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| Hello and welcome to my hompe page. This site was built as a labor of love for friends and family to keep in touch, tune in, turn on and groove out. To navigate around the site, and to fully enjoy the features, listen to some music or download MP3's by clicking on the "Sound" banner (above) check out my gear under "gear" banner, etc. The "Gallery" section has pictures of the band and/or friends of the band enjoying themselves. You can also check out current events under the "Gigs" banner. I recently added a BLOG to encourage dialogue and positive discourse on subjsect matters related to music and entertainment, current events, etc., anything that comes to mind (comments). Angelo in 1981 at Great America with Pablo Cruise |
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| Timeframe/History from 1964 - 1985 | ||
My musical journey began in a sedate, mellow suburb of San Francisco called Palo Alto. I am no longer embarrased to admit to anyone that the accordian was the first musical instrument that my parents introduced me to. I have accepted this honor, now and forever will embrace the accordian as the mother of all patron saints of cajun and creole music and I am proud to say that I have seen the light! When, "The British Invasion" came along I strapped on a six string and never looked back. I learned to play drums, listening to Charlie Watts and banging on our piano bench at home, fashioning drum sticks from the wood insert of mom & dad's clothes hangers. I played drums, keyboards, accordian, and just about any instrument I could get my hands on. My first guitar teacher and original music mentor was Vern Older. Vern was a sweet jazzman and very cool cat with a ton of patience and a penchant for trying to explain music theory to a very young and impatient, accordian player. I convinced, cajoled and otherwise harrassed my parents into supporting my musical aspiration, and suggested that an electric guitar would be a positive influence on my grade point average. I promised to a) participate/perform in folks masses at our church, and b) sing in the glee club at my "all men" catholic high school, which sucked, but was well worth it in the end. At first, I shared an old Harmony 6 string acoustic with my brother for about a year. Finally the folks caved and rented some electric instruments from the local music stores until I saved enough money to buy an Epiphone Riviera and a Fender Super Reverb. Once I got a tatse of performing 'live' and bending steel in front of girls, I promptly rebelled and left the seminary (catholic school). Public school was a welcome change, however it came at a price. I had to work at the car wash and scrub dishes to earn money to support my growing musical habit. Once in public high school and around all those girls every day I found a gang of guys that were looking to get a group together. They had no musical leader, so in I stepped, ready to rock. We called this band The Butterscotch Elephant Farm. I know, weird name, huh? You have to remember that this was in 1967 during the height of psychedelic pop, flower power and the black light glow of Haight Ashbury. We played a lot of the Doors music, along with Electric Flag and Buffalo Springfield. Musical heroes during this period included Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield, Keith Richards, Stevie Winwood, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters. | ||
The Lucky Mud Traveling Medicine Show - personnel, circa 1969 - 1976 |
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Mike Mitchell - Guitar and Lead Vocalist Historical note - The Lucky Mud Travelling Medicine Show was the opening act for The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the HIC Arena in Honolulu, HI in the summer of 1970. This turned out to be the last American concert that Jimi would perform, before leaving the USA and playing the infamous, Isle of White concert. The events surrounding this performance and some personal recollections are chronicled in the 35th edition of UniVibes magazine, the international Jimi hendrix magazine. UniVibes is a quarterly publication out of Popigilio, Italy. UniVibe Magazine is the quintessential Jimi Hendrix chronicle and is still |
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Cockrell & Santos - personnel, circa 1978 1980 |
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Artists - Bud Cockrel and Pattie Santos. Featured guests included Airto Moreira and Flora Purim (Return To Forever), Jaco Pastorius (RIP), and a host of LA's studio scene. This record featured the Memphis Horns, Jaco on guitar, along with Airto playing percussion Flora Purim doing some amazing pyrotechniques, vocally. Ernie Watts turns in some great Sax solos and David Garibaldi (Tower Of Power) sits in on the traps for, I Tried It All. This was a great opportuity to experience show business politics and all of the trappings of success without being a success. The band was short lived, but, to record with Jaco, Flora and Aierto was a life long dream come true.
Bud Cockrel - Bass Guitar and Vocals |
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Pablo Cruise - personnel, circa 1980- 1983
Cory Lerios Piano and Vocals |
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Reflector This record was produced by the great, Tom Dowd. Tom Dowd is one of the most revered Producers of popular music, ever. His range of producing and engineering credits span the spectrum of great recordings from John Coltrane, Ray Chales, Aretha Franklin to Cream and Lynyrd Skynyrd and all the great early recordings pioneered by Ahmet Ertegen at Atlantic Records as their, "house" engineer. Simply put, an amazing experience. All instruments and vocals were performed by the band. Favorite songs, |
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| Released - Reflector, Produced by Tom Dowd, A&M Records 1981. | ||||||
Out of Our Hands We worked extensively between Fantasy Studios, Oakland Ca and the Record Plant in Sausalito, CA. Greg 'Martini Price, Bob Brown and my favorite, Jim Gaines, worked with the band, engineering many, late night sessions. Some of the best music that we recorded never made it out of the studio. We recorded non-stop and spent a lot of A&M money. In the end, this was the last Pablo Cruise record ever released, except for compilations of past hits. With Cory and Dave reunited, we hope for more Pablo Cruise Recordings to be released soon Favorite song, |
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| Released- Out of Our Hands, Produced by Cory Lerios and Dave Jenkins, A&M Records - 1983 | ||||||
| I decided at this point to change course and got into HI-Tech in 1985. I now live and play in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have three beautiful children - Bjorn Eirik Rossi, Mia Michele Rossi and Taylor Kiel stepson and four grand kids. About 10 years back, I started doing solo projects and producing some recordings, which I now offer free of charge to you, my friends and family on this site under the "Sound" banner. Check it out and enjoy> | ||||
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| This web site is dedicated to the memory of Joaquin Villegas, aka. Pablo Cruise. "What you want to happen!" 1950 - 1997 | ||||