RJ Spangler

The first release from RJ Spangler's Blue Four! This collaboration with legendary keyboardist Bill Heid mixes swing, bop and blues. In addition to Spangler on drums and Heid on keys, the quartet also features Pat Prouty on bass and Keith Kaminski on sax. Legendary Detroit guitarist Johnnie Bassett is featured on three tracks! http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RJSpanglersBlueFour <~ buy it here! http://eastlawnrecords.com/

Ron is another guy that I have worked with quite a bit. We worked on 4 good (in my opinion) CDs for the now defunt Cannonball label; two for Johnnie Bassett, one for Alberta Adams plus comp of Detroit Blues. Ron is a great guy and count him a friend. He was at onetime, a co-owner of Cannonball, which was a pretty strong label in 90's. Well distributed and decent recording budgets and PR. As mentioned, he did play quite a bit with BB King and also Alberta King as well. He produced a bunch of sessions for Blacktop -- check out his output on allmusic.com. Its most impressive, including a fine CD with Charles Brown. After the demise of Cannonball, Ron moved back to New England from the midwest and concentrated on Acid Jazz CDs and touring. We had him here in Detroit a number of times. Often his CDs featured Karl Denson. Today Ron is still licensing his music for TV & movies but isn't playing, instead, he is managing his property, getting married and getting deeper in to his Jewsish faith. Levites (spelling), were the musicians in his faith he always told me. Ron is a great cat!

As mentioned above, I will be bringing Bill to Detroit from Maryland over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. He has two nights at Cliff Bells and he'll play my birthday party on the 26th. In the band will be Perry Hughes and Randy Gilespie, sort of Bill's "A-Team." Perry is such a badass guitar player!

MG

Randy asked me to weigh in here. I have had the great opportunity to play many gigs with Bill, going back to an every Sunday gig back in 1985. He has indeed been on Oprah (he tells a hilarious story about that by the way) and he played piano in a group led by Don Petterson! For real, Bill played piano and Don, of course, played organ. Bill hung with Larry in NJ, while playing at Larry's Dad's Club. He worked often with Joe Dukes and Billy James and hung with Grant Green in Detroit. He's from Pittsburgh, where he came up, musically hanging with George Benson and learning from McDuff. Bill can for sure play like the Blues like Otis Spann! He spent several years in Chicago, playing and recording with Fenton Robinson & Koko Taylor on Alligator (the first white cat). He also did Jazz gigs with Henry Johnson -- Bills on two of his Impulse! CDs. He has scored over 20 porno films by the way. He's lived and worked in Osaka, Japan and speaks fluent Japanese and can instantaneously compose Blues tunes in Japanese. On piano he digs Oscar and McCoy to name a few, on organ, Larry, Don, McDuff and also Big John and the Turbinator. He also lived in LA and played gigs with Big Jay McNeely, Roy Gaines, Kid Ramos, Lynwood Slim and others. I am proud to say that we co-produced many CDs together: working with artists like Johnnie Bassett, Alberta Adams, Joe Weaver and Bill's "Blues" CD on the Dutch Black Magic label. He sings a lot on that one. Bill has a CD in the can with Peter Bernstein. Oh yeah, I am bringing him to Detroit from Maryland over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. He has two nights at Cliff Bells (thanks Randy) and he'll play my birthday party on the 26th. Should be fun! RJ, Detroit www.myspace.com/rjspangler www.spanglerbluesproductions.com