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Funky, heavy & tight
As the saying goes: it’s not a tree, it’s a jungle. Several branches and vines of said jungle have intertwined on a new album by Ruffyunz. It is a project of bassist Randy Pratt (Cactus/The Lizards), engineer/producer with songwriting credits JZ Barrell, and session vocalist Ed Terry (Stevie Wonder, Slash, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Talking Heads, Simply Red, Little Steven, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, David Lee Roth, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner — to name a few!) The band’s concept is to invite well known drummers, guitarists and keyboard players as guests on their records. Guest artists featured on the project’s second offering Ruffyunz II include Don Airey, Bobby Rondinelli, Dave Maniketti (Y&T), Pat Thrall, Tracy G. (Dio), and Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake).
Randy Pratt says:
Hey folks, here’s a first look at a video for a song from our upcoming release Ruffyunz II, reuniting my longtime rhythm section partner, Bobby Rondinelli on drums. We have a groovy list of guests Don Airey (Rainbow, Ozzy and Deep Purple for decades) on smoking Hammond B-3, Dave Maniketti on BADASS guitar, Tracy G. (Dio & WW III) on BRUTAL guitar, Joel Hoekstra from Whitesnake…AND starring in our video, Pat Thrall from the CLASSIC Pat Travers band line up, Hughes Thrall, Asia…and if you’re old AND cool enough to know the band AUTOMATIC MAN…that’s Pat! Please check out ‘Hype in My Head’ and watch for the imminent release of our new album, Ruffyunz II on Hyperspace Records.
The album is available for streaming courtesy of Hyperspace Records:
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
That band doesn’t sound half-bad, I’ll give them a try once the CD is released.
“Pat Thrall from the CLASSIC Pat Travers band line up, Hughes Thrall, Asia…and if you’re old AND cool enough to know the band AUTOMATIC MAN…that’s Pat!”
May I introduce myself, I’m 61 years old and so incredibly old and cool I bought the original Automatic Man album at the advent of its release in 1976 as a 15-year-old with my weekly allowance based on a glowing review in a – strangely so – teen mag and (I have to be honest here) because I thought the alien on the cover looked kinda neat. You may sit down and stop clapping now, danke.
In hindsight, one of the singers (Todd Cochran aka Bayete, the black keyboard player and mastermind of the group, Pat Thrall sings a few tracks too though) reminds me of Andrew Roachford (which is probably why I always had a soft spot for Roachford too).
Imagine original Journey (before Steve Perry joined, when they were still viewed as a Santana spin-off) with bits of early Earth, Wind & Fire (before they became commercial) thrown in, proggish jazz-tinged music with hard rock riffs & soul (dare I say: even disco’ish!) elements. Plus lots of strange synth layer effects of course to give it that space rock feel. The band was hailed as “thinking man’s Santana” at the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-zhE8x1kAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYND96GZB_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEp4dXKLI0
The album must have confused everyone at the time – too groovy for progsters, too weird and too jazzy for people who might have appreciated the dance grooves – but I was even back then already strange enough to love it long before I would see Pat Thrall team up with Glenn Hughes (who incidentally wouldn’t have been a bad fit for Automatic Man when they lost their original bassist, the music would have been right up his alley).
Hailing Pat Thrall as “starring” in the above HFT vid is click bait though, what you see is not him in 2022 in NYC playing with HFT, but in 1990 in Nottingham with Asia (you can even see John Wetton in the background a bit) copied in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCV7gqY3vfs
No matter, he’s an excellent guitarist with a very individual style, always recognizable whether he was with Automatic Man, Pat Travers, Hughes Thrall, Asia or Meatloaf (his guitar is on Bat Our of Hell II, the album that gave Meatloaf a second career).
September 25th, 2022 at 23:23Yo, sounds fine to me !!! Too bad music like this struggles for air-play imo, as everyone would benefit from listening to it…It makes you feel good, gets your *ss moving, & even has a few chord changes in there so solo’s sound much more creative. *And it has real musicians in there playing rather than cut & paste samples lol ! Great post, thanks for sharing !
Peace !
September 26th, 2022 at 06:38Ah yes Automatic Man! I’m not sure where i came across the tune My Pearl but it’s been on my “classics” playlist for a looooong time. Glad to see these people still making relevant music
September 26th, 2022 at 09:52Uwe @1,
From over here across the pond New Jersey, I too was born in 1961 and discovering Automatic Man and other “weird” music as was the case with The Dixie Dregs. Genre? No can do classifying. Weird remains a favorite word of Steve Morse’s in describing many a tune Dregs and otherwise.
Paltry but precious weekly allowance along with lawn mowing, snow shoveling, newspaper delivery boy etc. Ah yes, old but still young at heart.
And to quote Steve of the Howe variety, “Bravo the ’70’s!”
Peace,
September 27th, 2022 at 19:29Ted
@ 4 – ‘Yes’ indeed, bravo for the 1970’s. I can relate to the newspaper delivery boy & the lawn mowing, but out here in ‘outback’ Australia where I have resided, definitely not any snow shovelling, ha ha ha. Cheers.
September 27th, 2022 at 20:59@4 “Bravo the ’70’s”…Amen…
Peace !
September 28th, 2022 at 09:43