Leon Medica, bassist and producer of LeRoux, co-founded the band in 1977. Throughout the years the band was featured on music television shows including Solid Gold, The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. They had 7 songs land on Billboard’s Top 100 chart. Leon won an American Music Award for producing a song from the movie “Dirty Dancing” and also is a Grammy nominated musician who played on an album with blues great Tab Benoit. This tribute to Leon, who passed away on June 9, 2024, includes our interview with him from July of 2008 which touched on LeRoux, the Louisiana rock sound and LeRoux’s album, Ain’t Nothing But A Gris Gris. In our showcase segment, we feature Leon’s friend and frontman for Wet Willie, Jimmy Hall. His latest album is Ready Now. Sounds of the deep south on this special edition of the CAT!
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!
