Ask him if he REALLY recorded a song called (and I'm not making this up) "Baked Beans and Weiners, My Heart's At The Cleaners And My Love's Hung Out To Dry"

One of my most treasured pieces of vinyl is and Album by a band calliing themselves "New Heavenly Blue" vintage @'70-72. A young Madcat Ruth on harp and Chris Brubeck in the band (liner notes by Dave Brubek who disclaimed said song in the note).

Joel Mabus once told me that on a particular Claudia Schmidt album project, Claudia had failed to accurately tune her guitar but decided AFTER the fact that she'd like to have a little harmonica accompaniment. Ruth was actually able to oblige her request with all his work done "bent"

The newest Joel Mabus cd is a marvelous work in which Madcat and Don Stierenburg are essentially Joel's band. Everybody ought to own this cd. A little less well know is a Frielander and Hall cd with the same combo as background musicians.

I did the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair and for more than 15 years Ruth was the biggest attraction to the stage acts (along with the Chenielle Sisters, and the Bluefront Persuaders, and Mr B. If you were real lucky you might catch Madcat sittin' in with any of them.

Wish I could be there for the interview though I will say that my personal experience with him was a less than friendly back stage, after performance, where I asked if he might have any recordings, to which he replied quite smartly "Yeah, I've got lots of recordings..."