Bands // p 32 of 34

This Is the Kit

This Is the Kit is the alias of British musician Kate Stables, as well as the band she fronts.

Critical attention

This Is The Kit were a long-time favourite among various BBC Radio 6 Music DJs, which is where the musician and presenter Guy Garvey discovered them, playing their music frequently. Fellow 6 Music DJs Lauren Laverne, Radcliffe & Maconie, Cerys Matthews, and Mary Anne Hobbs have also been major supporters; DJ Marc Riley has hosted the band for three BBC live sessions to date. BBC Radio 1 has offered the band spot plays via DJs Huw Stephens, Jen & Ally, and Phil Taggart.

As the band prepared to release their third album Bashed Out in late 2014 and early 2015, they began to receive more attention from online and print critics. Uncut, Drowned in Sound, The Line of Best Fit and The 405 awarded the album 8/10 ratings. The Mancunion rated a live show a 9/10. Finally, the American blog Stereogum wrote that "Kate Stables has been recording music as This Is The Kit for years now, but this is probably one of the first times you’re reading about her. "Bashed Out" will be her third full-length album, and…it will also likely be her breakout."

The band received a boost in attention in August 2015 when BBC iPlayer debuted an episode of the documentary series Music Box devoted to This Is The Kit's music and influences. The show was hosted by Garvey, who argued that their second album, Wriggle Out the Restless, deserved a Mercury Prize nomination.

The band also appeared in the BBC One television series Wanderlust, playing in a night club that Toni Colette's character Joy attended.

Recording history

In 2006, record label Sunday Best Recordings included the band's song "Two Wooden Spoons" in its Folk Off compilation album alongside artists including Animal Collective, Tunng and Vashti Bunyan. Their song was noted as a standout with Drowned in Sound stating: "its personal touch is largely what makes This Is The Kit the British highlight, not to mention that of the compilation as a whole". Following that, Sunday Best went on to release "Two Wooden Spoons" as a 7" single with the B side "Come a Cropper" in 2006.

This Is The Kit's first album, Krülle Bol (2008), was produced in Bristol by John Parish, a musician best known as PJ Harvey's longtime producer. It was originally released on the French label Microbe but has since been reissued on the band's own imprint.

The band's second album, Wriggle Out the Restless, was originally released by Dreamboat Records in 2010 and later reissued by the band's own Disco-ordination Records. In 2013 distribution began migrating to Brassland Records. The recording sessions drew on the talents of the Stables' extended musical community including Rozi Plain, Jim Barr, Francois & the Atlas Mountains and The Liftmen. The album was produced by longtime collaborator and partner Jesse D. Vernon.

In 2014, the band began work on their third studio LP Bashed Out with Aaron Dessner of The National. The band's usual members contributed to the recording as did studio musicians recruited by Aaron Dessner, including his brother Bryce Dessner, Benjamin Lanz, Thomas Bartlett, and Matt Barrick, amongst others. Brassland released the album in April 2015. It received attention as the band's "breakthrough" recording, and as one of the best British recordings of 2015.

July 2017 brought the release of the band's fourth LP Moonshine Freeze. The record was well received and chosen as the Rough Trade Album of the Month for July.

In October 2020, the band released their fifth LP Off Off On, again with Rough Trade.

^{Source Wikipedia}

This Lonesome Paradise

Reverb-soaked retribution, lounge lust and the enigmatic echoes of western noir. Welcome to This Lonesome Paradise.

^{Source bandcamp.com}

Thomas Mapfumo

Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo (born July 3, 1945) is a musician nicknamed "The Lion of Zimbabwe" and "Mukanya" (the praise name of his clan in the Shona language) for his immense popularity and for the political influence he wields through his music, including his sharp criticism of the government of President Robert Mugabe. He both created and made popular Chimurenga music, and his slow-moving style and distinctive voice is instantly recognisable to Zimbabweans.

Mapfumo was imprisoned without charges under the white-dominated regime of Rhodesia, and he was hounded by the Mugabe government of Zimbabwe that succeeded it. He lived in exile in the United States for two decades, and in April 2018, returned to Zimbabwe for the first time since 2005 to perform a concert.

Mapfumo was born in 1945 in Marondera, Mashonaland East, a town southeast of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, though at the time the capital was called Salisbury and the country was a colony of Great Britain called Southern Rhodesia (becoming Rhodesia in ordinary usage after Northern Rhodesia gained independence as Zambia). He lived a traditional, rural Shona lifestyle until the age of ten, when his family moved to the Harare township of Mbare. It was during these early years that he was exposed to the traditional music of the Shona, the influence of which would drive his later music to incorporate and/or reflect the sounds of the ngoma drum and the mbira, a metal-pronged instrument with spiritual importance.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tiana Major9 & Earthgang

Tiana Major9 & Earthgang Deliver Enchanting 'Collide' Performance at 2019 Billboard Women in Music

Tiana Major9 is one to watch in 2020, and she made that clear with a breathtaking performance at Billboard's 2019 Women in Music ceremony.

She was introduced by President of Motown Records Ethiopia Habtemariam, who remembered when Queen & Slim director Melina Matsoukas approached her, asking for an "incredible soundtrack" for the film. The soundtrack, and Major9's contribution, Habtemariam noted are "an accompaniment to a triggering and provoking film that allows you see us, love us, understand us."

Tiana Major9 and her collaborator Earthgang wrote "Collide" specifically for Queen & Slim, and the duo delivered a smooth, intimate performance of the tune. Their chemistry was flowing strong, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes as they sang the touching chorus. It was a beautiful representation of the "black love story" Habtemariam praised Queen & Slim for being.

by Rania Aniftos

^{Source billboard.com}

Timber Timbre

Timber Timbre is a Canadian music group, featuring Taylor Kirk, Simon Trottier, Mathieu Charbonneau and Mark Wheaton. The moniker refers to an early series of recordings made in a timber-framed cabin set in the wooded outskirts of Bobcaygeon, Ontario.

Timber Timbre released two albums independently before releasing their self-titled album on Out of This Spark in January 2009. They were subsequently signed to Arts & Crafts, who re-released the album on June 30 in Canada and July 28 internationally. The album was named as a longlist nominee for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize on June 15, 2009, and was deemed album of the year by Eye Weekly.

The band's song "Magic Arrow" was featured in the television show Breaking Bad, in the episode "Caballo Sin Nombre", as well as in the TV series The Good Wife, in the episode "Bitcoin for Dummies". "Black Water" features on the soundtrack for the 2012 comedy, For a Good Time, Call..., as well Bottom of the World (2017). Their song "Demon Host" was featured in the end credits to the 2013 film The Last Exorcism Part II, and in the movie The Gambler (2014).

The band's fourth album, Creep On Creepin' On, was released in April 2011. It was named as one of ten shortlisted nominees for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize, losing to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. In 2012, the band supported British folk singer Laura Marling on her UK tour and Canadian singer Feist on her tour of America.

The band's fifth record, Hot Dreams, was released April 1, 2014. It was a shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize, but lost to Tanya Tagaq's Animism. The song "Run From Me" is featured in the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country, and in the sixth season of Netflix TV series Orange is the New Black.

Timber Timbre's sixth album, Sincerely, Future Pollution, was released on April 7, 2017, on City Slang Records. The album's first single, "Sewer Blues", was released in January 2017. The second single, "Velvet Gloves & Spit", was released on February 15, 2017.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tinariwen

Tinariwen, pronounced tinariwen "deserts", plural of ténéré "desert" is a group of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed in 1979 in Tamanrasset, Algeria, but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. The group first started to gain a following outside the Sahara region in 2001 with the release of The Radio Tisdas Sessions, and with performances at Festival au Désert in Mali and the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Their popularity rose internationally with the release of the critically acclaimed Aman Iman in 2007. NPR calls the group "music's true rebels", AllMusic deems the group's music "a grassroots voice of rebellion", and Slate calls the group "rock 'n' roll rebels whose rebellion, for once, wasn't just metaphorical"

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tindersticks

Tindersticks are an English alternative rock band formed in Nottingham in 1991. They released six albums before singer Stuart A. Staples embarked on a solo career. The band reunited briefly in 2006 and more permanently the following year. The band recorded several film soundtracks, and have a long-standing relationship collaborating with French director Claire Denis.

History

Staples, Boulter, Fraser, Macauley and Hinchliffe, all former members of Asphalt Ribbons, formed the band in 1991. The final line-up for the Old Horse mini-LP (1991) was: Stuart Staples (vocals), Dave Boulter (organ and accordion), Neil Fraser (guitar), Dickon Hinchliffe (guitar and strings), Al Macauley (percussion and drums), and John Thompson (bass). Mark Colwill was recruited when Thompson left the Asphalt Ribbons, but it is not known if he played any gigs under the Asphalt Ribbons name. They then changed their name to Tindersticks after Staples discovered a box of German matches on a Greek beach.

Tindersticks started recording demo tapes in 1992, and formed their own label Tippy Toe Records to release their first single, "Patchwork", in the same year.

Their self-titled first and second albums established their signature sound and received widespread critical acclaim. Their live performances, often augmented by large string sections and even, on occasion, a full orchestra, were well received. The live album The Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95 is a recording of one such concert. By the time of the third album, Curtains, however, it was clear that a change of direction was called for.

The fourth album, Simple Pleasure, lived up to its title with a series of snappy, direct songs influenced by soul music. The female backing vocals on several tracks, and the respectful cover of Odyssey's "If You're Looking for a Way Out", signalled the band's wish to move towards lighter, more soulful material. However, the inner sleeve's documentation of the number of takes each track went through was evidence that the band continued to adopt a painstaking approach to recording.

The fifth album, Can Our Love..., continued the band's soulful direction, in particular evidence on the tender "Sweet Release" and in the nod to The Chi-Lites in the title of "Chilitetime".

The sixth album, Waiting for the Moon, was more stripped down and introspective in nature, particularly on the harrowing "4.48 Psychosis" (based on the play of the same name by the British playwright Sarah Kane) and "Sometimes It Hurts". Only the bouncy "Just a Dog" lightened the otherwise melancholy mood of the album.

In 2005, Staples embarked on a solo career and there was resultant speculation that the band had split. Staples has so far produced two solo albums, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04 and Leaving Songs. The title of the second album, and Staples' notes on it, indicated that change was in the air: "These are songs written on the verge of leaving the things I loved and stepping into a new unknown life, both musically and personally. I was always aware that these songs were the end of something, a kind of closing a circle of a way of writing that I started so long ago and I knew I had to move on from."

In September 2006, the band played a one-off concert at London's Barbican Centre, performing their second album in full with a nine-member string section and two brass players, including former collaborator Terry Edwards on trumpet.

Staples later acknowledged that this show, while being a happy triumph, was also "tinged with sadness of the knowledge that the six of us had made all the new music we were going to make together." However, it also rekindled his determination to make a new album.

In 2007, a stripped-down line-up of three of the original band, Staples, Boulter and Fraser, spent time writing and recording in a newly equipped studio in Limousin, France. They were joined by Thomas Belhom on drums and Dan McKinna on bass, with Ian Caple engineering. The resulting album, The Hungry Saw, was released on Beggars Banquet in April 2008. Tindersticks played a number of other European dates during the summer festival season and also announced a winter 2008 European tour.

In 2010, the eighth studio album Falling Down a Mountain was released on 4AD/Constellation Records with a changed band line-up, with Earl Harvin replacing Belhom on drums and David Kitt, a solo artist in his own right, joining the band on guitar and vocals.

The group's ninth studio album The Something Rain was released in February 2012. The following tours in spring, summer (festival concerts) and autumn, showed the band now touring in their again reduced 5-member core line-up (Stuart Staples, David Boulter, Neil Fraser, Dan McKinna and Earl Harvin), supported at selected gigs by Terry Edwards on horns.

In October 2013, after missing the band's 20th anniversary the years before, the band released their tenth studio album, the retrospective Across Six Leap Years, containing ten re-recorded songs from their back-catalog and from Stuart A. Staples solo album period. In the autumn of 2013 they toured several European capital cities in their Across Six Leap Years anniversary tour, supported by Terry Edwards on saxophone and horns and Gina Foster on backing vocals.

In 2016 they released their eleventh studio album The Waiting Room, followed by an extensive tour in February to May 2016.

Their 12th studio album, No Treasure But Hope, was released in later 2019 to positive reviews, with a tour planned for 2020. Ahead of these tour dates, the band released the four-song See My Girls EP along with a video for the title track.

U.S. and European tour dates were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why the core band focused on working on a new album during 2020. In January 2021, the band announced their thirteenth regular album Distractions, which was released on February 19th and charted at number 15 in the Offizielle Deutsche Charts' Album Top 100 in Germany.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and actor. His music is characterized by his distinctive deep, gravelly voice and lyrics focusing on the underside of society. During the 1970s, he worked primarily in jazz, but since the 1980s his music has reflected greater influence from blues, vaudeville, and experimental genres.

Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in California. He was inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation as a teenager, so he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit, relocating to Los Angeles in 1972. He worked there as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums were the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), which reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. He has repeatedly toured the U.S., Europe, and Japan and has attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), which he followed with Blue Valentine (1978) and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's 1981 film One from the Heart and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films.

In 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, broke from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. Under his wife's encouragement, he pursued a new, more experimental and eclectic musical aesthetic influenced by the work of Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. This was reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in film, taking a leading role in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986). In the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and various Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he switched to the record label Anti-, which released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011).

Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in the U.S., while they have occasionally achieved gold status in other countries. He has a cult following and has influenced many singer-songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was included among the 2010 list of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers, as well as the 2015 Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.

Tómas R. Einarsson

Tómas R. Einarsson (born 1953) is an Icelandic composer and double bass player who has been prominent in the Icelandic jazz scene since the early nineties. Much of his later work is influenced by Cuban jazz music.

In 2014 he was granted the Order of the Falcon by the President of Iceland for his contribution to jazz and culture.

Life and career

Tómas was born in the town Blönduós in the north of Iceland and grew up in Dalabyggð. He studied at Hamrahlid College in Reykjavík and was at the time a radical socialist who often took part in demonstrations. He began playing the double bass during his time studying history and Spanish at the University of Iceland. His first composition on record appeared in 1982 with the jazz group Nýja kompaníið on the album Þegar kvölda tekur.

In 1992 he formed the band Reykjavík Jazz Quartet with the saxophonist Sigurður Flosason. The group was popular in the nineties and performed around Europe. He also toured and made albums with the Ólafur Stephensen Trio.

He won the Icelandic Music Awards in 2003 for the jazz record of the year and jazz composition of the year, in 2004 for the jazz composition of the year for his song with Ólafía Hrönn, and then again in 2012 for the jazz composition of the year.

In 2015 he released an album with Sigríður Thorlacius, the singer from the pop group Hjaltalín.

The majority of Tómas' compositions have appeared on his own records, but they may be found on over 20 albums by other artists. He has been a sideman on recordings with several well-known Icelandic artists, including folk singer Megas, rock artist Bubbi Morthens, and indie artist Mugison.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tommy Guerrero

Tommy Guerrero may be better known in the world of skateboarding than music. Born in San Francisco, Guerrero joined the skate company Powell Peralta in 1984 and became one of the original members of the legendary "Bones Brigade" team. TG has been playing music since the late 70's with his brother Tony  -both raised on a steady diet of DIY punk music/ethos and skateboarding-which informed and shaped the person he is today. Since then, Guerrero has become an accomplished bassist and guitarist with influences as diverse as John Coltrane, Bad brains, Joy division Gabor Szabo and on and on... 

^{Source tommyguerrero.com}

Tommy McCook & The Supersonics

Tommy McCook (3 March 1927 – 5 May 1998) was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s.

Biography
McCook was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Jamaica in 1933. He took up the tenor saxophone at the age of eleven, when he was a pupil at the Alpha School, and eventually joined Eric Dean’s Orchestra.

In 1954 he left for an engagement in Nassau, Bahamas, after which he ended up in Miami, Florida, and it was here that McCook first heard John Coltrane and fell in love with jazz. McCook returned to Jamaica in early 1962, where he was approached by a few local producers to do some recordings. Eventually he consented to record a jazz session for Clement "Coxson" Dodd, which was issued on the album as "Jazz Jamaica". His first ska recording was an adaptation of Ernest Gold’s "Exodus", recorded in November 1963 with musicians who would soon make up the Skatalites.

During the 1960s and 1970s McCook recorded with the majority of prominent reggae artists of the era, working particularly with producer Bunny Lee and his house band, The Aggrovators, as well as being featured prominently in the recordings of Yabby You and the Prophets (most notably on version sides and extended disco mixes), all while still performing and recording with the variety of line ups under the Skatalites name. When McCook was bandleader for The Supersonics, the band included bassist Jackie Jackson and drummer Paul Douglas, who became the rhythm section for Toots and the Maytals when the era of reggae emerged from rocksteady.

McCook died of pneumonia and heart failure, aged 71, on 5 May 1998.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tony Holiday

There are many young players on the current international blues scene and Tony Holiday is one that stands out amongst the finest!

Tony Holiday, a Vocalist and Harmonica player hailing from Memphis TN has been recognized by peers such as Charlie Musselwhite and James Harman as a rising star in the community and Holiday included both, amongst many others, on his latest release of field recordings Tony Holiday’s Porch Sessions where Holiday and Partner Landon Stone have criss-crossed the country recording famous blues musicians and playing with them on their front porches, out with the Vizztone Label January 2019.

Tony, on vocals and harp, brings out that old school voice that is sometimes missing from the Blues scene today. It harkens back to when the Blues were just finding their way in the new electric age. In that transition, the sounds that were coming out of the local independent record labels in Memphis and that you might of heard from the King Biscuit Hour in its later years or on one of the other many stations that spotted the value of the Blues. His passion and vocal strength with a soulman’s heart and wicked sense of impish humor blend to let you enjoy those deep blues and then chuckle when you might not otherwise have done so at the sometimes dark current of Blues. He has the ability to make you laugh in the face of pain so that you can take that next step by turning on your heel and walking into the light where he’s got a tune for you there for you to meet your next ex-wife on the dance floor and make some memories.
With him on guitar is Landon Stone. Tall and lean with the brooding face of so many guitarists who have melded with the instrument, he places a perfect counterpoint to Tony’s harp. When the two play off of one another, well… frankly… you forget your damp and tired and hungry after a long rainy day of festival music, and you just have fun!

Holiday fearlessly crosses the line between traditional Blues and Soul and modern day Americana with brilliant writing expressing Holiday’s poetic side, humor and touching on issues like Love, Heartache and Stories from Holiday’s traveling lifestyle. A combination of a family man and a road dog, Holiday finds the balance in his life as well as his music.Keeping a tight leash on his vocal control and harmonica tone Holiday has been named in the top 10 young harmonica players in the country via Rick Estrin and Blues Harmonica Player Forum.

Tony Holiday’s Porch Sessions out with the Vizztone Label is reminiscent of Alan Lomax’s landmark field recordings and the live recordings that have surfaced from Chicago’s famed Maxwell St era.

^{Source tonyholidaymusic.com}

Toots & The Maytals

Toots and the Maytals, originally called The Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group and one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music. Frontman Toots Hibbert's soulful vocal style has been compared to Otis Redding, and led him to be named one of the 100 Greatest Singers by Rolling Stone. Their 1968 single "Do the Reggay", was the first song to use the word "reggae", naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. As Island Records founder Chris Blackwell says, "The Maytals were unlike anything else ... sensational, raw and dynamic."

^{Source Wikipedia}

Tower of Power

Oakland, California music legends Tower of Power - the most dynamic and distinctive band of survivors in Soul Music – is roaring into its unprecedented 50th anniversary with a dynamic new disc of all new material that finds them as energized and inspired as ever. A labor of love, definitively titled Soul Side of Town, this package is charged with 14 filler-free songs. In the spirit of their enduring theme song “Oakland Stroke” – the bookending intro and outro “East Bay” shine a light on elemental instrumental ingredients within the band’s signature sound. This astounding and historical release (available June 1, 2018 in digital, vinyl, streaming & CD configurations) inaugurates Tower of Power’s fresh affiliation with Mack Avenue Records, a Detroit-based company renowned for its award-winning dedication to top-tier Jazz that is now extending its support to Soul and Funk giants, Tower of Power: a band so one-of-a-kind, it’s an institution.

As always, the songs on Tower of Power’s Soul Side of Town were primarily composed by the hitmaking team of founding members Emilio Castillo (Detroit-born on 2nd tenor sax) and Stephen “Doc” Kupka (Los Angeles-born on baritone sax) who also hold down the world famous 5-man Tower of Power Horns. For the special occasion of Tower of Power’s 50th anniversary, leader Emilio Castillo brought in a most-astute choice in co-producer, Joe Vannelli: an all-around production/engineering/keyboard master best known for the jazz-tinged Soul-Rock Grammy-winning work he performed behind the scenes with his international superstar brother, Gino Vannelli. Also insuring that the sound blasts powerful and clear from your speakers is the presence of mastering engineer Bernie Grundman in the mix. Along with the legendary rhythm section drums and bass lock of David Garibaldi and Francis Rocco Prestia, respectively, these decorated veterans have custom-crafted a hair-raising audio experience that longtime fans, music connoisseurs and a new generation of listeners will groove to for years to come.

In keeping with Tower of Power’s golden canon of classics, the new material picks up the torch in all of the time-tested styles fans respect and love. In line with hiply intricate, cranial-crushing funk classics such as “Down to the Nightclub” and “Soul Vaccination” are new jams “Do You Like That” and “On the Soul Side of Town.” In the tradition of heart-stopping balladry like their biggest chart hits “You’re Still a Young Man” and “So Very Hard to Go” are new love songs like “Let it Go” (Bruno Mars will want to cover this one) and “Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” Along the firing-on-all-cylinders line of instrumental anomalies such as “Squib Cakes,” “Walking Up Hip Street” and “Ebony Jam” are burnin’ offerings “Butter-Fried” and “After Hours.” Following up positivity primers such as “Knock Yourself Out,” “You’ve Got to Funkifize” and “Credit” are new spirit lifters “Selah,” “Love Must Be Patient and Kind” and “Do it With Soul,” along with T.O.P.’s singular approach to Pop-Rock on “When Love Takes Control.”

Along with veteran members Castillo, Kupka, Garibaldi and Prestia, T.O.P. consists of guitarist Jerry Cortez, Hammond B3 organist/keyboardist Roger Smith, 1st tenor saxophonist Tom Politzer, and trumpeters Adolfo Acosta and Sal Cracchiolo. Soul Side of Town is also blessed with not one but two lead singers: outgoing Ray Greene (now in Santana) and incoming Marcus Scott (boldly introduced on several selections, including “Hanging with My Baby”). The 10-piece Tower of Power band is prepared to throw down next year with a celebratory tour that will include sweet spots around the globe.

Since its formation in Oakland, California in 1968, Tower of Power has forged a reputation as a crack band of high achieving musicians fluent in all realms of Soul, Rock and Pop music with a sophistication and punch like that of a Jazz big band. From their first album East Bay Grease (1970) on Rock impresario Bill Graham’s San Francisco Records label (distributed by Atlantic), the interracial band became pillars and signatures of The Bay Area Music Scene that included pioneering like-minded bands such as Sly & The Family Stone, Cold Blood, Graham Central Station, The Pointer Sisters and The Sons of Champlin plus rock-oriented outfits such as Santana, Betty Davis and Journey. Beginning with their sophomore release, Tower of Power came to prominence with a string of acclaimed albums on Warner Bros. Records: Bump City (1972), Tower of Power (1973), Back to Oakland (1974), Urban Renewal (1974), In the Slot (1975) and Live and in Living Color (1976). A move to Columbia Records resulted in three more major label releases and their last top-charting hit, “You Ought To Be Havin’ Fun.” Including all studio albums, live albums and rarities anthologies, T.O.P. has 24 previous releases in its burgeoning catalog.

Along with T.O.P.’s classic recordings, the 5-piece Tower of Power Horns – known for its power packed punch and fullness with two trumpets, two tenor saxophones plus a baritone sax on the bottom – became much in demand for studio sessions and live gigs. Among the hundreds of artists they have blessed with their presence are Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, Graham Central Station, Elton John, Little Feat, Billy Preston, John Lee Hooker, Coke Escovedo, Jose Feliciano, Al Kooper, Sammy Hagar, Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton, Jermaine Jackson, Harvey Mason, Lenny White, The Brothers Johnson, The Meters, Lee Oskar, Dionne Warwick, Melissa Manchester, Bobby Caldwell, Heart, Rick James, Santana, Smokey Robinson, Huey Lewis & The News, Toto, Paul Shaffer, Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville, Spyro Gyra, Terence Trent D’Arby, Luther Vandross, Candy Dulfer, Aerosmith, Phish, John Hiatt, Neil Diamond, P.Diddy, Bill Wyman, Eiko Shuri…and TV’s The Simpsons (Sing The Blues).

^{Source TowerOfPower.com}

Tricky

Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws (born 27 January 1968), better known by his stage name Tricky, is an English record producer and rapper. Born and raised in Bristol, he began his career as an early collaborator of Massive Attack before embarking on a solo career with his debut album, Maxinquaye, in 1995. The release won Tricky popular acclaim and marked the beginning of a lengthy collaborative partnership with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird. He released four more studio albums before the end of the decade, including Pre-Millennium Tension and the pseudonymous Nearly God, both in 1996. He has gone on to release eight studio albums since 2000, most recently Ununiform (2017).

Tricky is a pioneer of trip hop music, and his work is noted for its dark, layered musical style that blends disparate cultural influences and genres, including hip hop, alternative rock and ragga. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career, including Terry Hall, Björk, Gravediggaz, Grace Jones, and PJ Harvey.

^{Source Wikipedia}