Terry Adams - Holy Tweet

Terry Adams - Holy Tweet - 2009

from AMG

NRBQ may have called it a day, but their founder Terry Adams is keeping the group's joyous and slightly loopy legacy alive on his 2009 solo album, Holy Tweet. Recorded with former NRBQ drummer Tom Ardolino and guitarist and bassist Scott Ligon, Holy Tweet doesn't aim to re-create the eclecticism of his old band's best work -- there isn't much in the way of stylistic leaps and bounds here -- but if you loved the pop-oriented rock & roll energy of "Rain at the Drive In," "I Want You Bad," or "Little Floater," then you're sure to like this set, which is dominated by short, straight-ahead tunes built around Adams' sly but sunny vocal personality, buoyant melodies, and superlative keyboard work. Holy Tweet also finds Adams in a slightly libidinous mood on tunes like "Key to My Pants," "Not Tonight, Hon," and "Feet," though he celebrates women in a more traditional manner on the charming "My Girl, My Girl," "Beautiful Lover," and a cover of "Indian Love Call." The album does veer into unexpectedly serious territory near the end with the moody "I'm Alone," and a brief exercise in self-deprecation called "So Disrespected" that coasts to a close after just over a minute. At less than 29 minutes, Holy Tweet seems a little bit thin by contemporary standards, but most of what's here is first-rate pop from one of music's true originals, and when Adams decries musicians who have turned on their muse for a paycheck on "Never Cop Out," he can take pride in the fact he's never done that, and if this album is any indication, he's not about to any time soon.

01. My Girl

02. Never Cop Out

03. Beautiful Lover

04. Indian Love Call

05. Yes I Will

06. Key To My Pants

07. Feet

08. She's Got Everything

09. Not Tonight, Hon

10. I'm Alone

11. So Disrespected

Terry Adams - Vocals, Piano, Keyboards [Clavinet], Organ, Bells 

Scott Ligon - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Organ

Norm Demoura - Backing Vocals (7), Ukulele (1)

Tom Ardolino - Drums

Jim Hoke - Harp (1)

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NRBQ - NRBQ (Repost)

NRBQ - NRBQ - 1969

Often called "the world's greatest bar band," NRBQ are that rare group that's eclectic, stylistically innovative, and creatively ambitious while also sounding thoroughly unpretentious and accessible. At its best, NRBQ's music casually mixes up barrelhouse R&B, British Invasion pop, fourth-gear rockabilly, exploratory free jazz, and dozens of other flavors while giving it all a stomp-down rhythm that makes fans want to dance and expressing a sense of joy and easy good humor that comes straight from the heart. Over the course of a career that's lasted more than 40 years, the band has barely flirted with mainstream success, but has still earned a sizable, passionate cult of fans that includes Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Ira Kaplan, John Sebastian, and Dave Edmunds. 

NRBQ were formed in 1967 by pianist Terry Adams and guitarist Steve Ferguson, a pair of musicians from Louisville, Kentucky, and Joey Spampinato, a bassist who originally hailed from the Bronx. Adams and Ferguson were members of a group called the Mersey-Beats USA, who as the name suggests specialized in British Invasion covers, and they had relocated to Miami, Florida in search of steady gigs. In Miami, they met Spampinato (then using the stage name Jody St. Nicholas) and vocalist Frank Gadler, who were members of an R&B show band called the Seven of Us. Adams and Ferguson soon joined the Seven of Us, and after the addition of drummer Tom Staley, the revamped lineup changed its name to NRBQ (short for the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet), though the band was still a seven-piece when sax player Keith Spring and Donn Adams on trombone (Terry's brother), soon to be known as the Whole Wheat Horns, sat in. NRBQ left Florida and made their way to New Jersey, where they began playing New York City on a regular basis. The band landed a recording contract with Columbia Records, and in 1969 NRBQ released their self-titled debut; displaying a stylistic range that would become the band's hallmark, the first two tunes found them covering Eddie Cochran and Sun Ra, with numbers by Carla Bley, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Bruce Channel popping up elsewhere alongside a handful of group originals. The album was well reviewed but sales were spotty, and for their second LP Columbia hoped to trade on a revival of interest in first-era rock & roll by pairing the band in the studio with rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins. Boppin' the Blues was an interesting experiment that didn't fare much better than NRBQ's debut, and they parted ways with Columbia.

In 1971, NRBQ landed a new record deal with Kama Sutra Records, and were breaking in a new guitarist; Steve Ferguson left the band, and Al Anderson, a former member of Connecticut white soul heroes the Wildweeds, took over on lead guitar for 1972's Scraps. Later the same year, Frank Gadler left the lineup, and from that point on Adams, Anderson, and Spampinato traded off on lead vocals. Released in 1973, Workshop featured a minor hit single in the topical novelty rocker "Get That Gasoline Blues," but it was also the band's last album for Kama Sutra due to disappointing sales. By the time they released another album, 1977's All Hopped Up, NRBQ had relocated to the Northeast, they were recording for their own Red Rooster label, and new drummer Tom Ardolino (a fan who impulsively hopped up on stage and sat in on the traps during an encore at a gig) had signed on, solidifying a lineup that would remain stable until 1994. One number from All Hopped Up, "Riding in My Car," attracted enough regional notice that Mercury signed the band and tacked the tune onto its next album, the marvelous NRBQ at Yankee Stadium (they didn't play there; they just sat in the stands). The Mercury signing proved to be a one-off, and Red Rooster struck up a distribution deal with the respected roots music label Rounder Records; outside of Grooves in Orbit, released by Bearsville Records in 1983 (shortly before they went out of business), Red Rooster/Rounder would be their home for the better part of 20 years as they released a steady stream of independent albums and played seemingly every club in the United States at one time or another, building a well-deserved reputation as a stellar and wildly unpredictable live act.

In 1989, NRBQ took one last chance with the major labels, signing with Virgin for the album Wild Weekend. The album fared better commercially than most of their LPs, but it was still well short of a hit, and their next disc was an archival live release for Rykodisc, 1992's Honest Dollar. In 1994, Rhino Records (who had previously compiled an excellent NRBQ anthology, Peek-A-Boo) released Message for the Mess Age, which proved to be Al Anderson's last album with NRBQ. Anderson was tired of NRBQ's busy touring schedule and left the group to work as a contract songwriter in Nashville, penning hits for Carlene Carter, Trisha Yearwood, the Mavericks, and LeAnn Rimes, among many others. (Anderson told a reporter he left NRBQ on good terms, adding "It was a great band before, and will be a great band after.") Johnny Spampinato, Joey's brother and a longtime member of the Incredible Casuals, took over as NRBQ's guitarist, and the band continued to record and tour at a steady pace. They also began popping up regularly on the popular television series The Simpsons; one of the show's top writers, Mike Scully, was a major fan, and he recruited them to record several numbers for the show, as well as appearing on the show in both animated and live-action form (they even wrote a tune specifically for The Simpsons, "Mayonnaise and Marmalade"). The band formed a new label, Edisun Records, to release 2002's Atsa My Band and 2004's Dummy, and in 2004, NRBQ staged a pair of 35th anniversary concerts in Northampton, Massachusetts, which featured appearances by every current and former member of the group.

Not long after the anniversary concerts, NRBQ quietly broke up, with Adams forming a new group, the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet, and releasing a number of albums through his own label,  

Clang Records; he also recorded and toured with Steve Ferguson, and played Scandinavia with Tom Staley's band the Hot Shots. Founding member Ferguson died of cancer at his home in Louisville on October 7, 2009 at the age of 60. Adams also struggled with health problems; he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004, though in 2011 he announced he was free from the illness. Joey and Johnny, meanwhile, hit the road as the Spampinato Brothers and released a fine album, 2010's Pie in the Sky. In the spring of 2011, Adams announced that the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet had been renamed NRBQ, and they released an album under their new moniker, Keep This Love Goin', in May of that year. Longtime drummer Tom Ardolino appeared on two tracks and drew the album's cover art, but health problems prevented him from touring; he died on January 6, 2012 in Springfield, Massachusetts at the age of 56. Ardolino's final recordings with the new edition of NRBQ appeared on 2012's We Travel the Spaceways, with the bandmembers once again indulging their fondness for Sun Ra on the title cut. Adams' NRBQ returned to action in 2014 with the album Brass Tacks. In 2016, NRBQ hit the road for a well-received tour in tandem with masked instrumental rockers Los Straitjackets. Later that same year, Omnivore commemorated NRBQ's golden anniversary with a five-disc, career-spanning box set, High Noon: A 50-Year Retrospective. Adams and NRBQ teamed with Omnivore again in 2017 to release a five-song EP, Happy Talk.

01. C'mon Everybody   
02. Rocket Number 9   
03. Kentucky Slop Song   
04. Ida   
05. C'mon If You're Comin'   
06. You Can't Hide   
07. I Didn't Know Myself   
08. Stomp   
09. Fergie's Prayer   
10. Mama Get Down Those Rock And Roll Shoes   
11. Hymn Number 5   
12. Hey! Baby   
13. Liza Jane   
14. Stay With Me

Terry Adams - Keyboards, Vocals, Harmonica
Steve Ferguson - Lead Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica
Frank Gadler - Vocals, Tambourine
Joey Spampinato (aka Jody St. Nicholas) - Vocals, Bass
Tom Staley - Drums, Percussion

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NRBQ - Happy Tracks - 2017

NRBQ - Happy Tracks - 2017

You might think that after 50 years, a band might want to settle down and just relax. If you do, you don’t know the Q!

Hot on the heels of last year’s critically acclaimed High Noon – A 50-Year Retrospective, Terry Adams, Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough, and John Perin took a few days off from their never-ending touring schedule, entered Harmonium Studio, and finished this new 5 song EP, bound in a beautiful six-panel package.

Available on CD and Digital, Happy Talk contains two originals and the Q’s spontaneous take on Roy Orbison’s “Only The Lonely,” along with the band’s years-in-the-making arrangement of Rogers & Hammerstein classic “Happy Talk” which serves as the EP’s title track.

According to founding member Terry Adams, “I’ve been crazy about the song ‘Happy Talk’ since I was a kid, I bought every version I could find and still do. I’ve always wanted to record it. To get it right you must realize that it’s in its own place that’s entirely separate from any song ever written.”

As NRBQ continues a career now reaching into six decades, they show no signs of slowing down. As the song says, “If you don’t talk happy, and you never dream, then you’ll never have a dream come true.”

01. Head On a Post
02. Yes, I Have a Banana
03. Only The Lonely
04. Blues Blues Blues
05. Happy Talk

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NRBQ - NRBQ

NRBQ - NRBQ - 1969

Often called "the world's greatest bar band," NRBQ are that rare group that's eclectic, stylistically innovative, and creatively ambitious while also sounding thoroughly unpretentious and accessible. At its best, NRBQ's music casually mixes up barrelhouse R&B, British Invasion pop, fourth-gear rockabilly, exploratory free jazz, and dozens of other flavors while giving it all a stomp-down rhythm that makes fans want to dance and expressing a sense of joy and easy good humor that comes straight from the heart. Over the course of a career that's lasted more than 40 years, the band has barely flirted with mainstream success, but has still earned a sizable, passionate cult of fans that includes Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Ira Kaplan, John Sebastian, and Dave Edmunds. 

NRBQ were formed in 1967 by pianist Terry Adams and guitarist Steve Ferguson, a pair of musicians from Louisville, Kentucky, and Joey Spampinato, a bassist who originally hailed from the Bronx. Adams and Ferguson were members of a group called the Mersey-Beats USA, who as the name suggests specialized in British Invasion covers, and they had relocated to Miami, Florida in search of steady gigs. In Miami, they met Spampinato (then using the stage name Jody St. Nicholas) and vocalist Frank Gadler, who were members of an R&B show band called the Seven of Us. Adams and Ferguson soon joined the Seven of Us, and after the addition of drummer Tom Staley, the revamped lineup changed its name to NRBQ (short for the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet), though the band was still a seven-piece when sax player Keith Spring and Donn Adams on trombone (Terry's brother), soon to be known as the Whole Wheat Horns, sat in. NRBQ left Florida and made their way to New Jersey, where they began playing New York City on a regular basis. The band landed a recording contract with Columbia Records, and in 1969 NRBQ released their self-titled debut; displaying a stylistic range that would become the band's hallmark, the first two tunes found them covering Eddie Cochran and Sun Ra, with numbers by Carla Bley, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Bruce Channel popping up elsewhere alongside a handful of group originals. The album was well reviewed but sales were spotty, and for their second LP Columbia hoped to trade on a revival of interest in first-era rock & roll by pairing the band in the studio with rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins. Boppin' the Blues was an interesting experiment that didn't fare much better than NRBQ's debut, and they parted ways with Columbia.

In 1971, NRBQ landed a new record deal with Kama Sutra Records, and were breaking in a new guitarist; Steve Ferguson left the band, and Al Anderson, a former member of Connecticut white soul heroes the Wildweeds, took over on lead guitar for 1972's Scraps. Later the same year, Frank Gadler left the lineup, and from that point on Adams, Anderson, and Spampinato traded off on lead vocals. Released in 1973, Workshop featured a minor hit single in the topical novelty rocker "Get That Gasoline Blues," but it was also the band's last album for Kama Sutra due to disappointing sales. By the time they released another album, 1977's All Hopped Up, NRBQ had relocated to the Northeast, they were recording for their own Red Rooster label, and new drummer Tom Ardolino (a fan who impulsively hopped up on stage and sat in on the traps during an encore at a gig) had signed on, solidifying a lineup that would remain stable until 1994. One number from All Hopped Up, "Riding in My Car," attracted enough regional notice that Mercury signed the band and tacked the tune onto its next album, the marvelous NRBQ at Yankee Stadium (they didn't play there; they just sat in the stands). The Mercury signing proved to be a one-off, and Red Rooster struck up a distribution deal with the respected roots music label Rounder Records; outside of Grooves in Orbit, released by Bearsville Records in 1983 (shortly before they went out of business), Red Rooster/Rounder would be their home for the better part of 20 years as they released a steady stream of independent albums and played seemingly every club in the United States at one time or another, building a well-deserved reputation as a stellar and wildly unpredictable live act.

In 1989, NRBQ took one last chance with the major labels, signing with Virgin for the album Wild Weekend. The album fared better commercially than most of their LPs, but it was still well short of a hit, and their next disc was an archival live release for Rykodisc, 1992's Honest Dollar. In 1994, Rhino Records (who had previously compiled an excellent NRBQ anthology, Peek-A-Boo) released Message for the Mess Age, which proved to be Al Anderson's last album with NRBQ. Anderson was tired of NRBQ's busy touring schedule and left the group to work as a contract songwriter in Nashville, penning hits for Carlene Carter, Trisha Yearwood, the Mavericks, and LeAnn Rimes, among many others. (Anderson told a reporter he left NRBQ on good terms, adding "It was a great band before, and will be a great band after.") Johnny Spampinato, Joey's brother and a longtime member of the Incredible Casuals, took over as NRBQ's guitarist, and the band continued to record and tour at a steady pace. They also began popping up regularly on the popular television series The Simpsons; one of the show's top writers, Mike Scully, was a major fan, and he recruited them to record several numbers for the show, as well as appearing on the show in both animated and live-action form (they even wrote a tune specifically for The Simpsons, "Mayonnaise and Marmalade"). The band formed a new label, Edisun Records, to release 2002's Atsa My Band and 2004's Dummy, and in 2004, NRBQ staged a pair of 35th anniversary concerts in Northampton, Massachusetts, which featured appearances by every current and former member of the group.

Not long after the anniversary concerts, NRBQ quietly broke up, with Adams forming a new group, the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet, and releasing a number of albums through his own label,  

Clang Records; he also recorded and toured with Steve Ferguson, and played Scandinavia with Tom Staley's band the Hot Shots. Founding member Ferguson died of cancer at his home in Louisville on October 7, 2009 at the age of 60. Adams also struggled with health problems; he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004, though in 2011 he announced he was free from the illness. Joey and Johnny, meanwhile, hit the road as the Spampinato Brothers and released a fine album, 2010's Pie in the Sky. In the spring of 2011, Adams announced that the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet had been renamed NRBQ, and they released an album under their new moniker, Keep This Love Goin', in May of that year. Longtime drummer Tom Ardolino appeared on two tracks and drew the album's cover art, but health problems prevented him from touring; he died on January 6, 2012 in Springfield, Massachusetts at the age of 56. Ardolino's final recordings with the new edition of NRBQ appeared on 2012's We Travel the Spaceways, with the bandmembers once again indulging their fondness for Sun Ra on the title cut. Adams' NRBQ returned to action in 2014 with the album Brass Tacks. In 2016, NRBQ hit the road for a well-received tour in tandem with masked instrumental rockers Los Straitjackets. Later that same year, Omnivore commemorated NRBQ's golden anniversary with a five-disc, career-spanning box set, High Noon: A 50-Year Retrospective. Adams and NRBQ teamed with Omnivore again in 2017 to release a five-song EP, Happy Talk.

01. C'mon Everybody   
02. Rocket Number 9   
03. Kentucky Slop Song   
04. Ida   
05. C'mon If You're Comin'   
06. You Can't Hide   
07. I Didn't Know Myself   
08. Stomp   
09. Fergie's Prayer   
10. Mama Get Down Those Rock And Roll Shoes   
11. Hymn Number 5   
12. Hey! Baby   
13. Liza Jane   
14. Stay With Me

Terry Adams - Keyboards, Vocals, Harmonica
Steve Ferguson - Lead Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica
Frank Gadler - Vocals, Tambourine
Joey Spampinato (aka Jody St. Nicholas) - Vocals, Bass
Tom Staley - Drums, Percussion

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