Meet my people:

Vince Santoro: Vince is a real prince of a character and I am really glad to have him in on this project. He and his family are good friends to us Sharp’s. Vince and I have worked together in our own band (which included Kevin and George by the way), called The Genius Guys. We met in LA a few years back while playing with Carlene Carter. Carlene...where are you? Come back to us.

Lynn Williams: Lynn is one of the best Musicians I have ever known. I can’t believe this guy is even available. He possesses the greatest musical quality of all: Ears and Heart. Not to mention his chops are just right. Listen to Lynn’s cymbal work, his groove, his overall approach are as we say in the business, “the shit”. He is truly a Beat Man very much with the clip. Lynn had played a few of the songs on this record at Delbert McClinton sound checks, but most of his work here is fresh. First or second take from a sloppy chart. I don’t think we did more than 3 takes of anything. Lynn apparently found his way to Nashville along with Kevin McKendree via Leroy Parnell’s band……. Thanks Leroy.
Kevin McKendree: OK everything I said about Lynn goes for Kevin too. The guy’s Ears are like antennas. He is a rootsy player perfectly content to touch nothing but the Piano, yet totally unconfined with conventions. He plays anything…guitar, drums, like a savant or something. It’s scary really. Kevin is maybe 30. He and his wife Laura are expecting their first soon. Check out his website for info on his CD: “Miss Laura’s Kitchen”.

Steve Bassett: Steve is the man when it comes to the Hammond Organ. He calls his B3 Birtha, and will play no other. Wholesome, soulful, and also a great singer. I am so glad he could make it to the sessions, his playing just sort of glues everybody together, and you couldn’t ask for a better man to hang out with. A special thanks to him for his board side manner while I did a few overdubs at the Bennett House (Steve stayed upstairs in one of the bedrooms).  Listen to him on Widow Maker…I’ll say no more.  I met up with Steve in Delbert McClinton’s band and you might occasionally see him gigging with us. We like to call him “Skillet” for obvious reasons. Steve hails from Richmond Virginia, prefers to travel in his own Motor home pulling Birtha along behind.

               Visit the Steve Bassett website
George Hawkins on Bass. George and I go way back....it seems we just keep landing in the same places. I met George in 1976 while I was playing with Hall & Oates and George was with Kenny Loggins. H&O opened a summer tour for Loggins and it was a gas! We met up again in 1980 in of all places: Ghana, West Africa to work together with Mick Fleetwood on Mick’s “The Visitor” album. What a story that is, it would take up a whole other website easily. We fooled around in a band a few years later (along with Stephen Bruton, Tom Canning, Tris Imboden & Dennis Kenmore) called The Lucky Dogs. What a Band! Our first set was always interesting, second set: magical, third set.....well you had to be there. Though the band never stayed together long enough to record anything we did all manage to stay alive...which is nice. Next we did Christine McVie’s 1983 Solo record (recorded in Montreux, Switzerland). Next I invited him to play Bass on my first record “Who Am I” on MCA 1986. Then he finally agreed to leave me alone for a while. We met up again when I came in to pinch hit for Paul Warren in Richard Marx’s band for a few months. Finally, he buys a house a mile away from me in the Nashville area and mysteriously ends up in Delbert McClinton’s band along with myself and everyone else on this record! I have asked him to please stop following me around and making me laugh so hard all the time and he said he would after this record sells a million copies and I pay him in full for the sessions.
John Saylor: This is a pretty good story. I had not met John until about a week before we started this record. I was having a real hard time coordinating the players, the Studio, and also most importantly: the twirler of knobs and microphone weilder otherwise known as: a Recording Engineer. I kept setting it all up and then someone would have to drop out to work for real money! Anyhow I called on an old acquaintance, David Thoener out of the blue. I think I actually thought David was someone else who I ran into in Nashville a few years back and had the basic LA to Nashville transplant conversation….”What , uh….do you do here in Nashville?, how do we…you know, work…do people make music here other than Country? …help me I may be suicidal!, etc.” So I look up Dave Thoener thinking he’s still struggling his way up & down Music Row and I wiggle my way through his manager and manage to call him @ A&M studios in LA where he is working. While I’m on hold waiting for him to pick up I do a quick computer "www" search on him and turned up like 40 Grammy nominations all in the last year! He’s recording and mixing like every record in the top 10 in the world and I’m about to ask him if he wants to record yours truly for 4 days for free donuts and a handshake! (Actually there was real money involved but I won’t go into such details here). Anyhow, I’m so embarrassed to ask him by the time he picks up, I’m thinking maybe he is this other engineer I used to work with and I don’t think he even knows who the hell I am, but I’m talking fast and he’s obliging my conversation. I finish my shpeel and he of course says “Hey, Todd I’d love to…. but I’m booked solid…call John Saylor he’s talented” Bye now”.   So on that and that alone, I called John, met him, hired him to do the record and prayed that it would be all right. David was right, John is a talented (and funny) guy. I am deeply indebted to him for the work he did and the studio time he swung for me.

Stephen Bruton: Stephen and I have been great friends for nearly 20 years (could that be right?). He is one of the only guitarist’s I know who doesn’t try to cut me to shreds every time we play together (Guitarists suffer from serious fretboard envy neurosis like no other musicians do). I love him like a brother and he is also a very funny man. We have been in a few bands together (The Lucky Dogs, & Christine McVie) and I trust his taste and judgment completely. This is why I asked him to come play Mandolin (not guitar) and to just sort of hold my hand through a 4 day blitz of vocal and guitar overdubs. While he was here I hit him up for some money, drugged him and subjected him to my Vulcan Mind Probe thereby transferring a good deal of his raw talent and wisdom into my own being. Believe me he had plenty to spare. I have been watching this man evolve from a hot shit Texas guitar player into maybe one of the most brilliant songwriters of our time. I kid you not here. That’s not all though, he has also blossomed into a brilliant Artist in his own right with an amazing band. Of course, not a day goes by that I don’t resent the fact that he stole all his best licks from me and I taught him everything he knows about writing, singing, dressing cool, handling big money and big women.

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