Not my first hot band, but the first that recorded
Even back then, keeping a steady personnel was very difficult. The Big Junior band had a sketchy time making a living, or even on the level of maintaining a status like “a hobby that paid for itself”.
The cost of making this record was so expensive (for me) that I carried credit card debt for that project for twelve years.
Remember those books and lecturers that were literally preaching, “Believe, and you will achieve!” – Well, I believed. I had a good friend that was a kind of self-styled career-coach and self-help guru. He was also an amateur guitar player and a real fan. I was grousing about the difficulty in getting ‘the good gigs’… i.e. the lack of “Success“. My friend said enthusiastically, “but, you have succeeded! You are a great guitar player, and the Big Junior CD is incredible!” Thanks, pal. In this sense, he was absolutely correct!
Cuts from the Big Junior CD (recorded 1991-1993) – And various unpublished recordings
“Here is “Rags to Riches”. Ex-wife Bunny sings this, capturing our ‘predicament’ exactly… being young parents, burning with energy to ‘get heard’, and all the dumb gigs that entailed. I literally wrote this tune in my head one evening on my long drive from Denver’s “Tech Center”, where I was an I.T. guy, to our home in Golden, Colorado.
“My Blue Money” was inspired by Van Morrison’s “Blue Money”. I had to wonder what blue money was, and toying with the concept I simply made it “My Blue Money”… obviously, the outcome shows no influence from the “Blue Money” guy.
This tune was to be part of the followup to our first “Big Junior” CD. Alas, for complicated reasons the effort died. This recording was a pretty well finished demo of Numero Uno, lacking only a drummer… So, with the intention of re-recording the piece in a ‘real’ studio with a ‘real’ drummer (hopefully Benny Cully or B.J. Rossi could play) I programmed a drum track… it turned out pretty good, but B.J. and Benny always come up with the great parts. Just listen to the first Big Junior CD (mostly Benny) or the last couple of Sons of Zeno CDs (B.J.). The tune was recorded (home studio) in 2002, I added the video in May and June, 2024. I was curious about CapCut and used this tune as a basis for a video project… it turned out pretty good.
On one productive session while recording a few tracks for our projected second “Big Junior” CD collection, we got some good stuff laid down, complete with Georgann’s (Bunny) vocals. I had reserved a few hours of time in the studio, and we had an hour left to spare. The composition of the band was changing… Benny (drums) was moving to Louisiana, and I had added a good keyboard player who was an excellent jazz-oriented guy but had no feel for Blues, Pop or Rock (lots of conversations about genre cues and chordal coloration)… arghh!
As a gigging outfit our performing repertoire got kinda ‘jazzy’. So, with an hour still to use, we did about four or five instrumentals that I had written. We simply ran through the tunes, maybe two takes at the most, and I took the raw mixes home and made the best of them I could.
Years later, I am amazed at how well they turned out. So here, never before shared with the public, is myself, BB, and Robinson (Bass) and Benny (Drums) and new to the group, Andrew (
NowsVille – a tune I wrote… the big idea was to blend a funk riff with with some “jazz changes” (for lack of a better term). Heartfelt thanks to such good and talented friends for making a tune like this work. Andrew Cox – Piano, Ken Robinson – Bass, Benny Culley – Drums, BB (me) composer and Guitar.