Inundated Music is proud to announce the release of "Waterfront View" by artist Tom Coerver. This solo album features 13 original tunes and 4 covers of energetic roots, rock and blues music from planet Louisiana and beyond. From the swampy bottomland groove and snaky slide guitar of "Hear That Train" to the haunting nylon acoustic atmosphere of "Spanish Town" to the relentless slammin' jazzy heavy roll of "Whatever It Takes" to the Delta Blues Dobro of "Sittin' On Top Of The World" and several rockin' funk grooves, Tom puts together a gumbo of blues slide, southern rock sizzle, swirling Hammond organ, and a dash of jazz harmony here and there to keep the flavor down-home southern.
It all started with a second-hand piano, a cheap mail-order drum set, and believe it or not: a free '65 telecaster. Tom's teen years were filled with garage bands and broken turntables while learning licks from the Allmans, Creedence, ZZ Top, Johnny Winter, Skynyrd and Eric Clapton. With all this music and motivation at his disposal, Tom landed gigs as a guitarist, drummer, and keyboard player in various bands in Louisiana and Texas. While gigging in Florida, he joined with Bobby Ingram (now with Molly Hatchet) and landed a major label and management deal. Six years of songwriting, recording, and arena gigs (with Rossington-Collins Band, Johnny Van Zant Band, Molly Hatchet, etc.) resulted in the album "China Sky" and significant airplay.
With that experience under his belt, and a stack of songs piling up, he put together a recording and mastering studio while producing, engineering, and playing with Louisiana notables such as Tab Benoit, Henry Gray (of Howlin' Wolf fame), Chris Thomas King, Rockin' Tabby Thomas, Burton Gaar, Larry Garner, the Delta Rockets, and John Lisi. These lineups took him to the stages of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Monterey Blues Festival, and numerous theatre and club dates. In other words, Tom never put away his guitar and pen and released a CD of 11 original songs in 2003 called "Backwater Tales" followed by a mix of 13 originals and 4 cover songs on "Waterfront View" in early 2005.
Both CDs showcase Tom's roots, blues, and Southern Rock style with "lyrical slide guitar, intelligent lines, excellent phrasing, strong vibrato, ripping pentatonic flurries, and some "adult" chords thrown in for good measure" as Mike Varney of Shrapnel, Blues Bureau, and Tone Center Records raved in his feature of Tom in the July 2005 Spotlight column in Guitar Player Magazine.
A lot of the lyrics, arrangement, sounds, etc. heard here are a bit of tongue-in-cheek satire of the way people view "Southern Rock" these days. I think Gregg Allman said it best: "the label "Southern Rock" is redundant - it's like saying "Rock Rock" 'cause so much of the elements of Rock came from the south". People forget that even Frank Zappa admired the Allmans enough to cover "Whipping Post" with all its' jazzy elements and how even the jaded media critics recognized the depth of Skynyrd's lyrics and their amazing arrangements like in "Sweet Home Alabama" where there's some interesting little counter melody going on almost every second of the tune - true genius. On this CD (Waterfront View), I continue the celebration of my Southern music roots and add a few other styles here and there to spice up the gumbo a notch.
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