Chris Cain returns to Lincoln after decades of absence to play at ZooFest

It’s been decades since Chris Cain played at the Zoo Bar.

The Bay Area blues musician was a regular at the zoo in the late ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s, often starting his tours with a stop in Lincoln, but he hasn’t been there in nearly 20 years.

“I miss it, man. The Zoo Bar was always one of my favorite places,” Cain said. “I didn’t have a car to travel to. So I played more in California and that area, unless they flew us out there for something. But I wasn’t renting vans and stuff. So there was a whole period of time where I wasn’t really traveling to like the places you go and play.”

So it’s quite an event that Cain is returning to Lincoln on Thursday to play the Fourth of July ZooFest. And he’ll be bringing songs from his upcoming album, “Good Intentions Gone Bad.”

Arguably the best of Cain’s career, this album features 13 songs recorded with his touring band and a three-piece horn section that incorporates Cain’s passionate guitar and best-ever vocals into a blues with roots in Memphis, Tennessee.

This is more than fitting, because Cain’s blues roots lie in Memphis. He didn’t grow up there. But his father, whom he pays tribute to on “Blues For My Dad,” was a fixture on Beale Street and introduced young Chris to the city, the blues and the guitar.

“When I was 8 years old, the first thing he showed me was ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go’ in the key of E,” Cain said. “My dad was a real guy because he was a truck driver. He wasn’t a musician. But he found a few tunes, put on his tie, went out and played a few.”

ZooFest Music Festival , 7.6 — A crowd enjoys music outside the Zoo Bar in downtown Lincoln during ZooFest 2023. The annual music festival returns on Thursday.

JOURNAL STAR FILE PHOTO

Cain’s father not only taught him to play the guitar, but also took the boy to see the artists who recorded the records.

“We never missed BB King,” said Cain, whose first King show he saw when he was just 4 years old. “He came here every year, before ‘The Thrill Is Gone.’ He knew when these guys were playing in these tiny clubs. I got to know a lot of people that I really liked, just because he was like a black gentleman in a suit, they thought he was with the bands. We could just come and go and meet people like Albert King, Freddie King and many, many others.”

Cain’s father’s record collection served as a kind of workbook for the prepubescent guitarist.

“Anything my dad liked, I wanted to try,” he said. “I took his BB King records into my room and did my thing, and he said, ‘Hey, dude, that sounds like BB King.’ After he said that, I was floating for about two weeks.

“My father had all the good records. He had a really loud hi-fi system. He was just really into it. So I was able to hear the great stuff as a child. And my mother took me to see the Beatles one day at school. That’s how my parents were. I was very lucky in that respect.”

Cain studied music at San Jose City College and was soon teaching jazz improvisation there. Over the next 20 years, he also learned piano, bass guitar, clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone, and mixed jazz into the blues he had been playing since childhood, creating his distinctive, fiery and soulful guitar style.

“When I started my first band in 1987, I was over 30,” he said. “I’d never really done that before. I borrowed money to record ‘Late Night City Blues’ because I wanted to play shows in the city. So I made the record and then this whole thing happened. We were doing the WC Handy Awards and touring all this stuff that I hadn’t planned. It was like it took off like an avalanche. It was a really crazy experience.”

“Late Night City Blues” received four nominations for what are now known as the Blues Music Awards and took Cain and his band from the Bay Area to Europe – and across the USA, with stop No. 1 on a tour usually being the long, narrow club on North 14th Street in Lincoln.

“It was a nice thing because it was kind of the first gig we got to play,” Can said. “When we went on these tours, Nebraska was the first one, there was nowhere closer to play. So we always started the tour right, always at the Zoo Bar. It was a gas man.”

At most shows then and now, Cain plays his beloved Gibson ES-335 guitar named Melba, which he has owned since 1990 – a guitar that also features prominently in the new book “Gibson ES Believers.” He also uses an equally beloved Music Man RD 112 amplifier, which he has owned since 1987.

And on Thursday, he’ll play songs from across his career, including some from “Raisin’ Cain,” his 2021 album on Alligator Records that received four 2022 Blues Music Award nominations, including Album of the Year and Best Guitarist.

And he brings songs from “Good Intentions Gone Bad,” due out July 19, including “Still Drinking Straight Tequila,” a thoughtful take on his 1997 classic inspired by a conversation with Alligator president Bruce Iglauer.

“‘Drinking Straight Tequila’ is my hit, people love that tune,” Cain said. “I talked to Bruce and said, ‘I wish I could record it again for Alligator.’ He said, ‘You could record something like ‘Still Drinking Straight Tequila.’ I said, ‘OK,’ and I took that idea and made the tune. I thought it still has to be in the key of E, so it’ll have that feel, but it’ll be a little different. I think people will like it, too.”

So, will you play both songs?

“Now I’m going to do it,” he said. “It’s going to be a tequila weekend. I should get a sponsor, Don Julio or something.”

With or without a sponsor, Cain is happy to be returning to Lincoln and happy that he won’t have to find a way to back a trailer into the alley behind the zoo.

“I would go back to play at the Zoo Bar,” Cain said. “I love Pete (Zoo owner Pete Watters). I’ve loved those guys from the first day I played there. I love the people that come. I love the hotel they put us in. It’s just all a good thing, man.”

The Zoo Bar’s annual ZooFest returns on Thursday, July 4. Check out the schedule and lineup for the three-day music festival here.

Schedule and tickets

Where: 14th Street between P and O Streets. Gate at 14th and O Streets.

Tickets: Advance tickets are $30 on July 4th and $50 on July 5th and 6th. Three-day pass: $110. Advance tickets are available at ticketweb.com. Tickets are also available at the Zoo Bar. Day-of-show tickets are $40 on July 4th and $50 on July 5th and 6th.