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Hot picking and great vocals, from bluegrass to Americana to outstanding original tunes . . . and just a flat-out good time!
Flatpicking guitar legend Dan Crary and his long-time friend (and musical partner from the award-winning bluegrass band CALIFORNIA) singer and songwriter Steve Spurgin have frequently talked about making music together a little more often.
Appearing as a duo at a benefit concert, they had so much fun and got such a great crowd response that they decided it was time to put together a band with that same spirit. Dan and Steve wanted at least one more player, and they found a young-but-already-seasoned performer in energetic multi-instrumentalist Patrick Sauber.
THUNDERATION showcases all their talents -- instrumentally, vocally, and with superb traditional and original songs. Dan's dynamic guitar work and great arrangements, Steve's rich baritone and solid electric bass percussion, and Patrick's vocal harmony, clawhammer and three-finger-style banjo, mandolin, and Cajun accordion, combine to equal a trio with plenty of power, taste, and humor, and a good time had by all!
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DAN CRARY fell in love with the sound of the guitar as a kid, even though he'd never seen anybody play a guitar, and didn't even know anyone in rural Kansas who owned one. But he occasionally heard that sound on the radio, and was hooked.
His first performances were as a youth in Midwestern churches, and he's been performing since the 1950s. He's a versatile player, able to range from Mozart to Anglo-American fiddle tunes, to moody, evocative original compositions. He ventures widely into Celtic, blues, jazz, world, classical, and folk styles.
In addition to Thunderation, Dan tours worldwide as a solo performer and with Gambetta & Crary and the Men of Steel, and does occasional reunions with the band California. With over a dozen recordings of his own, Dan has also performed and recorded with notable artists like Doc Watson, Mark O'Connor, Brian Sutton, and numerous others.
Dan's latest CDs are Renaissance of the Steel String Guitar, Live: Men of Steel, and Four Way Mirror: Men of Steel.
The performing bug bit STEVE SPURGIN in high school in Texas in the early 1960s. After moving to the L.A. area in the late Sixties, he switched from guitar to drums and spent about 15 years doing studio and session work and commercial voiceovers, and playing backup for artists like Freddy Fender, Mason Williams, Sundance, and The Limeliters.
In the 1980s, he switched to electric bass and started playing with Berline, Crary & Hickman (later joined by John Moore, forming California, which earned three conseutive IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year awards in the 1990s). All the while, Steve was writing songs. For three years he was a staff writer assigned to Reba McEntire & Gene Watson, winning a BMI award in the process.
Steve has continued to write great songs, formed his own music publishing company, and performs solo, occasionally in a reunion performance with California, and now with his new band The F-150s. Steve has two CDs currently available: Distant Faces and Tumbleweed Town.
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PATRICK SAUBER may only be in his early twenties, but he's already a veteran performer in old-time, folk, bluegrass, western, and other genres. His first musical influence was his dad, old-time fiddler Tom Sauber, but he's also worked with everyone from Richard Greene and Christ Stuart & Backcountry to Dirk Powell and Skip Gorman, and he's toured with The Limeliters and original member Alex Hassilev.
In 2003, Christopher Guest asked Patrick to play one of the Main Street Singers in the folk music satire, A Mighty Wind. Patrick also plays on the movie soundtrack CD.
In addition to Dan Crary & Thunderation, Patrick plays with The Silverado Bluegrass Band and occasionally with The F-150s. Patrick has recorded with multiple artists.
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