Interview: Rob Thomas

Rob Thomas first had success as the frontman for Matchbox Twenty, whose 1996 album Yourself or Someone Like You has sold over 15 million copies thanks to songs like “3AM”, “Push”, and “Real World”. Next came a collaboration with Carlos Santana that yielded the smash hit “Smooth”, which won three Grammys and is ranked as the Number Two song on Billboard’s all-time list of Hot 100 songs. Matchbox Twenty followed up with hits like “Bent”, “If You’re Gone”, and “Unwell”, and Thomas launched a solo career in 2005 with the Number One album …Something to Be. Thomas’ new album Chip Tooth Smile will be released in April.

This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the 3/29/19 concert by Rob Thomas at the Chumash Casino – a benefit concert for Sidewalk Angels Foundation, which supports no-kill animal shelters and animal rescues and whose President is Rob’s wife Marisol. The interview was done by phone on 3/8/19.

Interview: Spencer Davis

“Everything happened in 1966 for The Spencer Davis Group,” says someone who would know – Spencer Davis himself. And what a year it was for the band. They started off with a UK Number One song “Keep On Running”, which knocked The Beatles’ single “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work It Out” off the top spot. Another UK Number One song, “Somebody Help Me”, followed a few months later.

But the highlight of the year for the band was the release of the timeless classic “Gimme Some Lovin'”, co-written by Davis, Muff Winwood, and Muff’s kid brother Steve, the band’s lead singer who also played organ and a bit of guitar.

Now, 1966 wasn’t actually the only year that things happened for The Spencer Davis Group. Their song “I’m A Man” was released in early 1967 and hit the Top Ten; a couple years later it was memorably covered by Chicago. But Steve Winwood left the band in 1967 to form Traffic, and as Spencer Davis puts it, they “lost a huge amount of momentum”.

This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the concert by The Spencer Davis Group as part of the Happy Together Tour at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara on 7/13/16. It was done by phone on 6/29/16. (Liz Barry photo)