Fred Sokolow is a very versatile musician, singer and the author of many well-know guitar instructional books. His background traverses a musical language from underground rock, to bluegrass to tin pan alley. In this recording, he and his musicians play the music of the 20s through the 40s as well as some originals. Joined by the amazing Guit-Steel playing and singing of Junior Brown and the ukelele/accordian playing of Ian Whitcomb, Fred’s session was one of the most fun we’ve done so far.
Born in Los Angeles September 14, 1945, by the early 1960s Fred was well known in the California bluegrass scene, playing with Jody Stecher, Brantley Kearns, Sandy Rothman and Eric Thompson. Relocating to Berkeley, he toured and recorded with a hippie rock band throughout most of the 60s, the Bay Area-based Notes from the Underground (Vanguard Records). In the early 70s Fred performed with R&B, rock, country and bluegrass bands. By 1975 Fred had played with bluegrass luminaries like John Herald, Frank Wakefield and Jerry Garcia, had opened for the Dead, the Doors, B.B. King, Country Joe and the Fish and countless other acts, and he was playing in jazz combos with some of the Bay Area’s best studio players.
Junior Brown is a musician/singer currently living in Austin, Texas famous for his prowess on a hybrid stringed instrument known as a “guit-steel”, which is a combination slide steel and electric guitar. This unique instrument was built by guitar make Michael Stevens in 1985 and continues to be the iconic tool for Junior’s unique style of country/rock playing. His talents have led major magazines like Musician to herald Junior as a genius. Life magazine honored him as the only contemporary musician included in their “All Time Country Band,” and Guitar Player magazine’s 1994 “Best of…” listings made him their #1 lap steel player, #2 Country Artist, and #3 country album (Guit With It).
Ian Whitcomb is a singer/Ukelele player originally from the UK who had a cult hit in the 2960’ entitles “You Turn Me On”. He has since become a recognized expert in the music of America and regularly performs the music of the 20’s and 30’s with his band the Bungalow Boys.
Laurence Juber contributes to one of the tunes on this project called “Something Tells Me”. The ex-Wings guitarist is regularly at the top of the polls for acoustic, finger-style guitarists and has a long list of CDs and DVDs.
AIX Records’ premium DVD-Audio/Video have two sides. The first side in an interactive DVD-Video disc and the other side is a DVD-Audio disc [which requires a DVD-Audio capable machine to play it back].
The sound of this recording brings these incredible musicians into your listening space. The HD-Audio surround mixes immerse you in the musical interplay with full range frequency response and dynamics.
- Every Day’s A Holiday –
- It’s Like Reaching For The Moon –
- Is It True What They Say About Dixie? –
- Neglected –
- I Wish I Were Twins –
- Halfway To Heaven –
- Me And The Man In The Moon –
- How Could We Go So Wrong –
- I Believe In You And Me –
- There’ll Be Some Changes Made –
- Something Tells Me –