Smiling Assassin
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Smiling Assassin
''Smiling Assassin'' is the debut solo album by Widespread Panic keyboardist John Hermann, released in 2001. Other members of Widespread Panic as well as members of the North Mississippi All Stars and Blue Mountain also perform on the album. Track listing All tracks written by John Hermann except where noted. # "Hell for Horses" 2:43 # "Smiling Assassin" 4:08 # "Mountain Hideaway" 3:41 # "Abilene" 4:19 # "Don't Look Down" 3:56 # "Lazy Bum" 3:44 # "Run You Down" 3:18 # "Don't Throw It Away" 5:11 # "Swamp Tag" 2:43 # "Daisy Mae" 3:56 # "Lonely Avenue" (Doc Pomus) 5:09 Personnel Musicians * John Hermann – guitar, keyboards, vocals * John Bell – vocals * Michael Houser – guitar * Todd Nance – 12 string guitar, shaker * Domingo Ortiz – percussion * George McConnell – guitar * Luther Dickinson – guitar * Cody Dickinson – drums * Paul Edwards – bass * Cary Hudson Cary Hudson is an American lead singer, guitarist and main songwriter of the alternative country/ ...
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John Hermann
John "JoJo" Hermann is an American singer, musician and songwriter, best known for his involvement in the band Widespread Panic. Early life He was born in New York City and attended Collegiate School, where he was a classmate of actor Billy Wirth.''The Dutchman'' (the Collegiate School yearbook), 1975 edition, page 33 He began performing in small clubs, while in college and moved to Oxford, Mississippi after graduation. Hermann began songwriting and performing in 1983. Career Hermann began playing piano in the local band Beanland with George McConnell on guitar appearing on JoJo's Defector, Smiling Assassin, and with Widespread Panic (1992–present). After a friend of the band heard JoJo playing on an old upright piano at the Hoka Club also in Oxford. After extensive touring of the Southeast with Beanland, he then went on to join Athens, Georgia based Widespread Panic in 1992 with whom he still plays keyboard and organ. JoJo is known for his lead vocals on many New Orleans ...
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John Bell (musician)
John Farmer Bell (born April 14, 1962) is the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and occasional mandolin player for the American rock band Widespread Panic, where he is known for his raspy southern drawl that hits a variety of octaves. He is frequently called JB by fans. For more than 30 years, the voice has fueled 150 concerts a year all over the country and created a road warrior mentality for the band and its fans. Bell grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where he graduated from University School in 1980. He attended the University of Georgia and was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity where he, Michael Houser, and Dave Schools met while Houser was playing at an open mic night. "Panic," as Houser was nicknamed, began playing with JB and Schools at local Athens, GA clubs, playing mostly cover songs. John Bell is an active philanthropist, most notably as an advocate for SMA ( spinal muscular atrophy). Bell has helped raise over $2 million for SMA research, mostly through his invol ...
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John Keane (record Producer)
John Keane is an American record producer based in Athens, Georgia, who has worked extensively with R.E.M., Indigo Girls and Widespread Panic. He owns and operates John Keane Studios in Athens, which opened in 1981. Keane has participated in many music conference panels as an expert on subjects such as record production, home recording, and Pro Tools. These include South by Southwest in Austin, The Tape Op conference in Portland OR, Athfest in Athens, GA, and the Cutting Edge in New Orleans. He has taught a Pro Tools course for the University of Georgia’s Music Business Program, and is the author of the popular Pro Tools book, ''The Musician’s Guide to Pro Tools'' (McGraw-Hill). He has also created Online Pro Tools, a series of Pro Tools instructional videos. He started in 1981 with an assortment of road-worn PA gear that belonged to Phil and the Blanks, a local band he was playing with at the time. He bought a TEAC reel-to-reel 4-track tape machine which he mounted in a shop ...
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Cary Hudson
Cary Hudson is an American lead singer, guitarist and main songwriter of the alternative country/Southern rock band Blue Mountain (band), Blue Mountain. Biography Hudson was born in the town of Sumrall, Mississippi, located approximately 15 miles from Hattiesburg. Prior to Blue Mountain, Hudson was in a band called The Hilltops, and Blue Mountain formed out of The Hilltops. Blue Mountain featured numerous drummers, most infamously Frank Coutch, and bassist/wife of Hudson, Laurie Stirratt. After the divorce of Hudson and Stirratt, Blue Mountain split, and Hudson embarked on a solo career that spawned three albums released on his and his cousin Chris Hudson's record label, Black Dog Records. The first album, ''The Phoenix'' was released in 2002. Though Hudson shows his country music, country roots often, many of the tracks offer him showing his talent for the electric guitar, such as the track "Mad, Bad, & Dangerous". His second album, ''Cool Breeze'' released in 2004, find ...
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Luther Dickinson
Luther Andrews Dickinson (born January 18, 1973) is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the North Mississippi Allstars and the son of record producer Jim Dickinson. He is also known for being the lead guitarist for The Black Crowes. He hosts ''Guitar Xpress'' on the Video on Demand network Mag Rack. Career He was born in West Tennessee to Mary Lindsay and Jim Dickinson, a Memphis record producer. Dickinson grew up playing concerts and gaining recording experience with his father and brother, Cody. The family moved to the hills of North Mississippi in 1985. Dickinson made his recording debut in 1987, playing a metal-influenced guitar solo on "Shooting Dirty Pool" on The Replacements' album ''Pleased to Meet Me'', which his father was producing. Dickinson befriended the musical families of Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. They were the inspiration for Luther and Cody Dickinson to form the North Mississippi Allstars in 1996. The North Mississippi Allstars have ...
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George McConnell
George McConnell is an American singer from Vicksburg, Mississippi. He played for the bands Widespread Panic, Kudzu Kings, and Beanland. History George McConnell attended the University of Mississippi, where he was in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. McConnell co-founded Beanland in Oxford, Mississippi in 1985 with guitarist Bill McCorry. After some early shuffling, the band's line-up comprised McConnell and McCrory on guitar, John Hermann on keyboards, Ron Lewis on bass, and Harry Peel on drums. The band recorded their self-titled debut album in 1991 and toured extensively around the south and southwest, playing blues-oriented rock as part of the nascent early 1990s Jamband renaissance. McConnell went on to play for several years in the country rock band Kudzu Kings, eventually leaving to devote his time to opening a guitar store in Oxford Square in Oxford, Mississippi. In 2002, following Panic guitarist Michael Houser's diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, McConnell and ...
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Domingo Ortiz
Domingo Steven "Sunny" Ortiz (born July 4, 1952) is an American musician best known as the longtime percussionist for Widespread Panic. Life and career Domingo Ortiz was born in 1952 to Victor and Faye Ortiz. He is of Mexican heritage and grew up in Waco, Texas. With his parents' help, he bought his first drum kit as a teenager. He played his first professional gig at the age of 15 in the 1960s at a bar with his Uncle Cruz's band. His parents were initially against the idea of him performing with a rock band but came around to the idea when they learned he would be paid $35 for the performance. Ortiz began his career on a standard drum set, but shifted to bongos, congas, timbales and other percussion instruments as a way to distinguish himself from other drummers in Texas. In 1986 he moved to Athens, Georgia where he met up with the members of the newly formed Widespread Panic. Playing percussion, he performed with them for the first time on October 6, 1986. He continued to s ...
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Todd Nance
Todd Nance (November 20, 1962August 19, 2020) was an American musician. He was best known as the original drummer of Widespread Panic, a band he was a member of until his departure in 2016. He struggled with chronic illness for the remainder of his life, ultimately leading up to his death in 2020. Early life Todd Nance was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a child, he began playing the guitar; subsequently he was given his first drum kit on Christmas Day, 1975. It was around this time that he attended his first concert, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and was inspired to pursue music more seriously. He first met his future Widespread Panic bandmate Michael Houser in high school in either 1977 or 1978 and they formed the band Just Us. After graduating from high school in 1981, Nance moved to Atlanta. Widespread Panic Nance reconnected with Michael Houser in 1986 and joined the band that Houser had formed with John Bell and Dave Schools. The quartet performed their first show as Widespre ...
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Michael Houser
Michael Houser (January 6, 1962 – August 10, 2002) was a founding member and lead guitarist of the band Widespread Panic. He appeared on seven studio albums during his 16-year tenure with the band from 1986 till 2002. He is also featured on 4 live albums by Widespread Panic as well as several archive releases, live video concerts and compilations. Two solo albums by Houser were released posthumously. Musical career Michael "Mikey" Houser was born in Boone, North Carolina. He graduated from Hixson High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and became a founding member of Widespread Panic in 1986 while attending the University of Georgia with John Bell. Michael's adolescent nickname was "Panic" due to his then frequent panic attacks, and this moniker later became the inspiration for the band's name. Widespread Panic's large rhythm section, and John Bell's virtuosity as a rhythm guitarist, allowed Michael to pursue an atmospheric lead guitar style that often lingered behin ...
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Doc Pomus
Jerome Solon Felder (June 27, 1925 – March 14, 1991), known professionally as Doc Pomus, was an American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the co-writer of many rock and roll hits. Pomus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 1992, the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992), and the Blues Hall of Fame (2012). Early life Born Jerome Solon Felder in 1925 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, he was the son of Jewish immigrants. He attended Brooklyn College from 1943 to 1945. Felder became a fan of the blues after hearing a Big Joe Turner record, "Piney Brown Blues". Having contracted polio as a boy, he walked with the aid of crutches. Later, due to post-polio syndrome exacerbated by an accident, Felder relied on a wheelchair. His brother is New York attorney Raoul Felder. Career Using the stage name Doc Pomus, teenager Felder began performing as a blues singer. His stage name was not inspired by anyone in particular; he just thought it ...
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Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ...
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Lonely Avenue
"Lonely Avenue" is a popular song written by Doc Pomus that was a No. 6 rhythm and blues hit for Ray Charles in 1956. Background The song drew the attention of the music business to Doc Pomus, who had previously had little success as a songwriter. Covers *The Animals covered it on the 1977 reunion album ''Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted''. *The Blues Band covered the song on the album ''Ready'' in 1980. * Joe Cocker regularly performed the song during his live shows. *The Crickets covered the song on the album '' California Sun / She Loves You'' and on the Liberty Records single. *Lee Dorsey covers this song on his 1982 compilation album ''All Ways Funky''. *Les Double Six recorded the song on their 1964 album, ''The Double Six of Paris Sing Ray Charles''. *The Everly Brothers covered the song on the album '' Beat & Soul'' released in 1965. *Tav Falco's Panther Burns included a version of this song on their 1994 album, ''Deep in the Shadows''. *Ian Gillan in Gillan & Glove ...
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