From Cincinnati to Nashville, Stacy Mitchhart is making a name
                  for himself
                  By Brian Baker

                        Blues musician Stacy Mitchhart has avoided the pitfalls
                        of the dreaded day job.

                  Someone, either Thomas Wolfe or my father, said that you can't go home again (actually, my father said "come home" and he was looking right at me when he said it). For native Cincinnatian Stacy Mitchhart, that platitude rings particularly true.
As often as he gets back to town after his momentous move to 
Nashville, Tenn., five years ago, the home he returns to on
the odd occasion is not the one he left in 1995. The Cincinnati that Mitchhart remembers had a vital club scene and  a thriving local music community, both of which were the center of his early career here. Although the local music scene is every bit as healthy and as broadly based as it was in the '80s, the number of clubs serving that scene has declined dramatically. That may be the biggest difference between Mitchhart's former musical life here in Cincinnati and his current situation in Nashville.
                  A decade-and-a-half ago in Cincinnati, Mitchhart was known locally for a number of gigs, among them his acoustic duo with Ken Cowden, his Jazz work with Park Avenue, and the occasional solo appearance. Mitchhart made a good living playing clubs all over the city.
                  These days, Mitchhart and his stellar Blues aggregation Blues-U-Can-Use are the five-night-a-week house band at Nashville's Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie Bar, regularly packing in the crowds. Since relocating to Nashville in the mid-'90s, Mitchhart has released three CDs (including a double  live CD recorded at the club), the latest of which, his fourth overall titled What I Feel, has him returning to Cincinnati  for a release party at the Blue Note. Needless to say, the change has done him good.
It''s clear from listening to Mitchhart''s story that everything  he learned in Cincinnati has been brought to bear on his Nashville experience. Without his essential early training here, he could never have achieved at the level he has there. 
     Mitchhart, an only child, was raised by parents who were
musical but not publicly so. In junior high, he made friends with the Hedges brothers, Eddie (who ultimately became a member of Blessid Union of Souls) and Billy (who still plays locally with Uptown Rhythm & Blues). They discovered their mutual musical aspirations early and pursued them, forming a  teen-age band in the ninth grade, practicing in the Hedges'  family basement. 
"Their daddy was a preacher with a little church on Gilbert Avenue," says Mitchhart from his new Nashville home. "The deal 
was that we could rehearse in the basement four or five days a 
week, and then every Sunday we would have to go down and be 
his band for church. The first Blues album I ever heard was
Bobby Bland and B.B. King together -- it was their mom''s
album. They said, ''You''re going to have to do at least one 
Blues song if you''re going to practice here.'' I learned a lot
about music there."  Mitchhart's band with the Hedges lasted six years, from junior  high until the end of their term at Sycamore High School. 
     During his college stint at Bowling Green, Mitchhart began
playing out to make some spare cash, first around campus and
then here during breaks at home. At Bowling Green, Mitchhart met  Ken Cowden(originally from Cleveland,OH) and the pair formed the popular and durable duo Mitchhart and Cowden,
a partnership that lasted until the mid-'80s. In 1986, Mitchhart  began his Jazz ensemble, The Park Avenue Band and began developing a local  following. Mitchhart slowly began playing more and more Blues, influenced by a number of local players, perhaps the brightest of them being legendary Big Ed Thompson, with whom Mitchhart sat in at every opportunity. 
     In 1988, Mitchhart married and moved to Philadelphia where his wife was in graduate school. The marriage lasted only as long as the graduate program, but the change of venue turned out to be a potent tonic for Mitchhart. He joined a couple of bands 
during his Philly experience, one of them backing an Atlantic City lounge singer who toured the East Coast extensively. "Think of the Bill Murray lounge guy, not quite as bad," says  Mitchhart. "As hokey-doke as it could be, I learned a hell of a lot about music and about being in somebody else''s band, and  how to treat the people that work for you."
                  Mitchhart left that band to join a contemporary R&B cover  band, which honed his chops considerably but was an
unsatisfying work environment. While on tour in Canada, he
made the decision to pursue the Blues direction that had given 
him the greatest satisfaction, and to rely on all of his musical education to make it happen.  "None of the Blues bands in Cincinnati I''d seen used horns much. It was mostly three- and four-piece things," says Mitchhart. "I  wanted to do something that used it all -- Sly, Funkadelic,  R&B, Soul, Blues." 
     Upon his return to Cincinnati in 1990, Mitchhart formed
Blues-U-Can-Use (named after his favorite album by Bobby Blue
Bland, now a personal friend) after accepting a band gig
without actually having a band. Mitchhart and his band became the most popular nd best paid blues act in the city. About the time his first CD , Blues Transfusion, had come out, the alternative music scene was starting. Some of the higher paying gigs were trying "the new thing", and money got a little shorter. The members of the band wanted to switch emphisis toward the new style. Mitchhart stuck to his guns and stayed loyal to his heart. The band left and started on thier own- to disband less than a year later. He picked up a couple of H-Bomb Fergusen's veteran players and started touring regionally as a 4-piece. He was examining his options when a friend in Nashville offered him a place to stay while he scouted the city and its possibilities. "I was doing a three-hour radius (from Cincinnati) and it was  time to expand the radius," Mitchhart says. "We had done some  things in Huntsville, Alabama. Nashville is four hours south of Cincinnati and an-hour-and-a-half north of Huntsville, so it  was a city that I could pick up and tie to the Southern stuff I was trying to do." 
     An audition at the Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie Bar turned
into a couple of dates, which resulted in an offer to play as the house band. He accepted and relocated to Nashville, assembling a brand new lineup. Since that initial gig in 1996,  Mitchhart and Blues-U-Can-Use have been the weekday house band  for the Bourbon Street, regularly filling the small club to  capacity. "This venue is one of the most unique gigs in the world," says Mitchhart. "I've been at the same place for five years, five  nights a week, and also out on the road. What''s really great is that they allow me to go do my thing other places. I get  the best of both worlds." 
     Despite the obvious differences between the scenes in
Cincinnati and Nashville, the biggest he has detected is a basic shift in the way entertainment is presented and perceived.
"When people come out to a club here, they''re ready for the show and come to hear the music," says Mitchhart. "As soon as you walk in the door, the stage is right there. The focus of  the whole club is right on the stage. So many clubs in Cincinnati, and out on the circuit, the entertainment appears like an afterthought, stuffed in a corner somewhere. It's easier to put on a show when people are in that right mindset before they even get there. Because of that, my show has developed, and my confidence, and the way I do things. I've  developed me, and I''m comfortable with what I'm doing and how  it comes across." 
    If there is anything that speaks volumes about Stacy Mitchhart's dedication to his musical craft, it's the fact  that he has been able to avoid one of the pitfalls of the  struggling musician: the day job. Mitchhart has always made  his living playing music. The disc sales on his first three titles have totaled more than 20,000, and What I Feel is likely to be his biggest release yet; he continues to draw big crowds at his standing Bourbon Street gig; and his regional tours are big successes. 
      "There are so many great players in Cincinnati," says
Mitchhart. "And there are so many more in Nashville and casino 
towns like Atlantic City, because of the proximity to New York
and Philly and D.C. Gigs would start at 2 a.m. and go until 6 a.m. And that goes on all the time. Cincinnati is just such a weekend town, it's hard for musicians to make a living here (without a job). When you can'' concentrate on what you do one hundred percent, it's hard to be the best you can be."