Aaron Bagchee is a singer/guitarist/bluesician from Watsonville, California. He has been seriously playing guitar for almost 20 years. He has recently released his first official record named "Now Appearing at the Breakfast Show". His debut album is a collection of songs written over a 20 year timespan. Aaron has always written songs but only now has gotten around to recording and releasing them.
Aaron belongs to a musical family. All of his brothers and sisters(Dipendra, Kiren, and Anita) either sing or play an instrument. His father, Sam, is Bengali who are known in India to have artistic talent. That is the only way they can explain it as neither parent displayed any musical talent. Perhaps the music was always in the blood and just needed the right environment to blossom.
Aaron first took guitar lessons at age 12 but quickly got bored after a few weeks playing melodic pop tunes like Jingle Bells. He wanted to play Rolling Stones songs but his guitar teacher didn't know any. He gave up guitar for the next 7 years.
Aaron's singing talent was first discovered as a junior in high school during a class trip to Great America amusement park. He recorded a version of "Beast of Burden" at one of those make your own music karaoke booths. Aaron's rendition was so good that his history teacher incorporated the song into a final test question and asked the class to name the group who originally sang this song while playing Aaron's recording.
After high school, Aaron, eventually started to fiddle with the guitar while listening to Chuck Berry records. Once he figured out how to play that Chuck Berry signature opening riff he was on his way. In college in the early 90's he was the singer and guitarist for the band Rosemary out of Hayward, Ca. That didn't last very long as Aaron was rooted in the blues and traditional american music and at the time heavy metal was still the rage and the band wanted to go in a different direction. A few songs (Stone Cold Stare, Mousetrap, Fish In The Sea) on the debut cd were written during that period.
Aaron continued to play guitar on his own getting more into traditional blues, country and rockabilly records. Aaron used to overhear his childhood friend's father, Andy Gallagher, playing old country, blues and rockabilly records and fell in love with the sound from those vinyl recordings. It is this sound that most influences his music today though you will often hear the edginess of rock and alternative. It is the blend of old and new that makes the music stand out.
Only within the last 4 years has Aaron gotten deeper into performing live and playing with other musicians. Aaron will play with anyone regardless of whether he knows them or not and relishes the opportunity to improvise.
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