The Paladins are an American roots rock - rockabilly band from San Diego , California . Founded in the early 1980s by guitarist Dave Gonzalez and his high school friend and double bass player Thomas Yearsley, they have recorded nine studio albums and built a reputation as a hard-working live band.
16-445: The Paladins started out as a rockabilly band during the rockabilly craze of the early 1980s. Their tagline at the time was "Western & Bop", as they played a combination of rockabilly and vintage country. Their lead singer and rhythm guitarist was Whit Broadly. With this lineup they did their first recording, a contribution to a 1982 local compilation album, Who's Listening? , and a song two years later on The Best of L.A. Rockabilly ,
32-452: A "Paladins - Best Of" album. They have played The Rhythm Collision Festival in Riverside, California, and have toured throughout Europe. Kim Wilson Kim Wilson (born January 6, 1951) is an American blues singer and harmonica player. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman for The Fabulous Thunderbirds on two hit songs of the 1980s, " Tuff Enuff " (which
48-464: A 1984 Rhino Records LP. Their first LP, The Paladins , was produced by Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and was released in 1987 on Wrestler Records. Their second album, Years Since Yesterday , produced by Los Lobos ' Steve Berlin and Mark Linnet, was released on Alligator Records in 1989 and had sold more than 20,000 copies by the end of the year; the band shot a music video for
64-561: A Home" and "Don't Knock at My Door". Several of these were released as singles, of which "Big Town Playboy" and "Bad Boy", issued by Vee Jay Records , were local hits in the 1950s, but Taylor's singles generally were not commercially successful. In the 1970s, Taylor participated in the American Blues Legends '74 tour of Europe organised by Big Bear Records , appearing on the album of the same name as well as solo long-player, Ready For Eddie . Later, in "semi-retirement", Taylor
80-479: A blues club owned by Clifford Antone . Wilson continues to perform up to 300 concert dates per year at blues music festivals and clubs all over the world, both as leader of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and with Kim Wilson's Blues Allstars. His powerful style of blues harp playing has been described as "loaded with the textures of a full-blown horn section." In 2015, Wilson made a guest appearance playing
96-480: A boy Taylor taught himself to play the guitar. He spent his early years playing at venues around Leland, Mississippi , where he taught his friend Jimmy Reed to play the guitar. With a guitar style deeply rooted in the Mississippi Delta tradition, Taylor moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1948. While Taylor never achieved the stardom of some of his contemporaries in the post-World War II Chicago blues scene, he
112-665: A number of live albums and a live DVD were released with the band sometimes described as being "on hiatus." While touring with his current band, the Stone River Boys, Gonzalez joined Thomas Yearsley and Brian Fahey at the Ink & Iron Festival in Long Beach, California in June 2011 for a Paladins reunion concert, the band's first US concert since 2005. The Paladins have reconnected, recorded new songs for an upcoming album, and have recently released
128-791: The 1990 Entertainer Music Awards (San Diego County) for Best Rock 'n' Roll , Original Music, for which they were a critics' favorite (they lost out to Beat Farmers ). They won the award two years later, a year after winning the San Diego Music Awards . Touring continued relentlessly at home and abroad; in 1991, for instance, they toured Australia for three weeks. Shows were reviewed as fun, lively performances where band members would solo, swap instruments and even occasionally encourage audience members to play instruments. The Paladins appeared to have come to an end in 2004 when Gonzalez wanted to focus on different musical interests after having formed an alt-country band Hacienda Brothers . Thereafter
144-624: The World Music Festival in London . In 1990 the Paladins released their third record, Let's Buzz , "an invigorating blend of rockabilly , blues , rhythm-and-blues and country " recorded in the Los Angeles studio of 1970s soul star Leon Haywood (who also played keyboards on the album), produced again by Steve Berlin and Mark Linnet and released by Alligator. Acclaim came with a nomination at
160-567: The bluesmen Eddie "Guitar" Burns and Jimmy Burns . Taylor's late son Eddie Taylor Jr. was a blues guitarist in Chicago, his stepson Larry Taylor is a blues drummer and vocalist, and his daughter Demetria is a blues vocalist in Chicago. Taylor died on Christmas Day in 1985 in Chicago, at the age of 62, and was interred in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip , Illinois. He was posthumously inducted into
176-493: The harmonica on Karen Lovely 's album, Ten Miles of Bad Road . In 2016, Wilson won a Blues Music Award in the 'Instrumentalist - Harmonica' category. Wilson plays himself in a rare television appearance on Wiseguy , "Sleepwalk" episode, 1989. Eddie Taylor Eddie Taylor (January 29, 1923 – December 25, 1985) was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. Born Edward Taylor in Benoit, Mississippi , as
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#1732856074124192-711: The title song at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California for $ 30,000. Spending most of their time on the road, by 1989 they had already toured with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lobos, The Blasters and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. They toured abroad as well; in the summer of 1989, between recording sessions for the third album, they played in Europe for the month of June, including shows at the Peer Music Festival in Belgium and
208-465: Was influenced by harmonica players such as Little Walter , James Cotton , Big Walter Horton , Slim Harpo and Lazy Lester . Before he moved to Austin, Texas , in 1974, he was the leader of the band Aces, Straights and Shuffles in Minneapolis, Minnesota ; the band released one single. In Austin he formed the Fabulous Thunderbirds with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan . They became the house band at Antone's,
224-442: Was nevertheless an integral part of that era. He is especially noted as a main accompanist for Jimmy Reed; he also worked for John Lee Hooker , Big Walter Horton , Sam Lay , and others. Earwig Music Company recorded him with Kansas City Red and Big John Wrencher for the album Original Chicago Blues . He later teamed up with Earring George Mayweather , and they jointly recorded several tracks, including "You'll Always Have
240-515: Was the group's only Top 40 hit) and "Wrap It Up." Wilson was born in Detroit , Michigan , in 1951, but he grew up in Goleta, California , where he sometimes went by the stage name of "Goleta Slim." He started with the blues in the late 1960s and was tutored by people like Muddy Waters , Jimmy Rogers , Eddie Taylor , Albert Collins , George "Harmonica" Smith , Luther Tucker and Pee Wee Crayton and
256-530: Was the regular lead guitarist with Peter Dames and the Chicago River Blues Band, later known as Peter Dames and the Rhythm Flames. Taylor played lead guitar on several songs (including the title track) on the album Be Careful How You Vote by Sunnyland Slim , and played live with Sunnyland Slim on some tour dates in the 1980s. Taylor's wife, Vera, was a singer and songwriter, and was the niece of
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