(WGHP) — Tom Cridland spends much of his university time (and a few days after) drinking way too much and singling badly in karaoke bars.
Just the kind of thing that would propel him to a career in music and producing the albums of American music legends. But then, that’s why you watch The Buckley Report – to see those one-of-a-kind stories that you won’t find anywhere else.
Cridland got serious about music at the start of the pandemic and used it as a way to get – and stay – sober. He taught himself how to play piano and started a video blog called, The Greatest Music of All Time and somehow got music legends like Smokey Robinson, Annie Lennox, David Crosby, Steve Perry of Journey and Stewart Copeland of The Police to be on it. But maybe his greatest “get” was Nigel Olsson, the drummer and singer from Elton John’s band to be part of it because they developed a friendship that would help change Tom’s life and career.
Tom got good enough at piano and found quality musicians to put on a nationwide tour in the US doing Elton John covers – a tribute tour, of sorts. On that tour, he got noticed and the manager of the Philadelphia soul group, The Stylistics, asked him to open for their tour. The Stylistics not only had a bunch of hits in the 1970s but continued to perform, ever since. They became close enough that when Tom married his longtime girlfriend and business partner, Deborah, the Stylistics performed at the wedding.
“I stayed in touch with them,” Tom says and then, one day, “their manager said, ‘Do you want to work with us?’ And I said, ‘Sure, I’ll work with you if you let me put together a new album for you,’ and that’s how it happened.”
“It,” was The Stylistics’ first new, studio album in 17 years.
“We recorded in Alabama, in LA, in Philadelphia remotely,” says Tom. “We did backing vocals in the Scottish Highlands. I mean, there were probably 10 studios involved, it was a 24-7 process.”
It wasn’t, “Let’s hear The Stylistics sing their greatest hits.”
“The whole idea I pitched him was, ‘How about we take the Stylistics and combine them with the Elton John Band and try to do something new’?” says Tom since he had the connection to Elton’s band through Nigel Olsson. But even Tom couldn’t quite believe it when it all came together.
“I’ve got Davey Johnstone wearing his sunglasses,” says Tom remembering the sessions that included Elton’s guitar players, the Scottish legend, Davey Johnstone, known for always wearing sunglasses on stage and in the studio.
“It was a dream come true to work, I mean, literally with Elton John’s band live in the studio, was the backing band, with Davey and Nigel, all the drums set up at the Record Plant, that was the backing band,” says Tom. “Then the Stylistics vocals on top of that, and the lead single with Shania Twain, and all this stuff. It was so overwhelming. I’m still kind of processing it all.”
Not just Shania Twain, who wrote and sings on the new album’s first singe – there were other major stars. See who, in this edition of The Buckley Report.
Source: Fox 8 News Channel
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