Timmy
a histography
It all started in 8th grade, 1967, the summer of love, in Buckhead,
Georgia.
Keyboardist John Langford met guitarist Don Macleod, and the rest
was history.
To this day, they still practice on Wednesday nights.
Why? Because they love it.
From the beginning, they had to have that "Brown" soun'.
(Translated into laymens terms, that's basically a Marshall on
ten).
Thus the name 'Timmy'.
A contradiction in terms, or a surprise punch perhaps.
I am reminded of when Elvis came on the Sullivan show, and said,
"Okay, we're gonna slow it down a little...Ya ain't nothin'
but a houndog!!!
That knocked me out of my socks.
So Timmy comes out with a friendly meek little handshake of a
name,
and then proceeds to knock you off your ass.
Heralded as the unsung progressive band of the seventies,
Timmy boasts an impressive history of associates that includes:
Andy West of the Dixie Dregs, Mark O'Conner, Vince Welnick,
Eddy Offord, and infamous rock manager Tony Secunda.
1975
Marin County California
Timmy joins forces with Cream of Chicken,
replacing guitarist Angie Makurak with Peter Penhallow, (aka Mr.
Cheez),
and drummer Dave Obiedo with Paul Southard, (aka Paul Zahl...his
girlfriends tall!).
Peter eventually moves to mini moog, (the 'saxophone', as he would
refer to it), Donny moves
from bass to guitar, and John takes over the bass with his left
hand.
One of their songs at that time was called "Big Long One",
which says it all.
Most of their tunes, mostly written by John, and collaborated
with by Donny and Peter, were
anywhere from ten minutes to an hour long, and were these fantastic
and beautiful
epics with time changes every measure.
(What's a measure?).
From 1975 to 1988, various drummers came in and out,
while John, Donny and Peter remained as the core of the group.
Zahl stayed maybe a year, and maybe came back once or twice,
but was eventually replaced with Mitch Hinard, (aka Panda).
The music was a stretch for Panda, but he rose to the occasion
and hit hard.
After Panda came Bob, (Uncle Woofy), easily the best progressive
drummer on the planet.
The Uncle Woofy period was a height.
The tunes were longer, crazier, more beautiful than ever, and
played with precision.
The band opened for many progressive bands of that era to standing
ovations.
Bob left.
In comes Charlie Tapp.
The band was also recruited by famed rock manager Tony Secunda.
A shift in the music occurs. shorter tunes, straighter beats.
This was a typical shift for progressive bands at this time,
the early eighties, I guess,
and Timmy handled the shift with more grace
than a lot of the other progressive bands at that time.
1983
Bob came back, with bassist Andy West, who was rebounding from
his break-up with the Dixie Dregs.
So now the band was John, Donny, Peter, Charlie, Bob, and Andy.
Charlie was Alan White to Bob's Bill Bruford. It was a killer
combination.
Mark O'Conner, who was John's roomate at the time, lent some fiddle
to a couple of recordings.
1984
The band made a demo, (The Atlanta Project), produced by Eddy
Offord, (oops, Bob's gone again).
All the King's men loved it, just the King's A and R guys went,
ehh!
Progressive was dead.
Bye Charlie. Bye Andy. Bye Tony.
Hello Brain! Paul Chatterton III on the drums.
Vince Welnick came in to co-write and produce a few tunes for
the "Eye" > CD.
1988
"Has anyone seen Peter?"
"Hey Peter, when ya comin' to rehearsal?"
"Guys, I ran away from home to play piano for babies".
Brain left the band soon after Mr. Cheez,
and eventually flew into the arms of God
from the seat of his Harley.
God bless ya, brother.
1990
Andy Bishop joins the band on drums, they been a bad ass rockin'
trio ever since.
Timmy is John (Langford) Harrison, Donny MacLeod, Andy Bishop
30 years of Rock and Roll!
So I seriously doubt that this is...
The End
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