Cherie Currie - Rock Legend
In
1975 when Cherie Currie was fifteen years old and sitting in the Sugar
Shack, a popular Los Angeles nightclub for those twenty-one years of age
and younger she was approached by sixteen year old guitarist, singer and
songwriter Joan Jett and her producer / manager Kim Fowley, about being
the lead singer in a band that would later become known as The Runaways.
The band also featured the late Sandy West on drums, guitarist Lita Ford
and bassist Jackie Fox (during
Currie’s time with The Runaways). The fifteen year old Cherie
Currie, a native of Encino in the San Fernando Valley had already built
a reputation with her classmates as being edgy and having a chip on her
shoulder. For the next two years of her life she would tour the world as
the lead singer of an aggressive all-girl Rock band whose signature song
“Cherry Bomb,” as well as “Queens of Noise,” and “California Paradise,”
would capture the imagination of teenagers worldwide. Some of the bands
that opened for The Runaways included Cheap Trick and Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers.
Recently, Cherie Currie from her home in California took time out
from her busy schedule, which includes a soon to be released new album
and her chainsaw art business, as well as being mom to her twenty-two
year old son, producer, musician and singer-songwriter Jake Hays, to
talk to Riveting Riffs Magazine. In recent years, there has been
somewhat of a renaissance, a renewal of interest in The Runaways and the
role that they played in terms of paving the way for women musicians who
would follow them. The
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Detroit's Carolyn Striho
"I
love music and I love performing. It
is communication. It is immediate and you feel that from the audience
and when people like your music, just the reaction makes you feel alive.
Part of being alive is creating and communicating. It is very important
to me,” says Detroit singer, songwriter and musician Carolyn Striho.
The Detroit native
has been the recipient of several Detroit Music Awards including the one
that she covets most, her 2010 win for Best Rock Album of the Year
acknowledging her musical excellence for the album Honesty. The title song
provides an accurate snapshot of Striho’s eclectic career as the tune
opens with a languid slide guitar, turns very Punk like and at a couple
of junctures slows down to a pretty Pop vocal.
“In some of the
originals that we do (for live performances) I use pieces, like in the
middle of “Honesty,” we throw in Patti Smith’s “Gloria,” (written
and also recorded by Van Morrison) and it familiarizes people (with
our music). I don’t know how this all started to happen, but it is
pretty cool. Doing other people’s music in the middle of an original is
really fun to do and it invites people in. I like to do “Gimme Shelter,”
(Rolling Stones) in the middle of a big organ breakdown or “All Along
The Watchtower,” (Jimi Hendrix) and people like that,” she says,
providing further evidence of the eclectic nature of her music.
Carolyn Striho who
has been nominated for more than thirty Detroit Music Awards since 2006
demonstrates her diverse nature on the album
Honesty with the song “Sing
It To Me,” a tune that has Latin overtones and features some beautiful
guitar
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Ricky Z Interview
He
was listening to Beck, Bogert &
Appice (Jeff Beck – The Yard Birds; Tim Bogert – Vanilla Fudge and
Cactus; Carmine Appice – Vanilla Fudge and Cactus) when he was in grade
school and he performed at the White House with Gloria Estefan as an
adult. Ricky Z born Ricky
Zahariades, in Phoenix, Arizona, but a native of California from the
time he was three years old and his family moved to, in his words “a
small dusty town” called Fontana (San
Benardino County). He has also worked with artists such as, The
Sweet (also known simply as Sweet),
Michael Buble, Lauryn Hill, Josh Groban and Jessica Simpson.
Ricky Z sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine to discuss his new
album The
Long And Dusty Road, which
features all original songs, his career and his musical journey.
Discussing his
childhood in Fontana he says, “It was a great place to grow up and there
was all of this music around, so that was kind of cool. I had older
brothers and I started getting access to their great music and I was
soaking it up.”
Whenever his brothers would bring
a new record home he recalls, “I would just sit there. I loved Keith
Emerson, Zeppelin, (Black) Sabbath, Peter Frampton, the Stones and The
Yard Birds. I was a music aficionado by the sixth grade. It encompassed
my whole world and I hadn’t even thought about playing it. The summer
before the eighth grade my brother’s best friend brought over a guitar
with a little Silvertone amp and he left it there all summer. If I
played it, nobody knew, so I just ran and in there and started making
noise. I played it whatever way it was tuned and only the three big
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