Amsterdamned Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 The Wagon's Wheels @ The Grapes on Wednesday October 28th welcomes a special guest as we play host to the returning Austin based US singer/songwriter Bob Cheevers. Bob was here last July and returns once again as he undertakes his latest mammouth UK tour. Now whilst the traveling American singer/songwriter armed with little more than an acoustic guitar and bag of CDs to sell are ten a penny, few have the credentials of Cheevers. A multi award winning songwriter, Bob also holds the notable honour of having been asked personally by Johnny Cash to support him on what proved to be Cash's final tour. Providing backing for Bob as well as performing a set of his own will be Dominic Finley. Opening the show will be local singer/songwriter Dave Sleney. Doors open at 8pm and entry will be £5. ***BOB CHEEVERS*** Unbenownst to him, Bob's summer 2007 CD "Texas To Tennessee" foreshadowed a big event in his life...a move from Nashville to Austin which happened shortly after T2T was released. Sixteen years as a journeyman tunesmith in Nashville's country music biz was preceeded by 25 years in the pop field in California which included several major label deals with chart hits under his own name and that of The Peppermint Trolly Company. There were major publishing deals with MCA and Criterion Music along with two music videos which won a total of 8 Emmys including "Best Musical Composition" for Bob's song "Big City Gambler" that was in Elvis’ stack of tunes to record. However, the Grim Reaper got to the King before that recording session came to pass. With the Valentine's day 2010 release of his live to analog tape "Tall Texas Tales" CD, top Texas producer Stephen Doster (Nancy Griffith/Lyle Lovett) helped Bob add another treasure chest of recordings to his previous 7 commercial CDs and the 8 CD "Cheeversongs Archive Series" which covers his writing from the 80's up to the turn of the century in the form of outtakes, alternative versions and unreleased masters. Bob has spent the last 8 years touring relentlessly in Europe doing at least one 40-60 concert tour each year as well as playing house concerts and venues in the US year after year while his songs are heard on TV, in movies and on radio all over the world. Bob's favorite "accolade", however, was being opening act on what was to be Johnny Cash's final tour. That was particularly poignant because Bob's combo in the 9th grade won a talent show performing Cash's song "Big River". Bob's songs include tales of romance, novelty tunes along with a personal look at the world through his own eyes including character studies of people who were caught up in situations as different as life during the Civil War to the simple day to day struggle of life on earth during any time period... rootsy, blues-flavoured tales many of which are right out of Bob's Mississippi Delta birthright spoken in voices that sometimes sound like whispers in your ear from beyond the grave and other times like a lover's prayer...but always delivered in a conversational language of the heart. His new "Tall Texas Tales" CD is described by his producer Stephen Doster this way: "When you listen to Bob Cheevers, you'll be hearing a singer-songwriter at top of his game. Bob came to Texas, looked around and began to write about the things he saw. His observations about Texas made me wanna go there...and I'm from Texas. Not only is "Tall Texas Tales" a wonderful travelogue of my great state, it is full of songs that could only be written by a man whose life is rich with experience and deep insight. Bob Cheeevers is an American classic...make no mistake about it!" A master tune-smith, Bob is rounding out his 4th decade as a songwriting troubadour, living out his dream in his laid back, authentic style. About his songs he says..."I don't know if these stories are true, but they happened to me". "Bob is a born storyteller. This man could put Shakespeare to shame. And that voice! Does he gargle gravel and honey for breakfast? Whatever, it works. Not only could Bob charm the birds from the trees, he could have them singing backing vocals for free if he wanted." BBC Radio Newcastle "It's well paced and displays some excellent lead and steel guitar. Cheevers voice is perfect for these type of songs. It's a lovely album. It really is. 8/10" Americana-uk.com review of 'Fiona's World'. http://www.myspace.com/bobcheeversmusic http://www.bobcheevers.com ***DOMINIC FINLEY*** For the last decade and a half Dominic Finley has successfully adapted to various different styles of music. He has moved though Brit-pop, Motown and jazz, to more recently doing session work and playing progressive rock with Combination Head and classic pop-rock with the recently reformed Cutting Crew. As a teenager Dominic served his musical apprenticeship in the international six piece show band LA Tour where he played electric bass and spent six months working in major hotels across Asia. At this time he also started to play upright bass and make his first forays into jazz. Returning to the UK in 1996 he joined critically acclaimed Liverpool Brit Pop/Motown-style band The Transparents. Over the next three years the band recorded their debut EP and toured with bands such as Dodgy, The Real People, Travis, The Long Pigs, Shed Seven, Baby Bird, Cast, Heavy Stereo and others. After the band broke up in 1999, Dominic, now playing double bass, formed a trio with Colin James on piano and the highly regarded young drummer, Ronny Lessard to play the worldwide cruise liners operating out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Returning again to the UK Dominic formed an eponymous jazz trio and worked and recorded as a bassist with the Jim Diamond Band. He continued to take on session work as a bassist, including playing electric bass on recent releases for We Deliver (formerly K-Klass), but has also branched out into writing tutorial books. So far he has had two books published: “Secrets of a Professional Bass Player” – the revised version of which includes extra chapters and a foreword by legendary bassist, Herbie Flowers – and “Groundwork for Bass”. The last few years have probably been the busiest in Dominic’s career so far. In 2005 he joined original singer/writer Nick van Eede in a reformed version of the Grammy nominated/multi-million sellers Cutting Crew. The rest of the band consists of Sam Flynn (keyboards), Gareth Moulton (guitar) and Tom Arnold (drums). The band has toured heavily playing in the US, Canada, Europe and the UK and some of Dominic’s personal highlights included playing legendary German TV Show Rockpalast, as well as performing alongside such famous names as Supertramp, Robin Gibb, Midge Ure and Howard Jones. The band is currently working on a new project and Dominic potentially has a couple of co-writes on the forthcoming album. The other major group project Dominic has been involved with is his collaboration with esteemed producer and keyboard wizard Paul Birchall and fellow Cutting Crew member Gareth Moulton in the prog-rock, Yes/ELP-inspired band, Combination Head. They have just completed “Progress” the follow-up to their acclaimed debut album and are now in pre-production for their new live show. To top off a few busy years Dominic has started working on developing a solo career as a singer-songwriter in parallel with his group work. Recently he has struck a rich vein of songwriting and has already written more than an album’s worth of new songs and is using whatever free time he can reserve in his busy schedule to record them. http://www.myspace.com/dominicfinleymusic http://www.dominicfinley.com ***DAVE SLENEY*** Singer/songwriter Dave Sleney makes his return to the live stage having recently spent some time in the studio recording. As well as the country tinged indie pop sounds of his former band, Dave is renowned for heartfelt material in the downbeat singer/songwriter tradition. Also known for not being afraid to chuck in the odd classic cover. The fruits of his recent recording session can be heard at: http://www.myspace.com/davesleneymusic Facebook Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=177403136962 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdamned Posted October 28, 2009 Author Share Posted October 28, 2009 This is tonight. Live music kicks off shortly after 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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