This longtime South Shore favorite band is set to play its 'hometown'
At this point, the Fat City Band is a beloved South Shore institution, so the word that 2024 will mark their 50th year of delighting rock and rhythm and blues audiences does not come as a huge surprise to most of those fans. But this year also marked the release of their ninth studio album, “Cocktail Cool,” and their slightly older single “Granite State Christmas” is also creating a buzz.
The Fat City Band will be returning to one of its most favored venues, The C-Note in Hull on Saturday night, and they’ll also be ushering in 2024 with a New Year’s Eve show at Chan’s in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. (The C-Note is located at 159 Nantasket Ave. in Hull, the music starts at 9 p.m. and all tickets are $12, check cnotehull.com, or call 781-925-4300 for more information. Chan's is located at 267 Main St. in Woonsocket, and that New Year's Eve show begins at 9 p.m., with tickets $60 in advance, or $65 at the door. Check chanseggrollsandjazz.com or call 401-765-1900 for more info.)
We caught up with Fat City Band bassist Joe Baglione, of Halifax, this week to catch up on the group’s activities and how they’re planning to celebrate their milestone year. Baglione is a rather fresh, new face in the lineup, having logged about 17 years at this point. Drummer John Litwin, of Hull, has 43 years under his belt in the band, while singer/songwriter Paul Redmond, of Dorchester, is the sole remaining original member. Dedham’s Rich Cesarini is on his second stint in the group, having played with them for several years, taken a decade’s break, and then returned for the past couple years.
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A band with lengthy connections
The other musicians in the band, typically a septet, have all joined within the last 10 years or so – making them relative rookies. But the spark and energy of the Fat City Band is never in doubt, and their bright and engaging sound is certain to keep dance floors full and fans smiling. Part of that is the irrepressible frontman, as Redmond not only pens witty songs where even heartbreak and romantic turmoil comes with a light-hearted wink and a tart sense of humor, but the inescapably key element in the music is always the fun quotient.
The other members of the band include trombonist Bob Holfelder, of Franklin, and saxophonist Brad Cole, of Hopkinton. The guitar chair is shared between jazz-fusion star Jon Finn, of Whitman, and Kingston’s John Chevator, depending on which one is available. Likewise, East Bridgewater’s Mike Niccoli can sub in on saxophone when needed, so the roster is deep and talented.
When we last talked with Baglione in 2021, coming out of the pandemic, he’d noted that as all the principal players were in their 60s, and had day jobs, the Fat City Band had sworn off lengthy touring, and reached a comfortable spot where their history and reputation allowed them to pick and choose only the gigs they wanted to perform, and only the ones that paid them a decent fee. That is still the capsule summary of their outlook, but their datebook is still as full as they want.
But in the more immediate sense, the holiday season again has New England radio stations discovering the charming, if typically offbeat and borderline rowdy tune, packed with New Hampshire references, “Granite State Christmas.”
A holiday hit
“I have been after the other guys to re-record that one for years,” said Baglione, who has his own extensive home studio. “The reality is that, at this time of year, we get all kinds of requests for that song. Stations, like the Manchester, New Hampshire, radio station start getting requests from their listeners, and they want a good recording of it. The background of the song is simple. Every year they have a Christmas pageant up there in Manchester, and one year it was at the Stadium Theater. The radio station up there asks us to do a couple tunes live every year, so, one year we decided to write our own original song for it. The version you hear is from that first time we played it live, for that show. What I’ve done now is simply cleaned it up in the studio, added a bit and basically tried to make it sound better.”
“Cocktail Cool,” the new album, had been in the making for at least three years, before it was released last June. It is available on all the usual streaming platforms or for download, and CDs are also available.
“The new album is doing pretty well on all the platforms,” Baglione noted. “You can download it, stream it and if you want an actual CD, we can do that too. Paul is the main songwriter of course, but he’s not constantly writing, so this project took a while. I mixed and mastered this one and several of our previous albums. On many of our past albums, we would resurrect some of our old tunes, just to get them out there in new takes, updated versions that showed how they’d changed over the years. For this one, I insisted that we do an album of all new tunes. There are some really rockin’ tunes like the title cut, but also some ballads, the type of thing we might not do as often in our live shows, where we want to keep the energy level high.”
“It’s always fun to introduce new music, and it has been very good to get out there and see how well it is going over with our crowds,” Baglione added. “We’re working on a single now, a tune that is not on the album, “Ain’t No Good For You,” where we add a horn arrangement. That is an older tune, and on the original the horn part was just (original member and saxophonist) Diamond Jim Baker. Now, since we have sax and trombone, we can expand it much more. Bobby Holfelder has done the horn arrangement for it, and it is a really good, jump-blues, swinging tune that never fails to fill them dance floor.”
Band members are adaptable
It can be fascinating to imagine Finn, who teaches at Berklee College of Music and has a long history of jazz-rock fusion, fitting into the area’s premier roadhouse rockers. Baglione noted that Chevator is also primarily a jazz guy, so the new lineup – since longtime guitarist Mark Anderson left a couple years ago – brings a new flavor to the mix.
“I think it was a learning curve for Jon Finn when he joined us,” said Baglione. “We’re so blues-based, and he’s jazz-fusion. But I’m in a jazz combo on the side too, so it’s one of those things where you have to put it aside and focus on this. Let me tell you, we’ve all seen that Jon Finn can really lay down the blues, so he fit in immediately. John Chevator subs in maybe half the time, due to Jon’s busy schedule, and John Chevator is a jazz guy too, but he also has adapted superbly to our sound.”
50-year mark 'unbelievable'
The Fat City Band’s website reminds fans that they are a group dedicated to the proposition that music is fun. It’s notably hard to keep track of time when you’re having fun, so how does this upcoming 50th year strike the musicians?
“It is unbelievable to think about a 50-year anniversary for the band,” said Baglione. “Paul Redmond is of course the constant, the one original member. John Litwin has 43 years in now, as only the second drummer the band ever had. I’m up to 17 years myself, so I’m no longer ‘the new guy.’ Rich Cesarini is on his second run with the band and wrote some of the tunes on the new album too.”
“The business has changed so much over the years, and we don’t play many real nightclubs – like the C-Note, and Chan’s – anymore,” Baglione pointed out. “The rest of our gigs are all theater shows, seated, ticketed shows at places like the Music Room in Yarmouth, the Black Box in Mansfield, The Cut in Gloucester and the Spire Center in Plymouth. We’ve also played the Hingham Launch Series in the summer for years and did the Scituate Harbor Heritage Days Festival again this summer. We’re currently doing a lot of northern ski resort things, too, like Nashoba Valley. The past few years, we do less bars and clubs, and more theater-type venues, nice places that make a lot of sense for our fans.”
Back to their roots
Despite that change in bookings, if there’s one place that could be seen as The Fat City Band’s hometown hang, their musical headquarters, it would be the C-Note. Never mind that bar manager Barbara Rhind, of Scituate, has known them since their days playing The Bell Buoy in Scituate, or Jonathan Swift’s in Harvard Square, the C-Note is also where some of their longest and most loyal fans are.
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“I feel like I grew up there at the C-Note,” Baglione laughed. “We’ve played there for years, so it always feels like fun, like returning to your hometown. John Litwin lives right down the street, and can honestly walk to the gig, and he also still has family in Hull, so it’s a real homecoming for him. It’s one of the coolest places we play, and Chan’s, of course, more of a supper club, but an esteemed jazz club that is a very classy place to play too.”
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Fat City Band, a 50-year South Shore staple, to play C-Note in Hull
