Honeytribe was formed in 1999 in St. Louis, Missouri. Led by singer / guitarist Devon Allman they quickly became one of the top draws in their hometown and won the Jam Band of the Year award in the Riverfront Times Magazine Poll. Some recordings were made, small tours happened and then in late 2000, Devon disbanded the group to spend time with his newborn son,
Orion.
2005 found Devon appearing on a top 10 hit in Spain with bluesman Javier Vargas. He was featured on the album "LOVE, UNION, PEACE" along side several veteran classic rockers.
Getting back into the swing of making music prompted Devon to "put the band back together."
Summer 2005 found the members of Honeytribe woodshedding new material that would eventually end up on their late 2006 debut album release, TORCH. Hailed by critics and fans alike, TORCH sold well and was featured heavily on satellite radio. Touring ramped up, and from 2006 to 2008 Honeytribe gained fans the old school way: in a van, almost 300 dates a year, 42 states and 10 countries.
New fans, like Billy Bob Thornton and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, came and rocked out to the Honeytribe show
and Devon being asked to sit in with the legendary Les Paul, The Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts, Keller Wiliams, Beth Hart, Billy Bob Thornton as well as being featured in Relix, Guitar Player,Guitar World and Guitar One magazines.
In 2009, a power trio has emerged -with monster world class bassist George Potsos and new drummer Gabriel Strange.
To hear more from Honeytribe, check out:
Bruce has been playing professionally since 1975. He first gained notoriety as a member of the touring band for Meat Loaf's classic "Bat Out Of Hell" album in 1977. Shortly after, Bruce formed the band Blackjack with a then aspiring singer named Michael Bolton. After the release of two albums, Blackjack folded and Bruce was asked to join KISS, where he remained as their lead guitarist for twelve years.
After leaving KISS, Bruce formed UNION with John Corabi in
1997, who would go on to release three albums between 1998 and 2000. Bruce
and John teamed up with Eric Singer and formed the Eric Singer Project
(E.S.P.), releasing an album in 1998. In early 2001, Bruce
released his debut solo album Audio Dog, which was followed in 2003 with
Transformer. In 2001 Bruce joined Grand Funk Railroad as lead
guitarist after receiving a personal invitation from drummer Don Brewer.
Bruce is still touring with GFR and is currently in his 9th
year as their lead guitarist. Bruce has just completed his third solo disc
titled BK3. The CD will feature Gene Simmons, Nick Simmons, Steve Lukather,
John Corabi and Doug Fieger from the Knack and will be out in early
2010.
Visit www.kulick.net
for all the info on BK's work.
Bill hails from Richmond, VA, the son of a great set of parents who gave him his 1st guitar at the age of 4. Big mistake - he fell in love with the guitar.
In 1984, his band, White Heat needed a drummer ? enter Michael Foster. After hooking up with CJ Snare and a bass player named Perry Richardson, FireHouse was formed. In December of 1989 the band was signed by Michael Caplan, Epic Records VP of A&R, and FireHouse went right into the studio with Producer David Prater of the "FireHouse" and "Hold Your Fire? CDs. The band won the American Music Award for Best New Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Band of 1991, Metal Edge Magazine's Best New Band of 1991, Young Guitar Magazine's Best Newcomer of 1991, and Music Life Magazine's reader's pop poll Best Newcomer of the Year 1992. Their first album sold over 2 million, and their song "Love of a Lifetime" sold over 500,000 singles reaching #5. "Don't Treat Me Bad" went to #14. Their second album sold almost 1 million copies to date with "Reach for the Sky" getting into the top 20 and "When I Look Into Your Eyes" reaching #7. The third Firehouse CD "3" enjoyed more success overseas going gold in several countries in Asia enabling the band to take their music around the world. Success continued on the following CDs, Good Acoustics, CATEGOY 5, Bring ?em Out Alive, and O2. FireHouse is estimated to have sold 7 million albums worldwide since their debut.
After almost 10 years with FireHouse, Leverty released his first solo album called Wanderlust. He followed this up with the release his first instrumental album, Southern Exposure in December 2007, playing all of the instruments except drums. In June of 2009, he released his first album of cover tunes, DEEP SOUTH named after an amazing piece of artwork created by his Grandfather, William G. Leverty.
Visit www.leverty.com for all the info on Bill's work.
Versatile musician, guitarist, vocalist, composer,
producer and arranger Steve Lukather was born in Los Angeles on October 21
in 1957. Before his father bought him a guitar (a simple Kay acoustic) and a
copy of Meet the Beatles at the age of seven, Luke started to play drums and
keyboards.
In the years following Lukather taught himself how to play the guitar. He
hung out with older friends who showed him how to play and how to set the
chords. At high school he met the Porcaro brothers. Jeff Porcaro, already is
Steely Dan, turned out to be like a brother and mentor for Steve Lukather.
After playing and touring with Boz Scaggs, David Paich and Jeff Porcaro
asked Steve Lukather, Bobby Kimball, David Hungate and Steve Porcaro in 1976
to create their own band Toto. In September 1977 Toto released their first
album, Toto, that generated the hit singles Hold the line, I'll supply the
love and Georgy Porgy. With the album David Paich and Steve Lukather started
a more than 25 years Toto career.
The year 1982 turned out to be the most successful (commercially) in Toto's
and Lukather's career. Lukather, Paich and Jeff and Steve Porcaro
contributed heavily to Michael Jackson's Thriller album. The album Toto IV
went platinum and the hit singles Rosanna and Africa became all time
classics. A year later, Toto received six Grammy Awards including a Grammy
for Lukather for best rhythm & blues song Turn your love around,
co-written with Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin.
Throughout the following years, Steve Lukather continued touring with Toto,
his own new band El Grupo (with Steve Weingart, Oskar Cartaya and Joey
Heredia) and musicians such as Jeff Beck, Simon Phillips, Carlos Santana,
Larry Carlton and his mate Edgar Winter. While working with Carlton,
they recorded a couple of shows and in 2001 released a selection of songs
recorded in the Blue Note in Osaka on their live album No substitutions,
which received a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album for solo artists,
duos or groups.
He also contributed to projects of David Garfield, Richard Marx, Mike
Terrana, Pat Torpey, Gregg Bissonette, Joe Cocker, Les Paul, Tommy Lee, Van
Halen, and Edgar Winter and worked on albums with Toto [including Kingdom of
desire (1992), Tambu (1995), Mindfields (1999), Livefields
(1999), Through the looking glass (2002), 25th Anniversary Live
in Amsterdam, and Falling in between (2006)] as well as solo albums [Lukather
(1989), Candyman (1994), Luke (1997), Santamental (2003), and
Ever changing times (2008)]
Visit www.stevelukather.net for all the info on Steve's work.
Hailing from South Carolina and choosing Athens as his home, nationally known photographer Chris McKay earned a couple of ASCAP Music Awards for his solo work but had wanted to be back in a group since his days with Q-Sign.
In 2004, McKay and his bass-playing high school friend Frank DeFreese formed The Critical Darlings. When word started to spread, the offers for shows came. "For the first year, we never booked gigs. We only accepted invitations," McKay said. "I thought that was a great sign."
Eventually, the Darlings went into the studio to record C'mon, Accept Your Joy! Since the official release of Joy, the songs have been picked up by over 150 stations around the world (from Poland to New Zealand to London and back to the States).
In 2007, the Critical Darlings expanded to a quartet (with the addition of guitarist/vocalist Joe Orr and drummer Joshua Harrison) and started work on their second album, titled Satisfactionista, with GRAMMY nominated producer David Barbe (R.E.M., Drive-By Truckers, Cracker, Betty Lavette) behind the board. Of special interest is the collaboration with David Bowie's inimitable pianist Mike Garson (Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans) who appears on the track "Something Unseen" (which also finds Drive-By Truckers' Brad Morgan on drums). After working on the album for nearly a year, Satisfactionista was released in February 2009 and is available through iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Target and many other digital outlets.
If that's not enough, The Darlings are one of the first bands chosen to employ Pete Townshend's Lifehouse Method in co-composing several tracks with The WHO's songwriter / guitarist via software that produces a unique song based on data input.
It's no wonder that Lee Valentine Smith of Creative Loafing has named the Critical Darlings "a great little buzz-worthy band" and dubbed McKay "power pop potentate."
You can check out what Chris is doing at the following links:
www.chrismckay.net
www.myspace.com/criticaldarlings
www.reverbnation.com/criticaldarlings
www.facebook.com
Marco comes from a very musical family and started playing
the guitar at an early age.
Marco is perhaps best known for his work with a number of rock bands and
artists such as Thin Lizzy, Blue Murder, Whitesnake, Ted Nugent, Neal Schon
and Soul SirkUS. Marco is currently working with Dolores O?Riordan
from the Cranberries project and touring with the Lynch Mob.
Marco is living in Los Angeles. When he's not touring he can often be found
playing local jazz clubs with Joey Heredia and Renato Neto.
Visit www.marcomendoza.com for all
the info on MM's work.
Vernon was born May 10th in the Philippines; however, he moved to his parents native home of Nassau, Bahamas. Vernon's mother an accomplished pianist, violinist, would be very instrumental in his early musical development. After he moved to Hawaii at age 14, Vernon started playing in his first real performing band. He studied music all through high school and played in various bands. Vernon then moved to Miami where he attended his last 2 years of college, this move put him in the company of people who would eventually be legends in the music business, such as Jaco Pastorious, Pat Metheny, and ?Narada? Michael Walden. Vernon started playing with a Miami based group called ?Unit III? who had a regional hit single, this would prove to be the launching of his professional career as a musician/producer/artists, and now label owner of his own company, Boosweet Records, a very well known independent label based in Los Angeles, CA.
Vernon has recorded with, toured with, produced for some of the most legendary names in the music business such as the late blues legend ?Johnny Guitar Watson?, ?Pee Wee Crayton?, Charles ?Merry Christmas? Brown, ?Mary Wells?, ?The Dramatics?, Motown hit producer ?Norman Whitfield?, rap star ?Warren G?, ?Howard Hewitt?, ?Teena Marie?, Cuba Gooding Sr. (Main Ingredient), The Coasters, Drifters, Etta James, George Clinton, and many more as well as producing and mastering the 18-artist compilation with many industry greats. His CD efforts ?G-Fire? and "G-Fire II", which garnered a prestigious jazz award called the ?Smoothie Award? as well as ranking in the Top 10 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums Retail Charts Retail. Vernon and his CDs have also been featured in magazines such as Guitar Player, Guitar World, Guitar One, 20th Century Guitar, Vintage Guitar, Jazz Improv, Jazz Times, Down Beat, Urban Network, Ebony, Our Weekly, Guitar Player Brazil, Cover Guitarra(Brazil), Smooth Jazz News, Abyss Jazz, All About Jazz, and a myriad of newspapers, and e-zines globally.
Extending his career to acting in movies, Vernon can also be seen in the following big screen and DVD releases: Universals ?Along Came Polly?, Warner Bros. ?Starsky and Hutch?, and Columbia Pictures ?Walk Hard.? Vernon is one of only a handful of musicians in the world to have both a signature guitar manufactured for him bearing his name, and a signature guitar string, the are called respectively called the Tagima VN-1 signature guitar, and Giannini ?Power String?.
Visit www.myspace.com/vernonneillyband for all the info on Vernon's work.
Ronny plays his own signature brand of instrumental guitar rock and is a So Cal guitar hero. In 2006 he won Best Male Guitarist Award at All Access Magazine Music Awards, after which, Ronny was featured in a cool interview in All Access Magazine to talk about the win.
Ronny sells CDs and gets airplay all over the world. he also regularly does clinics trade shows all over the U.S. His music was even used on MTV's Real World reality show. Ronny is regularly featured in ad campaigns for his many sponsors (He's endorsed by 50 different music equipment manufactures and even has his own signature guitar by Tregan guitars) Ronny recently was honored with his own RN Day at his former school Norwalk High. He has also been featured in numerous music publications and Guitar Player Magazine head editor Michael Molenda said some very complimentary things about Ronny?s playing.
The Traveling Guitar is excited to add Ronny North as a performing sponsor as he also has a philanthropic side: he has performed at the Special Olympics Summer Games for the last ten consecutive years and has performed at numerous events for Toys for Tots, the Vets and the Troops. He has also has performed for benefits for Tsunami Relief, The Norwalk/Lamirada School District, Heart of Gold Charities and musicians in need.
Ronny North is tomorrow's guitar hero today......
Definitely check out Ronny and see what all the excitement is about (www.ronnynorth.com).
In his 40-plus years of playing the instrument, Carl has created a wildly successful, multi-faceted career. He is a critically-acclaimed musician with ten CD?s released worldwide and is commonly regarded as a guitar virtuoso capable of playing any style of music with remarkable mastery and conviction. He has been one of LA?s elite ?first call? session players for the past 25 years, playing on hundreds of records, movie soundtracks and television shows. Carl has graced the pages of countless industry publications and been the subject of numerous articles chronicling his rise to the forefront of the modern day guitar scene. Carl has won numerous polls and musical honors in the US, Germany, France, Italy and the UK.
A member of the smash hit British rock group Supertramp since 1985, Carl has played to millions of enthusiastic fans in sold out arenas worldwide. As the creative force behind The Carl Verheyen Band, he has released an impressive and eclectic discography that showcases his endless talents across a wide array of musical genres.
Complete Bio for Carl Verheyen>>
To find out more about Carl, visit www.carlverheyen.com.
Bobby Vogel began his music career at age 12 when he was asked to join an international gospel radio program called ?Children?s Bible Hour,? where, for the next 4 years he sang and played guitar on over 500 radio stations worldwide.
After high school, Bobby formed his own band fronting a country rock group that toured the United States for the next 10
years, playing concerts with stars such as Tanya Tucker, the late Ricky Nelson, Johnny Paycheck, the Kingston Trio, and The James Gang with Joe Walsh, to name a few.
Bobby has a Degree in Music. During his studies, he received the ?Jimmy Forrest Jazz
Scholarship" and performed with some Jazz greats including the late Stan Getz.
He also performed with his band and was awarded a personal letter of recommendation from President Gerald R. Ford for outstanding service to the community.
In 1991, Bobby moved his family to Nashville, where he found work as a session picker. His most notable sessions were with Harold Shedd recording with Davis Daniels.
He was asked to join a recording and touring act on the Epic/Sony label. After
two years of touring, Bobby returned to Nashville and formed a new band,
Nevada, where he played Lead Guitar.
In 1996 Bobby auditioned for Loretta Lynn who hired him on the spot. Bobby has played Lead/Acoustic Guitars and the 5-string Banjo for Loretta Lynn for the last decade.