About the Band

IN 1993 I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina to take a job at a software company as an on site Field engineer for Memorex. At the apartment complex pool I met Lee Milton, and we had some small talk. One day I heard some guitar music coming from his apartment, and I ended up going up and drinking a few beers and jamming.  At work I was interfacing with Don as my customer, as he worked in operations with the Memorex equipment. He mentioned one day that he too played the guitar, and we should get together sometime.

A couple of months later we ended up at my place where I had the band equipment set up in the dining room.  Lee picked up the bass.  I started playing some chords, and Don started playing some lead riffs. We were pretty impressed at how good Don was, and he was playing the whole thing down pretty well.  After that I thought, "Damn, we ought to put an ad in the paper for a drummer."  I put an ad in "Yes Weekly", a local music paper. By now I had a house out near the airport, and this guy calls me and says, “ I play the drums, and I think I’m in your back yard.”

That was Hank, and he lived around the corner from me. He shows up, and we all start jamming away. It was feeling really good now.  He was by far the best drummer I ever played with and Lee was kicking out some better bass runs than I was used to hearing. I thought to myself, "We need a singer now", and the hunt was on. We had some people coming over but nothing that fit right off the bat. One night we’re out at the Hams in Brassfield shopping center where we used to hang out to slam beers and catch the weekly Karaoke show. They had a saloon style set up where the singers were on a balcony with a better than average sound system.

Most singers were drunk college girls (usually in groups) that couldn’t sing worth a shit but were fun to watch. So here comes another college girl, and this one’s going to sing “ Grandpa" by the Judds.  I’m thinking, "Oh shit, another hillbilly kid that sounds like a chipmunk and misses home."  Then she starts singing, and the place gets way more quiet than usual.  At the same time I’m realizing, "This one can really sing".  And then.... she brings down the house. I mean brings down the house.  People were jumping to their feet, and Lee tells me at that time her name is Anna, and he knows her.  I says, "Man, we got to get her over to sing with us."  I don’t think we really ever seriously considered a female, but what the hell.

About two months later she finally shows up just as we’re trying to get a guy out of the house who had showed up to answer the singer ad... drunk with a quart of whiskey in his hand.  He couldn’t sing either. So I’m trying to think quick about what we can have her sing, and she’s really country girl shy. At first it was hard because the only band she ever sang with was the church choir (you know that one from the Andy Griffith show).  Most of the stuff we were playing was older than her. So we pump her with a few 12 ounce cans of loosen’ up suds and out come some songs. She’s not a front woman.  She lets her voice do the talking, and that’s what we love about her. By now, it’s like 1995, and we go over to New Horizon recording studio and Mitch Hensdale records her singing "Tulsa Time” with us .

I’m happy with the recording so I get the idea to start writing songs specifically for her to sing. Hellbender was first, and it worked quite well. We made a couple of basic recordings and played a few parties.  Then the company I work for goes bankrupt.  I lose my job and have to move back to Northern Virginia. She gets married and moves away, and the band doesn’t really do anything until ten years later when I move back to Greensboro.  I ask the guys to work with me on recording a whole CD of original tunes I wrote, and they agree. The search is on for a singer. Nothing works right away.  I get the idea to look for Anna and see where she might be. With the power of the internet, I’m talking to her dad a week later, and he tells me she lives in Charlotte, N.C. with her husband and two boys! She calls me, and in 2007 we all start playing again. Mitch hooks us up with Frank Hartig when I tell him I need some keyboards. The CD was becoming a reality!  We had bass, the leads, the drums, keyboards, but something kept nagging me.  The vocals needed something more. Something to really make Anna stand out--enter Gail.  A life long, professional musician, Gail had pretty much been out of the music scene since moving to Greensboro in 1998.  My wife brought me her demo CD months before after meeting her in the salon where she works and where Gail gets her hair done, but I had forgotten about it.  After another bad round of "singer wanted" ads, my wife just happened to run into Gail at the salon and everything just clicked.  Gail came over and loved the tunes, learned the tracks and laid down lots of background vocals behind Anna in the last month of our production.

And there you have it!  What happens when Olivia Newton John from the North Carolina mountains meets Lynard Skynard’s warm up band.????Ten months later, this CD right here.
 
Cheers,
Tommy Castaldo