Sonny and his Wild Cows | |
|---|---|
 Sonny of Sonny and his Wild Cows | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Budapest, Hungary |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2002–present |
| Members | Sonny Crazy Benny Gordon Taylor Little Tommy |
| Website | www |
Sonny and his Wild Cows are a Hungarian rock band from Budapest. Founded in 2002, the band performs 1950s-styled rockabilly, rhythm and blues and rock and roll music.
Sonny a.k.a. "Mr. Rhythm-and-Blues" (born 1983, Sopron, Hungary) is a singer and guitar player, one of the few rhythm and blues acts in Europe today who perform in the original 1940s–1950s style. [1] [2]
He debuted on stage in 1998, started alone first, with acoustic kind of country blues, then he played with various groups over the years (Blue S. Trio, Big Fat Chubby, Mystery Gang, Gál Csaba Boogie, Little G. Weevil, Raw Hide, Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Palermo Boogie Gang, Mark Tortorici, Rhythm Sophie, Tom Stormy Trio, Ed Phillips and the Memphis Patrol).
In 2000, he teamed up with Charming Marty harmonica player, and with him and Wins Huber guitarist and Buddy Benkey bass player he founded his own band Sonny and his Wild Cows in 2002. This band played (and is still playing) almost all kinds of American music of the 1940s and 1950s, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, rock-a-billy, swing, country and western. [3]
The members of the band changed over the years (in 2012 they are Sonny - vocal/guitar, Crazy Benny - piano, Gordon Taylor - bass, Little Tommy - drums, plus lot of times they have one or two saxophones or a harmonica player added).
In 2008, they released their first CD "Mr. Rhythm-and-Blues", in 2011 they made a five songs CD, and in June 2012 they're studio bound again in Berlin, Germany. They appeared many times on the national television of Hungary, [4] and they're still playing many gigs in Hungary, but they're touring around Europe, played in 15 countries successfully, great festivals and nice clubs, including the Rhythm Riot in England, Motorcycle Gang Jamboree and Red Moon Fest in Italy, South Island Rumble in Denmark, Tear It Up!! festival in Croatia, Sziget festival in Hungary, Polish Boogie festival in Poland, D'Hiver Rock festival and Festival des Arts de Rue in Belgium, Head Banging festival in Germany, Sighisora Blues festival in Romania, In Wires festival in Serbia, and many other international festivals, and also great clubs in London, Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Roma, Berlin, Praha, Wien, Zagreb, etc. In 2012 they'll play in France and Spain for the first time.
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African-American, Black-American, community in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations.
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