Rock and Roll

A Brief Musical History

1969: After forming a band which would be known a “TW4” a few years prior, neighbors Dennis DeYoung and brothers Chuck and John Panozzo enroll at Chicago State University. Although the band had already performed in, and around, the Chicago area, C.S.U. would become the group’s base. The trio hooks up with another student, John Curulewski, who takes over the helm on guitar.
1970: Guitarists James “JY” Young- who was performing with a rival band in Chicago-joins the quartet. The new line-up begins taking a different direction with more musical experiments, with classical/rock fusions and electronic trickeries.
1971: The band’s demo is heard by the Wooden Nickel label, who would subsequently offer the band a recording contract the following year.

1973: STYX II is released, and although it doesn’t chart immediately, the Dennis DeYoung penned ballad, “Lady”, gets considerable airplay on Chicago radio. The band concentrates on their touring efforts in support of the single’s success, and creates a vast following of fans. The band will release The Serpent Is Rising toward the end of the year.
1974: The Serpent is Rising cracks the Top 200 Albums Chart in February, followed up by Man of Miracles, which reaches even higher position in November. “Lady” would be re-released as a single with national promotion, and the song would be propelled to #6 on the U.S. charts.
1975: STYX II rockets up the charts as a result of the success of “Lady.” It would reach #20, and sell over 500,000 units. In September, after searching for a larger and more supportive label, STYX would sign with powerhouse A&M Records. Two months later, Equinox, featuring the single “Lorelei”-would be the first A&M release, immediately reaching gold status (and eventually going platinum). At the end of the year, guitarist John Curulewski would leave the band. The band’s road manager recommends 23-year-old Tommy Shaw-then guitarist for Chicago based band “MS Funk”-as a replacement. A week after auditioning, Tommy Shaw joined the band.

1977: On July 7th (7/7/77), the band released The Grand Illusion.
1978: In January, A&M Records releases the single “Come Sail Away,” which would enter the Top 10. The parent album, The Grand Illusion, hits #6 as a result of the single’s success, and eventually becomes the first album from STYX to go platinum. The singles, “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),” and “Miss America” contribute to the success of the album. Later in the year, the band would follow up with another platinum-selling album (reaching #6) titled, Pieces of Eight, featuring the hit singles, “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights),” “Renegade,” and “Sing for the Day.”
1979: A national Gallup poll would reveal that STYX is the most popular rock band with teenagers (13-19 year olds). By December, the band’s newest album release, Cornerstone, would hit #2 on the U.S. charts, earning the band it’s third consecutive platinum album. The singles, “Babe” (reaching #1 on the charts and becoming their highest-selling single of their career), “Why Me,” and “Borrowed Time” generate mass sales.
1981: Beginning early in the year, STYX would embark on an ambitious 110 date, six-month North American tour. In April, the album Paradise Theatre would be released, soon reaching platinum success (STYX would now have four consecutive platinum albums under their belt), and remaining at #1 on the U.S. charts for three weeks. Two hit singles-“The Best of Times” and “Too Much Time on My Hands”-reach #3 and #9, respectively, on the U.S. charts. The band would become the first in the history of rock ‘n’ roll to have four consecutive triple-platinum albums.
1983: STYX releases concept album, Kilroy Was Here, and will tour in support of it most of the year. A stage act is built around the album, in which costumed band members have roles and dialogue in addition to performing songs. It would become one of the most ambitious rock ‘n’ roll tours ever. The single “Mr. Roboto,” reaches #3, and becomes the second million-selling single in the band’s history (“Babe” being the first). Another single, “Don’t Let It End,” also goes Top 10.
1984: The band releases a double live album titled, Caught in the Act. Although the album is well received by the record buying public, both Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw decide to pursue solo projects (also on A&M records). Subsequently, the band is put on hold. Dennis DeYoung’s Desert Moon and Tommy Shaw’s Girls With Guns both enter top 50.
1985: In December, Tommy Shaw releases What If, which enters the Top 100, and spawns a single, “Ever Since the World Began.”
1986: Dennis DeYoung releases second solo album, Back to the World, and will also contribute a single (not from album), “This Is the Time,” to the movie, “The Karate Kid Part II.” James Young released his first solo effort, City Slicker, a collaboration with Jan Hammer.
1988: Dennis DeYoung releases another solo album, entitled Bloomchild (on MCA)
1990: Tommy Shaw forms a new band, Damn Yankees, with former Night Ranger vocalist/bassist Jack Blades, guitar virtuoso Ted Nugent, and drummer Michael Cartellone. The self-titled debut album will produce two hit singles, “High Enough” and “Coming of Age,” and will eventually sell over 2 million copies on Warner Bros. Records. The band tours extensively with Bad Company, and the album reaches #26. Toward the end of the year, STYX will reunite without Shaw (replaced by Glen Burtnik), and will release the album, Edge of the Century, which begins to garner acclaim.
1991: A single from Edge of the Century titled, “Show Me the Way,” begins chart ascension into the Top 10 during the Gulf War. With the success of the single, STYX joins an elite group of acts who have had Top 10 hits under each of the last four United States Presidents (and Top 10 hits in three different decades).
1992: Damn Yankees release their second effort, Don’t Tread, on Warner Bros. Records. The album, which features the singles “ Don’t Tread” and “Where Are You Goin’ Now?, would eventually reach platinum status. The video for the title track would be aired throughout the 1992 Olympics.
1994: In addition to playing the roll of Pontius Pilate in the national company of Jesus Christ Superstar (to rave reviews), Dennis DeYoung cuts an album of show tunes for Atlantic Records entitled 10 on Broadway.
1995: STYX release Greatest Hits: Volume 1, featuring a re-recorded version of “Lady” with Tommy Shaw (who had not yet joined the band when it was originally recorded). Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades release an album, Hallucination, as Shaw*Blades (Warner Bros. Records). The album would be co-produced by Don Gehman of REM/John Mellencamp fame. James Young forms the James Young Group, with other Chicago musicians and tours in support of their album, Raised by Wolves (Absolute/Whitehouse).
1996: In May, the classic (and most successful) line-up returns with “The Return to the Paradise Theatre” tour, which was seen in over 50 cities. Greatest Hits: Volume II was released in the summer featuring a few new songs. For the first time in thirteen years, Dennis DeYoung, James Young, Tommy Shaw, and Chuck Panozzo were “Rockin’ The Paradise.” Again…
1997: In May, CMC International Records, a division of BMG Entertainment, releases a double album of new studio tracks plus live recording of Greatest Hits from the ’96 tour, appropriately titled, Return to Paradise. Due to popular demand, STYX embarks on a 50-city North American tour in support of the release.
1998: Tommy Shaw releases a solo album in CMC, 7 Deadly Zens and hits the road opening shows for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Dennis DeYoung returns to his theatrical calling as his “Hunchback of Notre Dame” enjoys a successful run in Nashville. The band starts making plans for a new studio album-the classic line-up’s first in 16 years.
1999: The band goes in to the studio in Chicago and Los Angeles to record Brave New World which is released on June 29th. A tour begins in July, which will run through the end of the year.
2000: The band embarks on a 40 city co-headline tour with REO Speedwagon. The tour is so successful that the two bands record and release a double live album and DVD, “Arch Allies – Live at Riverport”. They then extend the tour (to date, Styx and REO have played over 90 shows together, consistently generating hugely successful box office numbers.)
2001: Styxworld Live 2001 is released, containing tracks recorded in Canada, Japan and Germany. The band continues its heavy touring schedule, playing 121 shows, including a 40 city tour with Bad Company that donates over $100,000 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Education Fund, marking the first time in history that the Rock Hall attaches its name to a tour.
2002: Styx plays over 90 shows and records a new studio album, set for release in the winter of 2003.
2003: Styx releases Cyclorama on February 18, 2003. The band tours extensively throughout the year in support of the record.

Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett has translated his easy-going Gulf Coast persona into more than just a successful recording career -- he has expanded into clothing, nightclubs, and literature. But the basis of the business empire that keeps him on the Fortune magazine list of highest-earning entertainers is his music.

Buffett was born on Christmas Day on the shores of the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Mississippi and later moved to Mobile, Alabama where he was raised. This is where he developed his early Cajun influences and appreciation for country/folk music. The Gulf Coast is also where Jimmy developed his love for the sea and sailing, largely due to the influences of his grandfather.

Jimmy attended Auburn University, and later received a B.S. in History from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969.

Jimmy's own words describe his early days:
"I got into music basically to meet girls, no doubt about it. Women have always been an influence on my music, good and bad. It looked like the greatest job in the world. I was in college at the time, a freshman at Auburn University. I was a shy, awkward kid from Mobile, kind of a wallflower. My roommate had a guitar, and even though he knew only three chords, he always seemed to be the center of attention with women. I said, 'Teach me those chords'."

So I learned the guitar and started hanging around folk clubs, watching the bands. They all had big shiny Martin guitars; I would've given my right arm for a Martin guitar. And the women -- all the time women -- were hanging around the band. I thought: this is the job for me"

Before he signed his first record contract in 1970, Jimmy worked as a writer for Billboard Magazine in Nashville, Tennessee.

He released one album for Barnaby Records, called "Down to Earth" in 1970, the single from which, a socially conscious song called, "The Christian," suggested he might be more at home protesting in Greenwich Village. Barnaby "lost" his second album, "High Cumberland Jubilee", though they would find it and release it after he became successful. Instead, he moved to Key West, FL, where he gradually evolved the beach bum character and tropical folk-rock style that would endear him to millions.

Jimmy tells the story:
"I was always a lover of the lyrical song, and I think the people who influenced me in those days typified my upbringing. I grew up in Mobile, and my relatives on my grandmother's side were a kind of Cajun, Indian, wild people from that area. My grandfather was a sailing-ship captain who migrated from Nova Scotia. So it was a gumbo type of musical experience. I'd listen to the radio from New Orleans -- Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas, and great old black New Orleans artists -- which is contrary to what most people think. They assume if you come from Alabama, you listen to country music. I didn't really like it much; all my early influences were out of New Orleans".

"I first started playing in folk clubs, and I drew on all this great Gulf Coast, New Orleans, black input. I was also listening to people like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, who were great writers above everything else. I wanted to write clever, good songs like those people".

"I was in Nashville in 1971. I'd been turned down by 26 record labels and couldn't get songs published. I had wrecked my first wife's car, and I had no alternative, I thought, but to look toward warmer climates. So I took an expired Diner's Club card, held my thumb over the expiration date, went to the TWA counter, and bought a ticket to Miami. I was supposed to have a job at a little coffee house called the Flip, the "in" place for folkies in south Florida then. At any rate, I got to Miami, and of course there was no job. I was in Florida, with no job, and I was broke. Fortunately my old friend Jerry Jeff Walker had a house there and took me in. So I lived in Coconut Grove for about 6 months and worked the folk circuit. I had always wanted to go to Key West. Watching Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo was the catalyst that sent me farther South. So we got into Jerry Jeff's '47 Packard and took the old overseas highway to Key West. We got there sometime in November; the temperature was about 85 degrees, there was a sailboat race going on, I found a bar, and the rest is history".

Signing to ABC-Dunhill Records, Buffett achieved notoriety but not much else with his second (released) album, White Sport Coat & a Pink Crustacean (1973), which featured a song called, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" ("... and screw?," goes the chorus).

Buffett revealed a more thoughtful side on "Living & Dying in 3/4 Time" (1974), with its song of marital separation "Come Monday," his first singles-chart entry.

"I was in Europe on a film documentary, shopping in a department store in London, when I heard "Come Monday" over the loudspeaker. I thought I'd better call home and see what was happening, and by that time it was #10 or so. I had to stay in Europe for three more months, yet everything had taken off in the U.S."

But it took the Top Ten song "Margaritaville" and the album in which it was featured, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" (1977), to capture Buffett's tropical worldview and, for a while, turn him into a pop star. The next release, the title track from the album, sounded so much like Margaritaville that it received little air-play and follow-ups got even less. Still, Buffett's beach bum image made fans flock to his concerts and he became a top draw.

By the start of the '80s, Buffett's yearly albums had stopped going gold, and he briefly tried the country market again. But by the middle of the decade, it was his yearly summer tours that were filling his bank account, as a steadily growing core of Sun Belt fans he dubbed "Parrotheads" made his concerts into Mardi Gras-like affairs. Buffett launched his Margaritaville line of clothes and opened the first of his Margaritaville clubs in Key West. He also turned to fiction writing, landing on the book bestseller lists. He also found time for his passion of flying, purchasing his own sea-plane and taking off in an F-14 Tomcat from the deck of an air-craft carrier.

His recording career, meanwhile, languished, though a hits compilation called "Songs you know by heart", sold millions, a 1990 live album, "Feeding Frenzy", went gold, and a 1992 box-set retrospective, "Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads", became one of the bestselling box sets ever.

Buffett finally got around to making a new album in 1994, when "Fruitcakes" became one of his fastest-selling records, reaching "platinum" status. The title track received plenty of radio air-play and the LP entered Billboard's Top 200 album chart at number 5. It was followed in 1995 by "Barometer Soup", which entered the charts at number 6 and went "gold" (with some help from The Weather Channel even), and the number 4 platinum selling "Banana Wind" in 1996, from which he got airplay with a radio single of James Taylor's "Mexico". The following year, Buffett began working on a musical adaptation of Herman Wouk's novel Don't Stop the Carnival with the author himself. After Broadway producers expressed little interest, the production ran for six weeks in Miami during 1997. In spring of 1998, Buffett released "Don't Stop The Carnival", an album based on the book and the play. He began mulling over the idea of taking the play on the road (it went to Miami and the Bahamas). He also released another book - the number one selling A Pirate Looks At Fifty.

1999 brought more successful live shows and the release of two new albums, "Beach House On the Moon" and "Buffett Live - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays", both of which went "gold".

March of 2002 saw the release of "Far Side of the World", Buffett's first studio album for his new self-run label, Mailboat Records. In mid 2003 a double-album hits compilation "Meet Me In Margaritaville" was released and his 2003 Tiki Time Tour shows were recorded and released on Mailboat. Amidst the summer tour was a number one single with Alan Jackson on "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" - Buffett's first ever number one in music. The Tiki Time Tour ended in January of 2004 in Hawaii (the live album and DVD was released through Mailboat in the fall of 2004 and was released nation wide in the spring of 2005 with the same DVD from the two shows). In December, before the Hawaii shows, he recorded a new record in Key West with a group of country stars and various well respected musicians. Originally called Conchy Tonk , (and later changed to) "License To Chill" debuted at number one on the Billboard LP chart in mid-July of 2004 - Jimmy's first ever number one album. It spun off two Top Ten videos on CMT - the Hank Williams cover of "Hey Good Lookin'" and the Buffett / Martina McBride duet "Trip Around The Sun". Jimmy was even featured in Rolling Stone - the summer of 2004 was truly Buffett's summer. Part of the Chill tour was playing Fenway Park in Boston.

Just in time for Christmas of 2004, he released another book, a continuation of the travels of Tully Mars (from Tales From Margaritaville). A Salty Piece of Land did not get to number one but it did sell very well. Its first printing run included a song called "A Salty Piece Of Land" that was a leftover from the Conchy Tonk / License To Chill sessions.

A Salty Piece Of Land 2005 Summer Tour saw Jimmy playing in football stadiums (Pittsburgh) and another baseball stadium (Wrigley in Chicago for two nights) along with the usual ampitheatres.

In February, 2006, Buffett announced that he would take the summer off from touring. "I'm kinda taking it easy now," he said in a conversation with Radio Margaritaville DJ Miles Hampton. "It's the last summer with my kids before they go off to boarding school, so I'm gonna travel with them and work the spring and the fall. I don't want to do much right now."

Buffett has also been putting in time at his Shrimp Boat Studios in Key West, Fla., recording the follow-up to 2004's "License to Chill".

Jimmy Buffett remains one of the hottest concert draws ever, playing sold out shows to legions of "Parrot Heads" where ever he goes.

Here is one of the Best Party Songs By Jimmy..