Album Notes

Dickie Long & The Cherry Blasters™ is a student combo which will entertain you with their irreverent and funny songs about school life and related topics... but mostly about being horny young males. The group records songs which entertain themselves, usually with humor and fun.

The leader of The Cherry Blasters, Dickie Long, usually writes songs alone. A school athlete and body builder turned musician, he may chunk out an idea on guitar or piano, or woodshed with a computer program to create most of the background music, then add his lead vocal, guitar parts and background vocals later, sometimes with The Virginettes™, who are actually three naughty singing gems from the school choir who wish to remain anonymous. Sometimes band members and Dickie himself sing the background vocals. But the end result is always amusing and funny to the group and close friends, or the idea is tossed out.

Dickie describes himself as "an actor set to music", but not without some musical abilities. He admits that he hasn't found his "core" sound and switches between a gruff, rough style and a clean cut "naive" delivery. For comedy, both seem to work, though. He finds himself mimicking the Texas rednecks a lot while doing the gruff style.

If you have a preference in styles, please send him an email with your comments, to: dickielongband@yahoo.com.

The band started up when Dickie first created track #4 on this CD, on a computer program but wanted to add some other instruments and background voices and was seeking these. The bandmember "candidates" were all amused by the song and soon a band formed. They enjoyed seeing friends crack up at the lyrics and screech, "Oh My God!" at some of the edgy story lines.

At least one song on this CD was selected from rehearsal demos. But most of the songs were recorded in a professional recording studio after much rehearsal. That's where their producer came into the scene. Recognizing something unusual and entertaining about this group, he suggested some of his own songs to finish out the CD. Dickie's favorite song is #10, the ultra-emotional "Another's Eyes", which he says had a huge effect on him when he heard it and he knew he had to record it even though it was not a humorous song like the others. And NOBODY expects the surprise ending!

Track #3 was an early experiment in more subtle humor, choosing to let the song have undertones of double meaning lyrics and adding what ends up sounding like the Laughing House at a state fair!

After being kidded much of his young life about his name, Dickie simply says, "My parents have an open sense of humor. But I think it's more about genetics than anything."

As far as "making it big" in music, Dickie says it isn't a big deal to him right now. But he admits that it's not impossible, and that it could happen. But for now the idea is just to have FUN!