Scene readers will know Fats Kaplin as a musician of extraordinary breadth and depth, whether he’s leading his own Fats Kaplin Gang or in a supporting role — on one of a huge range of instruments — with artists ranging from Mitski to Paul Burch and beyond. A recent suite of releases shines a light on Kaplin’s earliest days as a pro player.
Spring Fed Records, the nonprofit label run by the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, has made a digital reissue of 1975’s Git-Fiddle Shuffle and 1977’s Ragtime Millionaire, two long-out-of-print albums featuring Kaplin as the supporting instrumentalist in a duo with East Coast blues and folk champion Roy Book Binder. Better Times Down the Road, a vinyl compilation offering the pair’s favorite cuts from both releases, is being pressed in a limited edition of 300, and copies will be available soon directly from the Center and at the merch table on Book Binder’s tour stops.
The material on Shuffle focuses on songs that Book Binder, a stellar fingerstyle guitarist and singer, learned directly from blues mentors like the Rev. Gary Davis and Pink Anderson. Meanwhile, there are more originals on Millionaire, though there is plenty of classic material as well, like Josh White’s “One Meat Ball” and Big Bill Broonzy’s “Long Tall Mama.”
You’ll take to the style instantly if, like me, Hot Tuna was the lens through which you started to learn about the vast spectrum of the blues. And to borrow an appropriate metaphor sometimes applied to the Grateful Dead (when they played their best, anyway), Book Binder and Kaplin sound like different fingers of the same hand on the records. It’s impressive under any circumstances, and even more so when you consider Kaplin was still just cutting his teeth in the music world.
Check out Kaplin’s in-depth talk with Spring Fed for some background on how he and Book Binder met and the way their work has shaped his career; also see Kaplin’s interview with WMOT’s Craig Havighurst ahead of a 2023 show with Book Binder at The 5 Spot. Book Binder and Kaplin don’t have any nearby dates on the books, but they will celebrate the release with a performance at MerleFest, which runs April 24 through 27 in Wilkesboro, N.C.
