MORE INFO ON MAMBO SONS DEBUT CD

WHO PLAYED WHAT:

Habits of Mine: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom - Leslie guitar, rhythm guitars, lead guitars; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Rob – cowbell and tambourine; Alan - piano

Crazy Girl: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom - rhythm guitars, harmony lead guitars; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums and percussion; Freddie – piano; Collin – sax solo

Monkeyfinger: Scott – lead and background vocals; Rick – rhythm guitar and fills; Tom – riff guitar, flanged guitar, solo; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Rob – vibraslap and shakers; Alan - piano

Devil Moon: Scott – lead vocals; Tom - rhythm and lead guitar; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Rob – shakers and tambourine; Alan - piano

Slipaway: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom - tremelo guitar, acoustic guitars, electric rhythm guitar, harmony lead guitars; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Rob – shakers; Fred - Hammond

Tomonga Street: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom – rhythm, slide, lead guitars and background vocals; Kenny – bass; Joe – drums; Rob – tambourine; Alan – piano, Hammond and hi harmony vocals

I Go Wild: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom - rhythm guitars, lead wah wah guitar; Gina – bass and background vocals; Mike – drums; Collin – sax solo

Naste` Shonde`: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom – bass guitar, rhythm guitar, moog synthesizer; Mike – drums; Rob – cowbell and tambourine; Doug - saxophones

Give Me The Party: Scott – lead and background vocals; Tom – Dobro, rhythm, lead and slide guitars, background vocals; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Alan - piano

Everybody’s Got a Little Judy in Them: Tom – lead and background vocals; Scott – background vocals; Jimi – lead guitar; Kenny – slap bass; Mike – drums; Alan - piano; Tom - slide guitar

It Was You: Scott – lead and background vocals; Rick – lead guitar; Tom – rhythm guitars; Jim – funk bass; Mike – drums and cowbell

The Power of Time: Scott – lead vocals; Tom – acoustic rhythm and lead guitars; Kenny – bass; Mike – drums; Ed – mandolin; Alan – piano and Hammond

CD CONCEPT:

I started planning this album as a side project, a "solo album," before it began to take on a life of its own. Regardless of the musical style of the groups or people I’ve played with over the past twenty years, I’ve always had an affinity for playing and writing the same style of basic, rootsy, rock and roll that I was exposed to growing up. When my brother Paul and I were teenagers, music was more important to us than anything. Whether it was skipping school to get Clapton tickets, sneaking into Toad’s Place to see Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson, or "borrowing" albums…(hey, we ALWAYS returned them!), music really was our life.

The same can be said for Scott Lawson, who has been a friend and musical partner-in-crime for the past 18 or so years. We first met when he was wandering through the courtyard of my apartment and heard me blasting my old Les Paul Junior through an Ampeg V-4 stack (my neighbors hated me!). I mean this amp was so loud it once shattered a glass of Screwdriver that was sitting on top of it! After hearing Scott sing, it became evident that we had the same interests in music, even some of the same obscure albums by people like Paul Kossoff, The Faces, Humble Pie, Mountain, etc. We started a band called "Black Cat Bones" (which was, ah... coincidentally the name of Kossoff’s first band) and gigged around the universities to generally apathetic responses. We were then fortunate enough to hook up with Charles Calmese (then bassist for Muddy Waters, among others) and the Brothers Easton, and started doing higher profile gigs, to even bigger apathetic audiences! Charles was a huge influence on us, both as a musical mentor and "party captain." We always had fun with him. When that band broke up, I formed The Dirty Bones and Scott went onto sing with a slew of successful groups including Border Patrol (produced by David Lindley, they were once named Musician Magazine’s Best Unsigned Band of the Year). We remained best friends and planned to work together again when the time was right. So we played and played and played, and the years went by and we made (and lost) some other good friends along the way…

So, to make a long story even longer, some key people (thanked elsewhere on the disk) presented me with the opportunity to finally record a solo disk. I asked Scott for his help, and last fall we started getting together to write and jam. Some of the ideas started as guitar riffs that we developed into songs. Others like "It Was You" Scott pretty much came up with on his own and together we bashed it into shape. I did the same with "Slip Away" which came to me in a hotel in Boston and "The Power of Time," which I wrote in about 15 minutes on a plane.

When we started recording in Casa Del Soul Studio, we brought in some friends to help out, people we had played with and admired for a long time. Since the whole thing started to take on more of a group flavor, and no one really knows me from Adam, I decided to bag the idea of the "solo" disk and make it more of a group project. So, taking the name from an old T.Rex song, we decided to call the band "Mambo Sons." It’s been great fun recording and playing with these people!

Anyway, thanks for letting me bore you with the gories. I hope you enjoy the tunes!

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