Tony Z

⬇️ TONY Z ⬇️

(Tony Zamagni)

(2CD)

 BIOGRAPHY 

Hammond B-3 blues organist Tony Z was long a fixture on the New England blues club circuit, and for two years as part of Boston-area guitarist Ronnie Earl's touring band, the Broadcasters.

Born and raised in Boston, Tony Zamagni began playing organ at St. Patrick's School in Roxbury.

He cut his musical teeth with the Boston band Combat Zone and then went on to play with the Platters for the next ten years.

He spent most of the latter part of the 1980s trying to organize his own touring band (no small feat) and working as a session player in Miami for TK Records, where he recorded an LP with the group Miami.

After meeting Ronnie Earl through a mutual friend, trumpeter Bob Enos, Zamagni teamed up with the guitarist and joined his road band, the Broadcasters, from 1989 to 1991.

Get Down with the Blues In 1991, Zamagni moved to Chicago, where he worked for three years with guitarist Larry McCray and found work as a session musician on albums by Son Seals, Saffire, Little Smokey Smothers and Lee "Shot" Williams. Zamagni's debut album,

Get Down With the Blues, was released on Rounder's Tone-Cool subsidiary in 1995. The outing is first-class, self-produced in Chicago's Streeterville Studios with some stellar backing musicians: former Roomful of Blues guitarist Duke Robillard, drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, saxophonist Houston Person, harmonica master Sugar Blue and former Albert Collins band bassist Johnny B. Gayden.

Buddy Guy was so impressed by Get Down With the Blues that he hired Tony Z to tour with him. In 1998, Tony Z released his second record for Tone Cool, Kiss My Blues. The record featured another all-star cast including Cornell Dupree on guitar, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie on drums again, Chuck Rainey on bass, Lenny Pickett on sax and Kim Wilson blowing harp on two tracks.

Since then he has toured with Buddy Guy and on his own, continuing to spread his unique take on the B-3 sound.

Skeeter BRANDON

⬇️ SKEETER BRANDON ⬇️

(6CD)

 BIOGRAPHY 

Keyboardist, singer, and songwriter Skeeter Brandon was born in 1949 and raised in Goldsboro, NC. He and his band, Highway 61, made a name for themselves as a touring act up and down the East Coast and nearby in the 1980s and '90s. He began singing in the church as a six-year-old and began playing piano at age nine.

Blind since early childhood, he was sent to the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, NC.

He had some success as a teenager leading his own band around Raleigh and Goldsboro, NC, where he was raised. Through his youth, Brandon sang and played keyboards, trumpet, and drums. He later specialized by sticking mostly to keyboards and vocals.

After playing trumpet through most of the 1960s with bands that were doing classic R&B covers by Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, and Wilson Pickett, he formed the Soul Stars Band. They became so popular they were the house band for the Playboy Club in Goldsboro.

He caught his first big break with Clarence Carter, who hired him for his band in 1970 when Carter was playing at the Playboy Club in Goldsboro. Brandon toured the world with Carter and his band before joining the Chi-Lites in 1973. By the mid-'70s, he felt he was ready to record and tour under his own name and went to Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama with producer Charles Johnson. He recorded a single, "Kept on Smiling" b/w "24 Hour Love Man" for Hit Man records.

It sold well enough around the south that Atlantic Records became interested and re-released it on Atlantic in 1975. This led to a tour with Stax Records singer William Bell, and Brandon came home to Goldsboro in 1974. After some time touring in the late '70s, Brandon returned to Goldsboro again to be closer to his family and stick closer to home. He plied his craft in the local gospel scene, recording with two North Carolina gospel groups, Slim and the Supreme Angels and Willis Pittman and the Burden Lifters in the early '80s.

Brandon and Highway 61 released several solid albums in the '90s when they were at the height of their tours in support of them: Hi-Test Blues, I'm a Man of My Word, and License to Thrill. These albums included the same band that accompanied Brandon on his festival and club tours; Armand Lencheck on guitar and vocals; bassist Chris Grant, and drummer Wes Johnson. Guests on Hi-Test Blues (1993) include Mark Wenner of the Nighthawks, Ann Rabson of Saffire -- The Uppity Blues Women, and Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin. 

Lenchek's background includes working with Lightning Bug Rhodes since 1989, touring with Nappy Brown and sitting in regularly with the likes of Eddy Clearwater, Bob Margolin, and Tom Principato. Aside from Brandon, Lenchek has recorded on albums by Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, Buddy Skipper, Bob Margolin, and David Nelson and the Prowlers.

Brandon's backing band was the former Lightning Bug Rhodes Blues Band. After Rhodes passed unexpectedly, the band regrouped mentally and spiritually and began accompanying Brandon at clubs in the Charlotte, NC area. His recordings for New Moon Music led to subsequent tours around the U.S.Brandon passed away in March 2008. He had stopped performing in the Charlotte area just four months before that in December 2007.