Ilana Katz Katz has been on the greater-Boston blues scene for only a short while. But, she’s already turning heads with her Appalachian folk influenced fiddle playing and she’s also been teaching people that fiddle was once an important instrument in blues music. As for her name, Katz Katz, she put her original family name Katz next to her husband’s name, which also happened to be Katz.
Katz learned to play fiddle by attending a “fiddle camp” from age 20 onward. Listening to a lot of records borrowed from the Amherst Public Library when she was a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was another source. She got involved with blues and Appalachian folk after falling in love with a John Lee Hooker album.
“I had this thought in my head,” she said, “I want to play fiddle like John Lee Hooker plays guitar. I know that sounds funny. I don’t think I can ever do that. I just had that in my head. I can use fiddle as my go to guitar player. I just fell in love with it.”
Katz only recently broke into the greater-Boston/New England blues scene. It started with a January 2013 music event at Club Passim at which Billy Boy Arnold was performing. She ran into Ronnie Earl who had struck up a conversation with her, and Earl invited her to sit in with him at some future time with her fiddle.
“He helped me so much,” Katz said. “I saw him a month after that, and he said ‘I want to help you.’ I didn’t really know what he meant. I mentioned I was recording, and he said he wanted to be on my record.”
Earl took her under his wing, bringing her to blues venues and making introductions, including one to blues singer/harmonica player Diane Blue. “He took me to B.B. King’s club in New York, and I met Bobby Radcliff. I just started meeting a lot of people. It’s only been a few years, and it’s been an incredible experience and I’m very grateful.”
Katz has put out two CDs in the past two years. Her 2014 debut CD I’ve Got Something To Tell You was reviewed by Big City Blues Magazine after she gave a copy to the right person. The magazine put one of her songs in a contest called Coolest Blues Song In The World, and it ended up as a finalist. Still, Katz has a hard time taking in all of the success she’s found in the last three years.
“A lot of this stuff is very overwhelming for me,” she said. “I’m just so happy that people like what I’m doing. I think contests are kind of funny, but it’s kind of fun.”
Her recent 2016 release, Movin’ On, features name musicians like Cedric Watson, Barry Levinson, and Bobby Radcliff. Katz began her recording sessions with Watson after traveling to his home in Layfayette, Louisiana. She stayed for a week of recording.
“He is a brilliant musician,” Katz said. “He can play anything but he plays Creole music, and I just knew that it was going to be a lot of fun. I just feel very connected to Cedric. He’s very spiritual, and he really was excited to do a record that would be what I wanted it to be.”
Katz’s friendship with Bobby Radcliff began after she met him through Ronnie Earl. She admires Radcliff’s unique sound on guitar and for having his own blues sound. “He’s starting to put a few more new records out, and I was excited that he was willing to do something with somebody who plays the fiddle,” Katz said. She recorded her songs with Radcliff’s trio at a studio in Brooklyn, New York.
Katz’s work with Barry Levinson for her recently released CD has lead to another, more current recording project in Los Angeles. “We’re almost done with another record we’re finishing up next month,” she said. “He and I are going to do some tours next year. We’ve written a bunch of music together. He’s producing my next record. He’s a great producer.”
Levinson has been a member of Canned Heat, so Katz feels especially honored to be working with him. “He’s been all over the world many times. He’s just very enthusiastic about working with me. We get along great. It’s a great honor for me to be working with all those guys.”
Katz recently completed a month long residency at The Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a venue she’s been visiting since the 1980s, at a time in her life when she was living nearby. She was a regular during the days when Little Joe Cook was a big local singing star at the venue. She also used to play there ten years ago, on Bluegrass Night.
“It was really fun to be at The Cantab,” she said. “The Cantab is an institution. You’re always going to meet interesting people there. It was fun to have. Diane Blue came out last night to support me. It was a great experience to play at the Cantab and to have a place every Monday where I’d do a real show. It was great.”
Katz drew a lively crowd of curious music fans. “You’re never going to get bored at the Cantab and you never know who’s coming in the door,” she said. “I felt very, very well received, and that made me very happy.”
Katz has a special gig coming up. She will be playing at a candy store in Wilton, New Hampshire on October 22, 2016. Her upcoming venue is Nelson’s Candies/Local’s Café. Owner Doug Nelson has an old fashioned candy factor and store on one side of his building. On the other side, Nelson has a performance space with a stage and seating. Katz got the Nelson’s Candies/Local’s Café gig by guest appearing there with Bobby Radcliff the last time Radcliff had played there.
“At the intermission, they asked me if I would play there, and I said I would love to,” she said. “I don’t know a lot of people in New Hampshire, but they liked my playing. I’m really excited. It’s a great little place. It holds like 55 people. On one side there’s a performance area. On the other side, it’s a third generation candy store. They make a lot of candies. It’s a really cool place, and I’m really excited.”
Katz isn’t certain how she will market her show, as she resides and plays more in Boston. She doesn’t know if her Boston fans will drive up the highway to New Hampshire and take two lane highways to the small town venue, or, if she can get New Hampshire blues and fiddle fans to come out. “I’m reaching out to people on social media,” she said. “I have some friends in New Hampshire.”
Another favorite Katz venue is actually Park Street Station on the MBTA’s Red Line in Boston, a place where the vibe summons her to busk. “About seven and a half years ago there was somebody who I wanted to play with who wanted to play with me, and he played in the subway, so he said ‘Meet me in the subway.’”
Katz arrived at the subway station ahead of her friend, and she had a spiritual moment as she felt it was a place she was meant to be. “People don’t get to hear live music so much any more. Everything’s on the internet,” she said. “I just really felt compelled to be there. I meet a lot of people. It’s a very positive experience. People tell me all kinds of stories about their lives. I have many, many subway stories.”
It may also be a good way of marketing her music, as she is seen by many subway travelers, and she sells quite a few copies of her albums. She also once met someone in the train station who booked her into a summer concert series. Mostly, though, it’s a personal joy.
“It’s a place that I feel compelled to return to,” she said. “Sometimes, if I’m not there for three weeks because I’m traveling or something, I feel an itch to get back there. I like the acoustics in the Red Line Park Street. Sometimes there’s a lot of trains, and sometimes it’s very quiet, and I’ll sing aca pella. It sounds strange, but it feels like home to me.”
When Katz is in town, she’ll play Park Street Station every week, as long as the temperature is above 32 degrees or lower than 82 degrees. Other wise, it will be too cold or too hot. “I would like to play there all year,” she said.
Aside from being a musician and singer-songwriter, Katz is also a professional writer and novelist. That was the career she set out on before music happened to her.
“I studied journalism in college,” she said. “I did a lot of freelance work in college for United Press International and a lot of journals in western Massachusetts. Then, I did technical writing for many years. I always wanted to write novels.”
She wrote four full novels that were published and one was optioned for a screenplay, which she hasn’t had time to write, as she’s been busy with her music. “Hopefully, when this next record is done, I’ll write that screenplay. But, yes, I am very much a writer. I love writing.”
But, for now, her second love, music has become her full time job. Her next step is to get her current project with Barry Levinson in front of festival audiences. “I would like to bring the blues fiddle back a little bit more because people say ‘That’s so strange, the blues fiddle.’ And I’m like ‘Well, actually, that’s very, very old.’ I love the idea of bringing blues fiddle to big festivals and to continue to play with a lot of great musicians that I’ve been very blessed to do that. I’m ready to go on the road.”
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