven’t played in 25 years but it’s amazing, like riding a bicycle. They remember their parts.”
(by D.S. Monahan)
