 For
Booking
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  On Stage 5:00 > 6:30 PM Legendary....a
blues/rock institution....true innovators....These are just a few of the
ways SAVOY BROWN has been described over the past thirty years by music
critics and fans. One of the earliest of
British blues bands, SAVOY BROWN (with founder guitarist and longtime
member Kim Simmonds at the helm) helped launch the UK blues/rock
movement that paved the way for such acts as Led Zeppelin. The band recorded their
first singles for Mike Vernon's Purdah label in 1966 and quickly
followed up with the landmark album Shakedown. Singer Chris Youlden
joined the band in 1968 and many classic records appeared with songs
such as "I'm Tired" and "Louisiana Blues" becoming
radio staples. Blues/rock and boogie music always was the band's calling
card and they captured, forever, the spirit of the music on the live
side of A Step Further ( 1969) with a twenty minute boogie "The
Savoy Brown Boogie" dedicated to fans in Detroit. By 1971, Youlden had
departed on a solo career and band members Dave Peverett, Roger Earle
and Tony Stevens had left to form their own group Foghat. Simmonds rebuilt
the band using former members of the blues band Chicken Shack and
vocalist Dave Walker. That year, Street Corner Talking brought the band
its best chart success up to that date. "Tell Mama",
"Street Comer Talking", "All I Can Do Is Cry" and
the band's funky re-make of the Motown classic, "I Can't Get Next
To You", took the band to platinum status and placed them in front
of wildly enthusiastic rock audiences in arenas all over the world. "It was a great
time", says Simmonds "such commercial success doesn't come to
everyone and I also felt we were making important music too, which made
it doubly satisfying" After the successful run
of the early to mid 70's Simmonds moved operations to the USA and
continued making the kind of records he wanted to make with a succession
of line-ups. Records as diverse as the acoustic blues, Slow Train, on
Relix and the hard rocking Rock And Roll Warriors appeared and all were
eagerly accepted by the fans. A three record deal
with Crescendo, in 1987, took the band into a more rock direction, with
records such as Live 'n ' Kicking placing the group in a live setting,
one in which they have always excelled. In the nineties, Let It
Ride was released and then turning things around in 1994, Simmonds
enlisted Pete McMahon for vocal and harmonica duties and ex Robert Gray
drummer Dave Olson and recorded Bring It Home for Viceroy Records.
This set the tone for the next five years. Following that successful
record, Nathaniel Peterson was brought in to handle the bass playing and
singing and after touring the world extensively for three years, in
1999, The Blues Keep me Holding On was released on Mystic Music. This
modern blues record brought the band's epic music journey full circle. "The music of SAVOY
BROWN has never really got that far away from the blues", Simmonds
says. "Today, I can still do a show that does straight traditional
blues along with rock hits like "Tell Mama" and it all seems
to fit. Everything that I have done with the band has had a blues
stand point to it".
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