Journeyman - A Tribute to Eric Clapton

Shaun Cassidy

Shaun Cassidy is an American writer, producer, actor and singer. After originally making his name as a performer, Cassidy went on to create, write, and produce a number of critically acclaimed television series including AMERICAN GOTHIC (produced with Sam Raimi), ROAR (starring Heath Ledger), COLD CASE, COVER ME, THE AGENCY, INVASION, and EMERALD CITY. Cassidy most recently spent five years as executive producer and writer for the hit NBC/NETFLIX series NEW AMSTERDAM. The son of Tony award winning actor Jack Cassidy and Academy award winner Shirley Jones (and half-brother of the late singer/actor David Cassidy), Shaun grew up in Los Angeles and New York City. While still in high school, he signed a contract with Warner Brothers records. This led to three multi-platinum albums and numerous top ten hits including the number #1 DA DOO RON RON, THAT'S ROCK N' ROLL, HEY DEANIE, and DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC. Cassidy received a Grammy nomination for his efforts and performed at every major arena in the country including Houston’s Astrodome and New York’s Madison Square Garden. Almost concurrently, he starred in the ABC television series THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERIES. Later, while appearing for over a year on Broadway in the hit musical BLOOD BROTHERS, Shaun wrote his first television pilot, AMERICAN GOTHIC. When the show debuted, The New York Times called it “The most original new show of the season.” From 2020-2024, Cassidy took his self-penned music and storytelling show, THE MAGIC OF A MIDNIGHT SKY, to the stage, playing to SRO crowds nationwide and selling out five consecutive nights at New York's Fifty-Four below. The critic from Broadway World noted: "We haven't seen this man, this entertainer, in live concert for four decades, and we want to. We never stopped wanting to. So, we all went. And the voice is still there. The voice is still powerful, still full of emotion, texture, color, and technique. Not one moment of the "The Magic of a Midnight Sky" should be changed. This show is a dream. Shaun Cassidy, welcome home. We missed you and are so happy to have you back." Shaun makes his home in the wine country of Santa Barbara with his wife, Tracey, their four children, and more animals than he can count. In collaboration with No Kid Hungry, their family produces a collection of fine wines, MY FIRST CRUSH, which donates money to feed hungry children nationwide. Shaun is excited to be launching his next live music and storytelling tour, THE ROAD TO US, in the fall of 2025

Gladys Knight

The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest. Very few singers over the last fifty years have matched her unassailable artistry. This seven-time Grammy winner has enjoyed #1 hits in Pop, Gospel, R&B and Adult Contemporary, and has triumphed in film, television and live performance. In her first effort since 2013’s “Another Journey” – Knight’s 8th solo effort – this summer marked the release of “Where My Heart Belongs”, a new inspiration gospel album. Knight is a tw0-time Grammy winner in the gospel category, and “Where My Heart Belongs” dropped on September 9th from Deseret Book, and recently won an NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Gospel Album.” “Another Journey” enjoyed success from the hit “I Who Have Nothing” as well as the uptempo track “Settle,” produced by Randy Jackson, with whom she previously collaborated with on her Grammy-winning album, “At Last.” Knight also enjoyed the success of her song “You and I Ain’t Nothin’ No More” which appeared over the end credits of the critically-acclaimed Lee Daniels film THE BUTLER. Knight, known as the “Empress of Soul,” a longtime Las Vegas resident, returned to the Strip in the late-2000s to the famed Tropicana Hotel for a special engagement that ran in the newly named Gladys Knight Theater, making her the first African-American performer to have a venue named after her in Las Vegas. This followed a successful four-year show run at The Flamingo, which the Las Vegas Review-Journal praised as “the number-one show on the Strip.” A tireless humanitarian, Knight is an iconic supporter of the Boys & Girls Club of America, to which she donated a Randy Jackson produced song, “The Dream.” As the celebrated singer of the timeless song “Midnight Train to Georgia,” Knight was a natural fit as national spokesperson and host of Amtrak’s National Train Day, the celebration of which took place Washington, DC’s famed Union Station. Georgia-born, Knight began performing gospel music at age four in the Mount Mariah Baptist Church and sang as a guest soloist with the Morris Brown College Choir. Three years later, she won the grand prize on television’s “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour,” and the following year, her mother Elizabeth Knight created the group consisting of Gladys, her brother Bubba, her sister Brenda and her cousins William and Elenor Guest. They called themselves The Pips in honor of their cousin/manager, James Pip Woods. In 1959, Brenda and Elenor left the group, replaced by cousin Edward Patten and friend Langston George. The group was renamed Gladys Knight & The Pips, and following George’s departure in 1962, the classic line-up was in place. The group debuted their first album in 1960, when Knight was just sixteen. With Knight singing lead and The Pips providing lush harmonies and graceful choreography, the group went on to achieve icon status, having recorded some of the most memorable songs of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Top 20 hits, like “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of Tears,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “If I Were Your Woman,” set the stage for an amazing run in the mid-1970s, with Top 10 gold-certified singles like “Neither One of Us (Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye),” “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” “Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me” and the #1 smash “Midnight Train to Georgia” established Gladys Knight and The Pips as the premiere pop/R&B vocal ensemble in the world. The party kept rolling with hits like “On and On” from the Academy Award nominated soundtrack of Curtis Mayfield’s “Claudine,” the 1974 comedy about love in the inner city. Knight enjoyed another #1 hit in 1985 when she teamed with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Dionne Warwick on “That’s What Friends are For.” She and Stevie Wonder sang together again for the successful Frank Sinatra Duets II album, joining his voice for the song “For Once in My Life” in 1994. All told, Knight has recorded more than 38 albums over the years, including four solo albums during the past decade: “Good Woman” (1991); “Just for You” (1994); the inspirational “Many Different Roads” (1999); and “At Last” (2001). “At Last” showed the world that she still has what it takes to record a hit album, employing the talents of contemporary producers like Randy Jackson, Gary Brown and James D.C. Williams III, Jon John, Jamey Jaz, Keith Thomas, Tom Dowd and Tiger Roberts. Her involvement in other creative undertakings, business ventures and humanitarian activities has been extensive, and has brought her honors from industry and community alike. In 1986, she produced and starred in the Cable Ace Award-winning “Sisters in the Name of Love,” an HBO special co-starring Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle. That same year, she showcased her acting ability when she co-starred with Flip Wilson in the CBS comedy “Charlie & Co.” Other acting roles followed on such TV shows as “Benson,” “The Jefferson’s” and “New York Undercover,” and in such television films as “Pipe Dreams,” “An Enemy Among Us” and “Desperado.” She recorded the title theme for the James Bond movie “License to Kill” (1989). In 1999, she completed a starring run on Broadway in the smash musical hit “Smokey Joe’s Café.” In 1995, Knight earned her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the next year, Gladys Knight & The Pips were inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Knight published an autobiography, “Between Each Line of Pain and Glory” (a line taken from her million selling recording “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”), in 1997, and the next year, she and The Pips were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. In 2004, Knight received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the annual BET Awards ceremony. A humanitarian and philanthropist, Knight has devoted to various worthy causes, including the American Diabetes Association – for which she is a national spokesperson, the American Cancer Society, the Minority AIDS Project, amFAR and Crisis Intervention, and The Boys and Girls Club. She has been honored by numerous organizations as well, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), B’Nai Brith, and is a recent recipient of BET’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Today, Knight and husband William, along with various other members of the family, oversee her busy career from the Las Vegas headquarters of Shakeji, Inc., her personal entertainment corporation. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, performer, restaurateur, and businesswoman with a spiritual outlook on her life. Her faith in God has been the driving force behind all of Knight’s endeavors, guiding her through her many successes.

Three Dog Night

Legendary band, THREE DOG NIGHT, now in its 5th decade, claims some of the most astonishing statistics in popular music. In the years 1969 through 1974, no other group achieved more top 10 hits, moved more records or sold more concert tickets than THREE DOG NIGHT.   THREE DOG NIGHT hits weave through the fabric of pop culture today, whether on the radio where they are heard day in and day out, in TV commercials or in major motion pictures -- songs like “Mama Told Me (Not To Come)”, “Joy to the World”, “Black and White”, “Shambala” and “One” serve to heighten our emotions and crystallize THREE DOG NIGHT’s continuing popularity.   This Grammy-nominated band is not content resting on its legacy alone. Always working to expand its audience, THREE DOG NIGHT has embraced and been embraced by 21st century music technology. New and existing fans buy THREE DOG NIGHT’s music on iTunes as well as at record stores. In fact, releases from this decade alone have sold well over a million copies.   THREE DOG NIGHT also pushed boundaries by recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, giving fans new and old a chance to experience its dynamic performances of the hits as well as several new songs. The project, recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios in London and released to coincide with the band’s 35th Anniversary, added exciting new orchestral arrangements to THREE DOG NIGHT’s signature sound.   THREE DOG NIGHT maintains an aggressive, year-round touring schedule of over 90 dates a year, performing their hit filled concerts for generation-spanning audiences. The band’s now-famous name refers to native Australian hunters in the outback who huddled with their dogs for warmth on cold nights; the coldest being a “three dog night”.   Boasting chart and sales records that are virtually unmatched in popular music, THREE DOG NIGHT had 21 consecutive Top 40 hits, including 3 #1 singles, 11 Top 10’s, 18 straight Top 20’s, 7 million-selling singles and 12 straight RIAA Certified Gold LPs. The hits appeared on best selling charts in all genres (pop, rock and country). Its records continue to sell around the world, reaching beyond the borders of the U.S. into Japan, Canada, Holland, England, Germany, Spain and elsewhere. Tens of millions of THREE DOG NIGHT records have been sold through the years. Three Dog Night.   Created in 1968 by Danny Hutton, THREE DOG NIGHT recorded the music of the best (and mostly undiscovered) new songwriters of their time including Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Elton John, Laura Nyro, Paul Williams and Hoyt Axton among many others. The group’s eclectic taste, combined with their ability to recognize and record hits in a unique, distinctive and appealing style, resulted in THREE DOG NIGHT dominating the charts for years.   Marking over 50 years on the road, THREE DOG NIGHT continues to grow its fan base by keeping up a full schedule of concerts at theatres, performing arts centers, fairs, festivals, corporate events, and casinos. Since 1986, the band has performed over 2,500 shows including two Super Bowls.

Phil Collins Experience

The Phil Collins Experience is a full multi-media production based on the music career of Phil Collins, both Genesis and Solo careers. The Phil Collins Experience duplicates and delivers to perfection a collection of Phil Collins hits such as “Another Day in Paradise” “Easy Lover” In the Air Tonight” “Groovy kind of Love” “Against all Odds” as well as Genesis Hits like “I Can't dance” “Land of Confusion” and many more. The Phil Collins Experience is made up of 14 of the best musicians in the Midwest. These musicians perform with a backdrop of motion graphics, LED video walls, full lighting show, staging and incredible audio to give the audience an amazing night they will never forget. The Production recreates the feeling of seeing Phil Collins live. The Phil Collins Experience is Lead by industry professional Producers, Directors, Audio Engineers, Lighting Engineers, Video Technicians, Musicians, Stage Crew and Designers. The Phil Collins Experience's front man is Terry Adams, who hails from Bolton England. Born and raised in the UK, Terry has always been a huge fan of Phil Collins. Terry, coming from a musical family background has been performing since he was 4 years old on his trusty drum set. His ability to sound and perform to a high standard will make you feel as though you are watching the real thing. The Phil Collins Experience will start touring January 2019 through 2020 with a performance every 6 weeks, completing with a 7 show tour that year. The Phil Collins Experience will begin a full tour starting in January 2020 hitting more than 80 cities across the United States to bring this experience to thousands of Fans of Phil Collins. This is no ordinary “Tribute Show” this is the real deal. The Phil Collins Experience hopes to continue to bring joy and energy to many fans across this Nation and to create and bring new fans into his music as well as continue the legacy that is Phil Collins.

Marshall Tucker Band

Doug Gray – lead vocals   B.B. Borden – drums   Tony Black – bass / vocals   Marcus James Henderson – keyboards / saxophone / flute / vocals   Chris Hicks – guitar / vocals   Rick Willis – guitar / vocals   Whenever you drop that proverbial quarter into the virtual jukebox of songs that always manage to reach down and touch your soul the exact moment you cue them up, you inevitably find certain artists have a deeper resonance than others when it comes to providing the soundtrack that mirrors the highs and lows of your own life. The Marshall Tucker Band is one such group that continues to have a profound level of impact on successive generations of listeners who’ve been searchin’ for a rainbow and found it perfectly represented by this tried-and-true Southern institution for over five decades. “I’ve been in tune with how music can make you feel, right from when I was first in the crib,” observes lead vocalist and bandleader Doug Gray, who’s been fronting the MTB since the very beginning. “I was born with that. And I realized it early on, back when I was a little kid and my mom and dad encouraged me to get up there and sing whatever song came on the jukebox. It got to the point where people were listening to me more than what was on the jukebox! There’s a certain frequency I found I could share, whether I was in front of five people or 20,000 people. And once that frequency is there, everybody will listen.”   The Marshall Tucker Band came together as a young, hungry, and quite driven six-piece outfit in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1972, having duly baptized themselves with the name of a blind piano tuner after they found it inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space — and they’ve been in tune with tearing it up on live stages both big and small all across the globe ever since. Plus, the band’s mighty music catalog, consisting of more than 20 studio albums and a score of live releases, has racked up multi-platinum album sales many times over in its wake. A typically rich MTB setlist is bubbling over with a healthy dose of indelible hits like the heartfelt singalong “Heard It in a Love Song,” the insistent pleading of “Can’t You See” (the signature tune of MTB’s late co-founding lead guitarist and then-principal songwriter Toy Caldwell), the testifying travelogue warning of “Fire on the Mountain,” the wanderlust gallop of “Long Hard Ride,” and the unquenchable yearning pitch of “Ramblin’,” to name but a few. (See, we can hear you singing along to all of them in your head right now as you read this.)   Indeed, the secret ingredient to the ongoing success of The Marshall Tucker Band can be found within a cauldron of musical styles that mixes together equal parts rock, blues, jazz, country, soul, and bluegrass. In essence, it’s this inimitable down-home sonic bouillabaisse that helped make the MTB the first truly progressive Southern band to grace this nation’s airwaves — the proof of which can be found within the gritty grooves and ever-shifting gears of “Take the Highway,” the first song on their self-titled April 1973 debut album on Capricorn Records, The Marshall Tucker Band. “We had the commonality of having all grown up together in Spartanburg,” explains Gray about his original MTB bandmates, the aforementioned guitar wizard Toy Caldwell and his brother, bassist Tommy Caldwell, alongside rhythm guitarist George McCorkle, drummer Paul T. Riddle, and flautist/saxophonist Jerry Eubanks. “The framework for Marshall Tucker’s music is more like a spaceship than a house,” Gray continues, “because you can look out of a lot of windows and see a variety of things that show where we’ve been and what we’ve done, and how we’ve travelled through time to bring those experiences out in all of our songs.”   The Marshall Tucker Band’s influence can be felt far and wide through many respected contemporaries and the artists who’ve followed the path forged by their collective footsteps and footstomps. “MTB helped originate and personify what was to become known as Southern rock, and I was privileged to watch it all come together in the ’70s, night after night,” confirms the legendary Charlie Daniels. “In fact, The Charlie Daniels Band has played more dates with The Marshall Tucker Band over the past 45 years than any other band we’ve ever worked with. Even after all these years — after the tragedies, the miles, the personnel changes, and the many developments in the music business — MTB and CDB are still a viable package that offers an entertaining and crowd-satisfying show.” Daniels adds that he never gets tired of seeing his MTB brothers on the road: “Whenever Doug Gray walks into my dressing room with that big ol’ smile of his and then we hug each other and sit and talk for a while, the evening is complete.”   “I remember seeing Marshall Tucker and The Outlaws play together in Jacksonville many years ago, when I was just a kid,” recalls Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Johnny Van Zant, who faithfully watched the MTB open for his band on a few lengthy, fruitful runs during the 2018 portion of Skynyrd’s still-in-progress The Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour. “And I heard them all over the radio back then too. They were just so cool and so unique that I fell in love with the band, and I also fell in love with the music. Having them open for us on all those dates was like a dream come true, and they’re still as good as I’ve ever seen them. It brought back a lot of memories for me, because I really looked up to those guys when I was first starting out.”   Adds Ed Roland, the lead vocalist and chief songwriter for Collective Soul, “The Marshall Tucker Band had a big influence on me growing up — and they still do.” Roland, who’s lived the majority of his life in and around Atlanta, also proudly points out that his band’s biggest hit, “Shine,” owes a clear debt to the musical structure of “Can’t You See,” and he’ll often start off by singing the opening line to that song — “I’m gonna take a freight train” — whenever Collective Soul performs “Shine” live. “We don’t want to stray from what we grew up listening to,” Roland continues. “I think that’s something important for people to hear. It’s just who we are, and I don’t think we should run from it. Hopefully, people see that connection to the bands we love like Marshall Tucker in our music.”   Though Doug Gray recently turned 70 years young, he sees no end to the road that lies ahead for The Marshall Tucker Band, whose legacy is being carried forward quite reverentially by the man himself and his current bandmates, drummer B.B. Borden (Mother’s Finest, The Outlaws), bassist/vocalist Tony Black, keyboardist/saxophonist/flautist/vocalist Marcus James Henderson, guitarist/vocalist Chris Hicks, and guitarist/vocalist Rick Willis. “You know, I think it was Toy Caldwell’s dad who said, ‘There’s more to gray hair than old bones,’ and we still have a lot of stories yet to tell,” Gray concludes. “People ask me all the time what I’m gonna do when I turn 80, and I always say, ‘The same thing that we’re continuing to do now.’ We’re road warriors, there’s no doubt about that — and I don’t intend to stop.” May the MTB wagon train continue running like the wind on a long hard ride for many more years to come. One thing we absolutely know for sure: If you heard it in a Marshall Tucker Band song, it can’t be wrong.           —Mike Mettler, this ol’ MTB chronologist

Blue Oyster Cult

For over four decades, Blue Öyster Cult has been thrilling fans of intelligent hard rock worldwide with powerful albums loaded with classic songs. Indeed, the Long Island, NY-­‐based band is revered within the hard rock and heavy metal scene for its pioneering work. Blue Öyster Cult occupies a unique place in rock history because it's one of very few hard rock/heavy metal bands to earn both genuine mainstream critical acclaim as well as commercial success.     The band is often cited as a major influence by other acts such as Metallica, and BÖC was listed in VH1's countdown of the greatest hard rock bands of all time.     Upon the release of BÖC's self-­‐titled debut album in 1972, the band was praised for its catchy-­‐yet-­‐heavy music and lyrics that could be provocative, terrifying, funny or ambiguous, often all in the same song. BÖC's canon includes three stone-­‐cold classic songs that will waft through the cosmos long after the sun has burned out: The truly haunting "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" from 1976's Agents of Fortune, the pummeling "Godzilla" from 1977's Spectres and the hypnotically melodic "Burnin' for You" from1981's Fire of Unknown Origin. Other notable BÖC songs include "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll," "Then Came the Last Days of May," "I Love the Night," "In Thee,""Veteran of the Psychic Wars," "Dominance and Submission," "Astronomy," "Black Blade" and "Shooting Shark."     The intense creative vision of BÖC's original core duo of vocalist/lead guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Eric Bloom are complemented by Richie Castellano on guitar and keyboards, and the longtime rhythm section of bass guitarist Danny Miranda, and drummer Jules Radino.     We realized we're a 'classic rock' band. That's what we are, that's what we do best, that's what we know. The band members are proud of BÖC's classic sound, and pleased the band is creating vibrant work for disenfranchised music lovers who don't like the homogenized, prefabricated pop or sound-­‐alike, formulaic rap-­‐metal, which monopolizes the radio airwaves and best-­‐seller charts.     BÖC has always maintained a relentless touring schedule that brings new songs and classics to original fans and, as Bloom puts it, "teen-­‐agers with green hair.

Richie Kotzen and John 5

George Michael Reborn - A Tribute to George Michael

The Last Waltz