Johnny Blue Horn in the Patriot Ledger!

Who's your favorite Chicken Slack? If, like so many of you, it's Johnny Blue Horn, today is your lucky day! The South Shore's daily newspaper The Patriot Ledger recently interviewed the Quincy native...read on for all things Johnny:


Johnny Blue Horn couldn’t be happier
Jay Miller - The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
Friday, February 20, 2009

Quincy’s John Moriconi has followed his love of rhythm and blues and soul to many interesting places. But he’s seldom been happier than when he’s performing as a trumpeter and secondary vocalist for The Chicken Slacks.
The septet, which plays every Thursday night at The Cantab Lounge in Cambridge’s Central Square, has just released an album entitled “Can You Dig It?,” a baker’s dozen of incendiary soul and R&B tracks, including four originals.
The band is a featured attraction at tonight’s Mardi Gras Ball at Johnny D’s in Somerville.
Most South Shore fans will recall Moriconi - also known as Johnny Blue Horn - as the multi-talented frontman for Mission Of Blues for more than a dozen years. That band, led by guitarist Steve Todesco of Roslindale, also includes Rockland drummer Gary MacDonald. But Moriconi, who held down a day job in an administrative office for all of that run, eventually grew restless and wanted to explore other options.
“I had been with Mission Of Blues about 11 or 12 years, and I loved the band,” said Moriconi. “But it was staying where it was. I just felt I needed a different path. Rhythm & Blues and soul music had always been my first love, and Mission did some of that, but mostly blues covers. I made a decision in about mid-2006 to leave that band, simply because I wanted to go in a different direction.”
Word soon worked its way through the Boston-area music scene, and before long Moriconi had a new offer.
“That summer…The Chicken Slacks told me they were looking for a trumpet player,” said Moriconi. “I had never even seen the band before, but I went to one of their shows and I knew this was a good fit.”
Moriconi is a native of Colchester, CT, who began playing trumpet when he was eight years old. From school bands he soon gravitated to garage bands, listening all the while to the variety of tunes FM radio offered in the 1970s.
“It’s not easy to be in a garage band when you play trumpet, and all the music is made for guitars,” Moriconi said.
After high school, Moriconi joined the Air Force, where he tried out unsuccessfully for the Air Force band and worked on expanding his collection of cassette tapes.
“I developed a knack of invading people’s record collections,” Moriconi said. “Whenever someone new arrived on the base, I’d ask if I could check out their record collection and I’d make my own cassettes. I ended up with about 400 tapes of all kinds of music.”
When he finished his tour with the Air Force, he came to Boston to team up with a friend who was a drummer studying at Berklee College of Music. Moriconi landed a spot in a band called Drive All Night soon thereafter. In 1992, Moriconi answered a newspaper ad for a blues band and became one of the Roadhouse Sheiks, a band best remembered for hosting the weekly blues jams at the Days Inn in Brighton for a time. Around ’95, Moriconi spotted another ad, this time for a singer/harmonica player. It turned out to be Mission Of Blues, and Moriconi convinced them his trumpet was just as good as a blues harp, and undoubtedly more unique.
Mission Of Blues spent a few years developing its sound, and by 1999 shocked many Beantown hipsters by winning the Battle of the Boston Blues Bands at Harper’s Ferry in Allston.
“We came out of nowhere that year,” Moriconi said.
But the time had come to forge new territory, and that was with The Chicken Slacks. He said it’s been a kick from the first notes they played together.
“What I like most about The Chicken Slacks is that their repertoire is not the same standard tunes that 50 other bands around town are playing,” he said. “On this album we have four originals, but some really obscure songs from other artists, too. Everyone in this band is a really good student of music, so we have a lot of great input. The first tune on the CD is actually a Captain Beefheart song - he’s best known for his satirical music, but he also wrote some really good soul music, too.”
Besides Moriconi, The Chicken Slacks include Durand Wilkerson on lead vocals, Jeremy Valadez on sax, Curtis Jerome Haynes on keyboards, Mike Null on guitar, Rick Rosco on bass and Justin Berthiaume on drums.
The weekly sessions at the Cantab have been a godsend for the band, offering exposure and a great venue to unveil new material.
“The Cantab residency is a true rarity, a long-term gig at such a legendary spot,” Moriconi said.
Jay N. Miller covers popular music on the South Shore and in the Boston area.