Benchmark Recordings

09/11/2024

Celebrating my 13th year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉

10/02/2023

Today is all FB ads - I'm logging off.

14/12/2018

Great early photo of Thunderbirds band members Jimmie, Kim, and Keith, with Muddy Waters from the cover of Susan Antone's book, Picture the Blues.

07/03/2018

Also found this video:

07/03/2018

Found this video from back in the day:

23/10/2016

T Bone Burnet is one of America's great musical treasures - but remains mostly unknown. You've heard his musical influence through the decades of his work. A new biography has been written. Got to work with him at Takoma Records when Denny Bruce signed him for his first solo album.

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2016/oct/23/life-in-pursuit-author-s-take-on-t-bone/?features

"It used to be, in the '60s, when people said that all [rock 'n' roll] music sounded alike, they were wrong. But now, when people say that, they're right. That's because it all comes out of a big machine, and everybody uses the same machine."

26/09/2016

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7518941/t-bone-burnett-americana-music-festival-conference-digital-streaming-warning

If T Bone Burnett’s message in his two fiery speaking appearances at the Americana Music Festival & Conference this week could be summed up in one sentence, it might be this: Do not go gentle into that good stream.

31/08/2016

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/211946/guitar-god-michael-bloomfield

14/08/2016

Great article about the many groups calling themselves the "Zombies" in the late 60's.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/danielralston/the-true-story-of-the-fake-zombies-the-strangest-con-in-rock?utm_term=.vvyekkqaD #.pqDKoopxN

30/04/2016

The band played many shows with Muddy before they ever had a record deal. He was a big help in spreading the word about how they were "the real deal!"

21/03/2016

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top listed his top 10 favorite blues albums, and the 1st Fabulous Thunderbirds album made the list:

“One of my all-time favorite bands. What I admire about them so much is that they ‘learned to unlearn.’ Jimmie Vaughan had perfected techniques on the guitar to the point where he could keep up with the best of them, as had the rest of the lineup. They recognized the idiom of the blues as an art form long before people talked about it in such a way.

“Everybody in the band had done their homework and figured out that this wasn’t some simplistic, sports bar music; this was serious business. But they dished it out in a way that was both fierce and casual. I think this is one of the finest interpretations of the blues that has ever found its way to the marketplace. Not a bad moment anywhere. It’s a beauty.”

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/billy-gibbonss-10-favourite-blues-albums-of-all-time-460219

ZZ Top's guitar master picks the winners