The Saddle Cats play Western Swing music

To aspiring Arts and Music journalists in Buffalo back in the day, Jeff Simon of the Buffalo News was the gold standard: wickedly smart and funny, and wise in his tastes in arts and letters. He mentored younger writers, including my friend Richard Chon, who was a huge presence in Buffalo’s music scene in the 1980s. Here’s part of Simon’s review of “Herdin’ Cats,” the recent, debut album by Richard’s band “The Saddle Cats“:

“There may be no stranger or more delightful odyssey for a Buffalo-raised musician than that of Richard Chon. A former intern at this newspaper and longtime contributing classical music critic of notably stringent and noble standards, he went to Bakersfield as a journalist and somehow, miraculously made a wild and crazy left turn into becoming one of the more rollicking fiddle aristocrats of Western Swing on the West Coast…. [His album] is great fun, but as a tribute to the endless entertainment of human destiny, it’s even more than that.” Read the whole review here.