It is 4:44 a.m in the morning, and I have just downloaded the new Mudcat CD, “Hotstuff.” The first song hits me in the face like a wet kiss from a slightly drunk lover; I mean I have lived this song, standing in front of Mudcat, and his band, night after weekend night at The Northside Tavern in Atlanta, Ga. It is as if I can see Mudcat a smiling, and a singing right here from my desk. That is how real the cd is, how great a job it has done of capturing the legendary bluesman live.

I met Danny Dudek around 1985 in a place called Kool Korner in Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia. Dok Lazlo had called, and asked me if I wanted to meet Angela Bowie. With no money in my coat, I headed over to the restaurant, where Ms. Bowie cooked breakfast for Dok, and I. It was kind of a surreal experience, but another neat thing that I got out of it was that I got to meet the dishwasher, a friendly, smiling fellow who seemed to be very happy to be alive, even though he was washing dishes. This fellow was Danny Dudek, aka Mudcat.

Mudcat has never let me down, and he has, from what I have heard, never let anyone around him down. On stage, and off, you can depend on Danny Dudek. On stage, or seated on the floor of a place without a stage, Mudcat can be counted on to give an energetic, thorougly entertaining performance.

Mudcat puts his heart and soul into each, and every, song that he sings, whether he is playing to a packed house, or is just singing to a few folks in the room, before the place gets packed. Offstage, though the man has achieved an international reputation, Mudcat is down to earth; no attitude, no bullshit; he is still the happy go lucky, wide-smiling guy that I met at Kool Korner so many years ago, when fame was just a glint in his eye.

Mudcat dropped out of The National Shakespeare Conservatory giving up an ambition to be an actor for a dream of being a musician, and he started playing on the streets of New York City. One day, as he was playing his guitar, and singing, for a group of people, one of New York’s finest came up and told him to, “Put that guitar down.”

Mudcat put the guitar down, but kept on singing to the people.

After he arrived in Atlanta, Mudcat continued to singing on the sidewalk to the people. He was joined for a number of years by by Evan Lee Frayer, and David “Snave” Evans. The trio was a regular fixture on the streets of Atlanta.

“We would quit a job to play on the streets at certain events,” relates Mudcat, pointing to The Piedmont Park Arts Festival as being one of those events.

(Finish the Daily K Story, and see Mudcat pictures by clicking here:  http://boldspicynews.com/2011/01/27/the-daily-k-mudcat-revolution/