Considered a virtuoso harmonica player, Peter “Madcat” Ruth acknowledges Sonny Terry and Big Walter Horton as the impetus to a career that’s seen him pull down a Grammy Award, tour with Dave Brubeck and members of the Brubeck family, stints with Sky King and New Heavenly Blue, sessions that finds him on well over 100 albums…and he’s still gigging!
Ruth grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago. When a freshman in high school at Maine South in Park Ridge he began taking guitar lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. His interest in guitar led him to an album by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Terry’s harmonica playing inspired Ruth to pick up a harmonica and play along. He’s been playing ever since.
The Petey-Tweety Band would be his first venture into publicly performing, playing folk/blue on guitar and harmonica in local coffeehouses.
In his early years of harmonica playing, Madcat practiced along with whatever blues albums he could buy or borrow. He also listened to the blues live whenever he could at places like the University of Chicago, and Chicago’s Regal Theater. Too young to listen to the blues in bars, Madcat was a devotee of the Pervis Spann radio program on WVON, and the Big Bill Hill radio program on WOPA, which featured occasional live broadcasts of blues performances from bars on Chicago’s South Side.
In 1966, Madcat met the legendary Chicago blues harmonica player, Big Walter Horton. Madcat was able to arrange to take harmonica lessons from him periodically over the next few years. As Madcat put it, “He’s the man who opened my ears and mind to the amazing potential of the harmonica.”
Shortly after graduating high school in 1967, he met bass player and trombonist Chris Brubeck, son of the late jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. The two met at a jam session and an instant mutual respect sprang up between them. Madcat told Chris to let him know if he ever needed a harmonica player. Shortly after this meeting, a surge of wanderlust sent Madcat on a two-year hitchhiking stint. He studied Spanish in Mexico, played in a jug band in Albuquerque, and worked in a day care center for the children of migrant farm workers in central California. He also spent a lot of time by the side of the road playing harmonica.
In the spring of 1969, Chris Brubeck tracked Madcat down in New Mexico and invited him to join his rock band, New Heavenly Blue, in Michigan. For the next two years, Madcat played with the band summers and weekends while back in the Chicago area attending Lake Forest College. In 1971, he left college and moved to Ann Arbor to work with the band full time.
Playing with New Heavenly Blue enlarged Madcat’s musical experience exploring the world of jazz with compositions in unusual time signatures for a blues-based harmonica. The group would release two albums with Educated Homegrown (RCA) in 1970 and New Heavenly Blue (Atlantic) in 1972.
In 1971, Dave Brubeck wrote the cantata Truth is Fallen (Atlantic) which featured New Heavenly Blue. They would perform the music on tour with various orchestras.
New Heavenly Blue also played the music for a touring company performing Jesus Christ Superstar, Madcat playing all of the saxophone parts on the harmonica.
When New Heavenly Blue disbanded in 1973, Madcat joined the Darius Brubeck Ensemble, a progressive jazz group led by Chris’s older brother, Darius. This was another chapter of musical education for Madcat, who found himself playing harmonica with a horn section composed of clarinet, trombone, saxophone and harmonica. Often billed as an opening act for the Dave Brubeck Quarter, the groups would usually jam together on stage to close the show. Now, Madcat was performing with such jazz greats as Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond, as well as Dave Brubeck.
In 1974 when the Dave Brubeck Quartet disbanded, Dave invited Madcat to join the his new group: Two Generations of Brubeck which featured Dave, and his sons Darius, Chris, and Daniel.
At the same time Madcat joined Chris Brubeck’s new rock group, Sky King. In 1975, Sky King released the album Secret Sauce( (Columbia).
And so for a few years Madcat spent almost all of his time on the road playing jazz and fusion rock with the various members of the Brubeck family. With Two Generations of Brubeck, Madcat appeared on the albums Two Generations of Brubeck (Columbia) and Brother the Great Spirit Made Us All (Columbia).
In 1977, after ten years in other people’s bands, Madcat realized that the time had come for him to do his own music, on his own terms. For the next few years, he returned to his folk music and blues roots, playing his music at colleges and coffeehouses throughout the Midwest. Often performing as a soloist and on other occasions he would be joined with various back-up musicians, including drummer Danny Brubeck, and the amazing electric bassist Jason Boekeloo. In addition to performing his own music, Madcat accompanied many other musicians and played in an impressive variety of musical styles.
Finally, in 1984 Madcat released his first solo record called Madcat Gone Solo (Beancake), and for the next few years continued to pursue a solo career, performing at night clubs, civic auditoriums, college campuses, and music festivals throughout the United States. It was also during this time that Madcat started performing children’s concerts and school assembly programs.
Recognized in an elite group of peers, in 1987, Madcat was an invited guest performer at the First World Harmonica Festival held in England. Other guest performers included Larry Adler, Cham-Ber Huang, and Jerry Murad of the original Harmonicats.
During the past thirty years, Madcat has led dozens of harmonica workshops for music schools, blues societies, and harmonica festivals in the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia.
In 1990, Madcat teamed up with blues guitarist, Shari Kane, to form the duo, Madcat & Kane. In 1992, Madcat & Kane was voted one of six finalists in the Long Beach Blues Festival National Talent Search Contest. Their first CD Madcat & Kane – Key to the Highway (Schoolkids) was released in 1993. They’ve followed that up with Up Against the Wallin 1999 and Live at the Creole Gallery a decade later.
In 1998, Madcat again joined forces with his old buddy, Chris Brubeck. Along with guitarist Joel Brown, they formed the trio Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play. The trio would work together off-and-on for the next 15 years, a half dozen releases in their catalog.
Not tied down to one entourage, Madcat was always looking to team with other musicians, exploring new musical horizons. He would hook up with the Big Joe Manfra Blues Band of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That first tour was a great success, and between 1999 and 2014, Madcat returned to Brazil to tour with the band twelve more times. In 2006 the CD Madcat Live in Rio (Bluestime).
From 2012 until 2020 Madcat fronted The Madcat Midnight Blues Journey. This band featured Drew Howard on guitar and lap steel guitar, Mark Schrock bass, and Michael Shimmin on drums. That group was documented with the release MMBJ@SOTE.
Madcat’s solo recordings include Madcat’s Harmonicology in 1994, Madcat’s Harmonica & Ukulele Project in 2006 and More Real Folk Blues in 2008 on his own Beancake label.
Madcat was named Harmonica Player of the Year by The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) in 1997. In 2006, he won a Grammy Award for being a featured soloist on William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (Naxos).
He shares his harmonica expertise on instructional DVDs Anyone Can Play Harmonicaand The Ins and Outs of Rhythm Harmonica (Homespun). And he continues to perform. Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play reunites from time to time. And locally in Michigan he performs with his C.A.R.Ma. Quartet, sitting is with the Schrock Bros or simply playing solo. (www.petermadcatruth.com) (Photos: Peter Madcat Ruth, New Heavenly Blue, Sky King, Madcat & Kane, Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play, C.A.R.Ma. Quartet)