Paul Nelson, a guitarist/record producer/songwriter won a Grammy award for Best Blues Album in 2015 for Johnny Winter’s Step Back release. Paul’s played with the elite guitarists in the world and was a phenomenal guitarist himself. He produced albums and toured with Johnny Winter for several years until Johnny passed in 2014. Working with many of the blues and rock greats, he also found time to release several of his own projects. In November of 2023, multi-award winning program director Ray White hung out with Paul to talk about his guitar training, several of his projects and hooking up with Johnny Winter. I was sad to learn that Paul passed away on March 10, 2024, while out on tour. He was a great talent that will be missed by many. We hope you’ll enjoy one of his last interviews and the awesome work from Paul on this insightful episode.
Ray's passion for music and the musicians, started as a youth listening to transistor radios under the covers at bedtime. The bands and performers he liked, he followed throughout their career. In 2005 he was fed up with the evolution of a majority of the music the radio stations were playing and began investigating the bands he grew up listening to in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. Radio wasn't playing any of those band's "new" songs, just the "classic" hits. Researching the industry for a year, Ray launched Classic Artists Today syndicated radio show - featuring "new" songs by "classic" artists and included interviews and classic tracks too. The show was carried by several dozen radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Caribbean. Featuring Rock/Pop musicians and bands, Ray and the show won several awards from New Music Weekly magazine. With the success of these shows, he launched Coool CAT syndicated radio show, 5 years later, featuring Soul/R&B/Smooth Jazz/Blues performers and bands. In 2017, Ray starting producing his show in a 30-minute podcast format. Today, you can hear his work at Sittin' In With The CAT and Sittin' In With The Coool CAT. The legacy continues!