Billy Burnette joins a new band

[vivfox]

Hit Men All-Stars hit Harrah's Tahoe on Saturday

By Mel Shields
Bee Correspondent
Published: Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010 - 12:00 am
Curly Smith, formerly of the band Boston, wanted to start a new group, but not just any group.

He turned to musicians from Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, Journey, Dire Straits and Night Ranger. His new band, Hit Men All-Stars, will play at Harrah's Tahoe on Saturday.

"I put this band together about a year and a half ago," said Smith from his Arizona home. "I had the need to create something. I had left Boston. My son turned 8. I had not been on the road for five years. I was no longer living in Los Angeles and so got no calls for studio work."

The cast he put together is: Billy Burnette of Fleetwood Mac, Jack Sonni of Dire Straits, Jimmy Crespo of Areosmith, Steve Augeri of Journey and Gary Moon of Night Ranger and Three Dog Night.

"What the audience will get is a lot of different numbers from a lot of different bands – not like, say, three hours from Boston, which got to be very tiring," Smith said. "I wanted to get the upper echelon of rock from a great era. I worked hard to get the perfect mix."

Before Smith joined Boston, he played on numerous gold and platinum records: "Missing You" with John Waite, "I Get Weak" with Belinda Carlisle and "Heartbeat" with Don Johnson. He's recorded with Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Branford Marsalis, Ron Wood and Keith Moon. He played Live Aid with Rick Springfield, and he knows how to work an audience and a stage.

"All of these guys are in the same place I am," Smith said. "They all have families and don't want to spend a long time on the road. When I was with Boston, we would rehearse for two months and then go on tour for four months. I would just get worn out.

"Of course, we had a private plane and would stay at places like the Four Seasons and Ritz and had our own executive chef, but however it's done, I just didn't want to go out on the road again with anybody else. If you've got a family, it's really tough.

"This is perfect. We play about 50 or 60 shows a year. We have six lead singers, and we play songs from all the bands. For instance, we'll only do three Boston songs. Nobody gets worn out and everybody gets the spot. "

There are plans for the performance at Harrah's to be filmed, so audiences could wind up in a video. And Smith is sensitive to the room's dimensions and acoustics.

"I always wear earplugs myself, but I know what can be too much. I would say our volume level is kind of medium on a rock scale. It's full of great music."


HIT MEN ALL-STARS

Where: Harrah's Tahoe

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $37.50

Information and

reservations: (800) 786-8208 or SouthShoreRoom.com.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/17/310...t-harrahs.html

[wetcamelfood]

Thanks for this, sounds great, looking forward to the video.

John

[vivfox]

Hit Men All-Stars are a classic rock supergroupBy By Tim Parsons, Lake Tahoe Action | Tahoe.com

A super group makes its United States debut Saturday in Harrah’s Lake Tahoe’s South Shore Room.
The Hit Men All-Stars have former members of Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, Dire Straits, Three Dog Night, Slaughter and Guns and Roses.
“I called all my friends who were former members of big, classic rock bands — the kind who withstood time and defined an era,” said band leader Curly Smith. “I like to call it a classic rock extravaganza.”
Harmonies are not a problem with the Hit Men All-Stars. The eight-piece band has six lead singers. The band, which has performed some shows at Cabo San Lucas, plays two or three hits from each member’s former group.
“All of these players are phenomenal players,” Smith said.
Here’s a look at the performers, each of whom have solo albums.
n Guitarist Billy Burnette replaced Lindsey Buckingham for eight years in Fleetwood Mac. The Memphis native grew up around Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and is considered “rock ‘n’ roll royalty,” Smith said. His father Dorsey and uncle Johnny played in the Rock and Roll Trio. Johnny Burnette came up with the term rockabilly when he combined the names of his son, Rocky, and nephew, Billy.
— Guitarist Jimmy Crespo played during Joe Perry’s five-year hiatus from Aerosmith. He and Steven Tyler co-wrote and produced the album “Rock In A Hard Place.” He also was Rod Stewart’s lead guitarist. Saturday will be Crespo’s debut with the Hit Men. Areosmith songs on the setlist: “Sweet Emotion,” “Love in an Elevator” and “Walk This Way.”
— Bassist Gary Moon will sing the Aerosmith songs. He played with Night Ranger, Three Dog Night, Velvet Revolver and the Pack. Saturday also will be Moon’s debut with the Hit Men. His upcoming solo album is called “Thousand Bridges.”
— Singer Mark Slaughter played with glam metal bands Slaughter and Vinnie Vincent Invasion. “Mark has a full octave range, so we have the high harmonies on my Boston stuff,” Smith said.
— Guitarist Jack Sonni was with Dire Straits when it won a Grammy for “Brothers in Arms” and played a 256-show tour across the world. He’s recorded or performed live with Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Sting and Madonna.
— Singer Steve Augeri is best known as the person who replaced Steve Perry in Journey from 1998-2006. He recorded three albums with the band and toured the world performing in front of millions of fans. He also was a part of Tall Stories and Tyketto. Augeri was given his first break in 1984 when he was hired as background vocalist for Michael Schenker of UFO and Scorpions fame.
— Keyboardist and harmonica player Teddy “Zig Zag” Andreadis played with Guns N’ Roses, Alice Cooper, Carole King, Bo Diddley and the Boxmasters. He has replaced Elliot Easton, who has joined Rick Ocasek and the other surviving members of the Cars for a reunion tour and album.
— Smith, who honed his chops in Texas blues bars, performed with Jo Jo Gunne before working as a studio musician in Los Angeles for several years until the 1992 Rodney King riots motivated him to move. His session work included projects with Jeff Beck, Joe Walsh, Ron Wood, Willie Nelson, Steve Cropper, Jackson Browne, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Waite, Bett Midler, Belinda Carlisle. He was the drummer for Boston in the 1990s. Smith has recorded two albums playing all the instruments himself from his studio in Sedona, Ariz.
It will be just the second time Smith has visited Tahoe. He was here to play on Michael Bruce’s solo album. Bruce, the original Alice Cooper guitarist, used to have a studio in Tahoe.

Drummer reveals the truth about rock stars

What’s the biggest misconception about rock stars?
“That we’re all drug addicts and partiers,” said Curly Smith, the band leader of the Hit Men All-Stars and former drummer for Boston.
Smith said most of the members of Boston are vegetarians who don’t even drink. After every concert a chef prepared an organic meal, then the band would return to the hotel and go to sleep.
But it was a different scene in 1973 when Smith’s career began with a group called Jo Jo Gunne.
‘We opened for Rod Stewart and Faces,” he said. “They had a bartender on stage for the band and they would bring you drinks, and by the end of the night they were pretty drunk.
“I was just a teenager when I started making records, so I saw it all around me and I just never got into it. This doesn’t make sense to me. Not all rock ‘n’ rollers are the same. A lot of them are family men. Some of them are just good guys.”
Jo Jo Gunne opened during a tour with Sly and the Family Stone. The band members learned to quickly leave the arena after its set.
“It was during those days when he wouldn’t show up because of his addiction and (the audience) would destroy the hall,” Smith said.
Smith worked with the Who’s Keith Moon shortly before he died.
“Keith was probably the wildest rock ‘n’ roller I’d ever met,” Smith said. “He was filming ‘Tommy,’ and he was dressed as Uncle Ernie and was in Burbank, kind of a cowboy town. He walked across from the studio dressed as Uncle Ernie went into a bar and smarted off to a cowboy, and with an English accent that’s about all it took. They put a knife through his hand through the bar.”
Moon lost feeling in a couple of fingers, so he hired three drummers for his solo album, “Two Sides of the Moon,” Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner and Smith.
“Keith had a style that I’d never heard before so to play side by side was a real honor for me,” Smith said. “(But) by the time it was 11 o’clock he was already pounding the vodka, then he’d be gone. Just out of it every day.”
Some performers drink to overcome stage fright.
“Some people are very shy and some people don’t realize how difficult it is to get up in front of 20,000 people every night and be expected to perform,” Smith said. “Some people will need a crutch, others don’t. The ones that will succeed will have a ritual. I have a ritual. I have a shot of Cognac before I go on. But if you have too much, you won’t have the energy, but if you have a beer it takes off the edge so you’re not rushing through the songs.”
Alice Cooper famously overcame alcoholism in 1983, he says, by starting another habit: golf.
Smith’s friend Stevie Ray Vaughan also beat booze and drugs.
“Stevie had straightened up,” Smith said. “He had gotten himself together and gotten off the drugs, and then he dies in a helicopter crash.”

Curly Smith has Led Zeppelin look

With long, blond, curly hair, Curly Smith looks like a rock star. But sometimes people don’t believe he’s the former drummer for Boston.
Smith sat in the front row at a Paul McCartney concert when The ex-Beatle mentioned one of his great peers was in the audience.
“People began taking pictures of me,” he said. “They thought I was Robert Plant.”
Smith wasn’t named Curly for his long locks. He said he didn’t learn he had curly hair until as an adult he grew it long .
Smith, who was raised in Arkansas, was called Curly, a common cowboy name, by his father because he had one curly strand of hair that hung over his forehead.
“That name was about the only thing I got from my dad,” Smith said.

http://www.tahoe.com/article/2010102.../1020/WHATTODO

[billwebster]

Oh how I wish Billy Burnette would release another solo album of all-new songs. It's been a while since "Memphis in Manhattan" came out and that one wasn't exactly all new songs to say the least. It's still somewhat beyond me why Billy's radio hit "Nothin' To Do" is not officially on CD yet.

[Madelow]

Hello Vivfox & all: Love this all-star band concept, and hope it works out! Thanks for posting! Best, Madelow.