Album Notes

Sweet Rock, born Clint A. Rockward on January 9th (Capricorn), in Chicago, Illinois and Mr. Tommy born Thomas R. Long on April 8th (Aries), in Durham North Carolina, formed their duet on November 19th 2002. The style or genre of music we perform is Hip Hop/ Rhythm and Blues. Both Sweet Rock and Mr. Tommy were members of the United States Army, but neither of them decided to retire because of aspirations to become performing artist.

Mr. Tommy:
I have been performing and writing music for over ten years, and I believe in giving an employer they're money's worth. So when you see Sweet Rock and Mr. Tommy perform, you are going to get a high quality show. We've known each other for about seven years and from the beginning I just had a gut feeling that we would collaborate on something together.

We were members of the Top 40 R&B band "Unfinished Business". This band toured locally, but after about three years together, the local gigs started to fade out, so, to try and keep the band together we released a three song EP. The EP did OK but not well enough to get us signed to a label. You can listen to and buy this EP at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ubband. So, the band broke up and everyone started getting other projects going. I guess we all lost the desire to pursue the music business and I decided I wanted to do something else with my life instead of cooking, so I went back to school to get some IT training at a vocational school dubbed "Business Computer Technical Institute". The problem with this was I only worked five hours a night in order to be able to go to school during the day. Without the extra income from the band, times got really hard financially. I finally finished school after two years, and was able to land an entry level position in the IT industry.

I must have had a revelation, because I just couldn't seem to stay away from the music. What I really needed to be doing was right in front of my face! It's my life and I think I will be performing until my dying day. It was during this time that we started producing our new CD "Platinum Plus".

Sweet Rock:
After the split of "Unfinished Business", I started to focus on my Sales duties at the Steel Company I worked for, only to be laid off due to downsizing of the company. I started working on the CD project with Tommy and just like that I was offered a position at Boeing Aerospace. Things went well until 9/11. After 9/11 Boeing starting laying off its employees by thousands and I was one of them. That made two layoffs in one year. I suffered for a few months while continuing to work on new tracks and vocals for the CD project. Just when I thought things were getting bad, they got worse. I almost lost my mother three weeks into my new job. This would have devastated almost anyone. I was blessed to have music to drive me at this point. As we came closer to completing the CD project, things started to get better. Music has given me drive.

Sharing our music with others is the single most important thing that keeps the drive going. Like Tommy, I believe that I will be attached to the music industry in some form or fashion for life. Thanks god for the 7th grade music instructor who taught me how to read music and play the Saxophone. God bless my High School music teacher who took what little knowledge I had and engraved the true riches of music into my soul. Look out..here comes "Sweet Rock" and "Mr. Tommy"!