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Q: When, where,
and why did the band originally form? Q: How did you come about selecting the type of music you play as a group? At first, each one brought the material he/she individually liked and was accustomed to playing over the years and kinda threw it all together in a conglomeration of music genres that ranged from r&b and country to rock and blues. As time went by, and we began making public appearances, we started gravitating toward a more solid blues/r&b sound as a band. We played a blues festival in the spring of 2003 and did only our blues/r&b material and it was perhaps the most powerful show we had done up to that time. From that time on we began to focus more on being a blues oriented band. When Gary came along in early 2004 he brought with him a rich background in classic soul music from the Memphis music and Motown era. This caused the band to focus even more on developing a foundation built on these types of music. Q: Is the current band made up of all original members? No, as we mentioned earlier Alan, Ron & Jim were there in the beginning then came Julie a short time thereafter. One of our early guitarists and the original drummer left after about a year. Gary joined FlashBack in early 2004 and that's where we are currently. Q: Where is everyone from? We are all from West Tennessee except Julie. She is from Jasper, Alabama (but we don't hold it against her!). Ron and Alan are from Jackson, Jim is from Medina, and Gary grew up in Humboldt. Q: How long has the band known each other? In one way or another we have all known each other for quite some time. Alan and Ron went to school together (first grade through a year or so of college) and grew up in the same community. They left college to travel on the road and play music in the same band in 1971. Both of them played in a band with Jim in the late 1960's for a while. Alan and Gary knew each other in the late 1970's and traveled on the road together for several years. Julie moved to West Tennessee to attend college several years later and through her various music involvements and studio work met Alan and Ron during the 1990's. Q: What does everyone do when they are not playing music? Julie works in graphic design and is a part-time weather person for the local ABC-TV affiliate in Jackson. Alan owns and operates a piano repair and tuning service. Jim is the owner of Reece Custom Wheels in Jackson. Gary and his wife, Rita, own and operate West Tennessee Coffee Service, and Ron works in the broadcasting field for Clear Channel Radio & TV and owns Omega Marketing Concepts. <> Q: Does the band rehearse on a regular basis? We try to rehearse at least one time per week. If we are working on new material and have a special job coming up we will sometimes double up and get a couple of practice sessions in for a week or so. Our rehearsals are a highlight of our week since we all enjoy working together and developing new material as a band. Practice sessions are informal, but time spent working hard as well. We take our music very seriously and want it to show when we perform publicly. Q: How do you select new songs to add to the show? There is actually not a specific criteria to add a new song to the show. A band member will hear something, or think of a tune from the past and bring it to the group. If it fits the style of music we want to play on stage we kick it around, play it, and see how it sounds. If everyone likes it we add it to the list of material to work on. No real rocket science or anything. If it suits us and sounds good we add it. Q: FlashBack's music is characterized by a strong emphasis on vocal arrangements. Is this something you set out to do or does it just suit the style of music you perform? FlashBack is, I suppose, unique in that out of the five members we have four strong vocalists. With this many singers it has always been something we have naturally gravitated toward. We actually will develop unique harmony parts for some of the songs we do even if the original tune didn't use a lot of harmony, for example. Each of our four vocalists have strong backgrounds in vocal work in many styles of music, from blues to soul, country to gospel, rock to r&b. With this much vocal experience we felt it was a no brainer to establish ourselves equally as much as a vocal band as a musical band and it has worked very well for us. Some band's vocals all sound pretty much the same. This is not necessarily a negative thing, but with all the vocal talent and diversity in our group we would be remiss to overlook it and not showcase it like we do. Q: Obviously, the band has an affinity for Memphis music. What other collective musical influences do you share as a band, collectively as well as individually? Generally speaking, growing up in the south where there are so many different music influences, the sum total of our music embodies a vast array of seasonings that shape it into what you hear us perform on stage. Alan is the only somewhat formally trained musician in the band having studied music as a youngster that included standards and classical music. He later found a home in the soul/r&b genre and has been there, for the most part, ever since. Ron, having a background in gospel, country, rock and blues developed his present style of playing that includes some of all the above styles. Jim was active in the early 1960's rock and roll era and later settled into a country style of music while playing clubs around the area. Julie, while coming from a church music background, later developed a love for pop, rock and even country music. Her diverse talent allows her to perform any style of music proficiently. Gary has always been a soul music lover and played rock and roll on the road for several years. His hard-driving, gutsy style of music is totally compatible with what FlashBack started out to accomplish and be as a band. Our collective and individual diverse musical heritage works well for us and I think sometimes amazes some of our audiences when the occasion calls for a style of song totally different from what we normally perform. They find it difficult to believe we can belt out a gutsy, raw, power-packed blues number then turn around and do a smooth, velvety standard like At Last, or Crazy. It's fun to see the expressions on their faces. Q: What aspirations does FlashBack share as a band? To play our music to the best of our ability toward achieving the complete satisfaction of ourselves and our audiences. To utilize the power of music to move, entertain, inspire, and rock those audiences. And to spend what time we have left doing what we have loved doing since we were kids....making music. Questions for
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