por Robert Sáb 22 Sep 2012, 19:29
POMP AOR, DP SE YAMARIAN: ELEVEN BLOODY
Keyboardist-guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Tommy Thompson has been playing professionally since he was 15 years old. By the age of 19, his band Cookin' Mama, had already played 2 shows at Bill Graham's Carousel Ballroom (Fillmore West) and another at the original Fillmore Auditorium. Between 1979 and 1984 while playing with the San Francisco-based band HYTS, Tommy recorded 2 albums on Gold Mountain/A&M records ("HYTS" and "Lookin' From the Outside"), and the band's video for their single "Backstabber" was played in heavy rotation on a then new and fledgling cable TV station known as MTV. HYTS also performed on ABC television's Rock Palace. It was during this same time period that Tommy began playing gigs with the Alameda All Stars, and it was via the All Stars that he first hooked up with southern bluesman Gregg Allman. As Gregg's piano player (with occasional stints on Hammond organ) Tommy spent the 11-year period from 1990 - 2001 touring with Gregg Allman & Friends throughout the U.S., Canada and Japan. No stranger to the recording studio, Tommy has worked on recording projects with producers such as: Jim Gaines (Sam and Dave), Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix), Larry Cox (Jefferson Starship), Matthew Kaufman (Greg Kihn), and it was in 1997 while contributing tracks to Gregg Allman's latest solo album, "Searching For Simplicity", that Tommy had the distinct honor and pleasure of working with legendary record producer, Tom Dowd (Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Allman Brothers). More recently, Tommy played Hammond organ on the live version of Jackson Browne's song "These Days" which is included on Gregg Allman's 2002 CD entitled "No Stranger to the Dark: The Best of Gregg Allman".
