For the past decade, The Lucky Losers have been making a mark in the blues world. Led by co-vocalists Cathy Lemons and Phil Berkowitz, with the latter also playing harmonica, this dynamic band have won numerous awards while garnering even more nominations. They’ve also performed in nearly all 50 states and both their recordings and live performances have garnered widespread acclaim. On September 25, this act from San Francisco are going to be taking the stage at The Stomping Ground in Putnam. The show starts at 8pm, and it promises to be a stellar way to ring in the weekend a day early.
I had a chance to talk with both Lemons and Berkowitz ahead of their performance about how The Lucky Losers started, how they both ended up in San Francisco from different locations and a new album they have coming out.
RD: How did the both of you get together to start this band and begin this whole creative endeavor?
CL: Well, we both had been splitting up with our longtime partners. I was splitting up with my bass-playing partner and Phil was going through a divorce when I met him. He hired me to sing on a big show he was putting on and I told him,”No”, and then my friend Dave Workman, who was at the gig I was at, said,”What are you doing? Turn around, go back and talk to him. He’s a nice guy and he’s a really good musician, go up there and take that gig.” I went back to talk to him, we did a rehearsal and I liked him, I thought he was very handsome, and we hit it off.
PB: It was a potential songwriting partnership.
CL: Yeah, he likes to write songs and I like to write songs. We’re in the same musical bag, we like the exact same artists, and our setlists were eerily similar for traditional blues songs. He did almost 20 of the songs I know and do, which was weird.
PB: You were into some soul stuff that I had never heard.
CL: I turned you on to soul.
PB: We then turned each other on to the things that we were already interested in, if not good at portraying in some way. That’s how it sort of amalgamated.
CL: We then went out on a road trip, we started singing out loud together, and I heard a really great blend. I then said,”S***, man. Maybe we should put a band together,” and we just started it out. We then won a local International Blues Challenge in the Bay Area, and we won the wild card round, so that was kind of nice. Phil’s father came down to see us there, so Phil’s from New Jersey, and I like New Yorkers, my ex-husband was a New Yorker, and I’m from Dallas, so we’re very frank people and we hit it off.
PB: We also like traveling together.
CL: We do like traveling together, we’re a good mix, so that’s how it started.
RD: Cathy, you just mentioned that you’re from Dallas and Phil is from New Jersey, so how did the both of you end up in San Francisco of all places? Was it because of the music scene and its history there, or was there some other reasoning?
PB: For myself, I think it was more peripheral because at the time, when I moved out there, I was not a performing musician at all. I didn’t take up harmonica and start playing professionally until I was in my 30s, but when I moved to San Francisco during my 20s, there was a lot about the culture behind the music and the history of the music that came in and out of there during the ‘60s that really intrigued me. After living there, and being able to travel around the greater state of California, there’s a lot of natural beauty.
CL: It’s so beautiful there, it is. I came out on the run from the law in Texas. (laughs) I am a former addict and I got into a lot of trouble, so I ran away to go sleep on my mother’s couch in San Francisco. I met a lot of musicians when I went out to this place called The Saloon, I just hit it off with all those people there. I figured that I could probably work there and just stay, so I stayed and I still work at The Saloon to this day.
I still do gigs there, in fact, we did a show there before we went on this tour.
PB: I’m also one of the junior members of The Saloon.
CL: We love the Bay Area, it’s a very free and open place. The natural beauty is just so pretty with the forests.
RD: It’s fantastic that you’ve had such great experiences out there. The Lucky Losers have a new album titled “Arrival” that’s coming out on November 7, so tell us a little bit about it. What was the experience like making it and where was it recorded?
CL: We made it with Kid Andersen at Greasland Studios, which is a really important studio in blues right now. He just finished recording D.K. Harrell, he’s with Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, and they’ve had a lot of great CDs come out of there.
PB: He’s done some excellent stuff there, especially within the last five years.
CL: He’s gotten better and better.
PB: We’ve seen that happen with him as he’s seen our progress over the last 10 plus years.
CL: We’ve been working with Kid ever since our first record in 2015 when we released “A Winning Hand”, and this is our sixth release. I think “Arrival” is probably our best album because we just have it down to a fine science now where Phil writes half the songs and I write the other half. We try to even it up with our sharing of leads, and then we harmonize, so it’s an interesting combination of vocals and stories. Phil is a little more cinematic and poetic while I’m a little more political and a little more about current events.
PB: Together, we like to have our duets convey a sense of humor that you would see on a lot of TV shows back in the ‘60s. Those variety shows.
CL: Yeah, we like duets. We always have a good duet on each album, if not two, and it’s always a male/female battle of the sexes type of thing, they’re funny. We had a lot of fun making “Arrival” and it took us about three months in total to really nail it down and get all the vocals and parts. We have some horns on the album and we have a nice variety of grooves. It’s blues, it’s soul and I think people will really like it.
PB: People like a good diversity and variety to primarily blues-influenced music, and I think they’re going to like a lot of these original songs that Cathy and I have written. We write these songs with other people in mind as well, of course.
RD: I’m looking forward to hearing it when it comes out. Being from the other side of the country, what are your thoughts on coming to Connecticut to perform at The Stomping Ground?
CL: We’ve been there before and we liked it.
PB: Yeah, we were there in either 2021 or 2022. It’s a fun little place and they always seem like they’re constantly showcasing whatever sort of bands that are happening either locally or touring, such as us. It’s a neat little spot that’s an hour outside of Hartford, and I got friends from up in that area. I went to boarding school in Connecticut when I was 17, so there’s going to be some people coming out who I know. I’m a little more familiar with the state than Cathy, but we’ve played there a few times and we’re really looking forward to playing there again to showcase this new album.
RD: Very cool. For people in Connecticut who aren’t familiar with you guys but they know about the Stomping Ground and they’re going to come to the show, what can they expect? What would you say makes The Lucky Losers stand out to the casual listener?
PB: All originals.
CL: Yeah, and really good singing. We’re essentially a vocal band, if you like vocals, if you like harmonies, if you like blues-based music, we’re it for you. We’ve got a five-piece all-veteran band, we got Steve Bass, who performed for years with Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, and he’s a great drummer. We got Chris Burns on keys, and he has performed with Maria Maldaur for 30 years along with a million other people.
PB: Our songs are award-winning songs, that’s another legitimate reason why people are going to be impressed with the catalog of songs that we have. We’re going to be playing at least between 15 to 20 of them that evening, so we’re really looking forward to putting on a good show.