Born in Oklahoma, raised in Denver, Kenny Vaughan's earliest memories of music are his father's jazz record collection: "My dad listened to Jimmy Smith, Mose Allison, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Miles Davis, Tony Mottola, and used to take me to hear Johnny Smith play at Shaner's in Denver. My neighbor, Charles Sawtelle, listened to Flatt and Scruggs and played Salty Dog on his Martin guitar for me. I knew then and there that I wanted to do that! I got my first electric guitar when I was twelve. The first thing I played was 'Folsom Prison Blues'. My first band played Stones, surf, '60's garage punk, and Memphis soul. I saw the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Cream, Howlin' Wolf, Captain Beefheart, Buck Owens and The Buckaroos, The Dead, The Doors, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Winter, John Mayall, and Led Zep's first stateside gig, all before I was sixteen!" Vaughan studied with guitarist Bill Frisell, which led to gigs with a local progressive jazz group. "Bill really opened my approach to my playing," he explains. At eighteen, when his family moved to rural Kansas, Kenny opted to stay in Denver, and after answering an ad in the paper, he began working seven nights a week playing country music on the local honky-tonk scene. "I played with some real characters," Vaughan recalls, "Great players and singers. We played mostly '50's and '60's country. It was like another world
Silverman spent the first couple decades of his musical career playing in rock and jazz bands in Providence, R.I., New York City, and his hometown of Cleveland, before moving to Nashville in the late ’90s. For years he worked as a sideman with artists such Jason White, Jim Hoke, Kristi Rose, Brady Seals and Mitch Ryder, to name just a few. After years of playing other people’s music, he decided it was time to start bringing to life the odd little symphony he’d been hearing in his head for years.
After a couple of years composing music and gigging around Nashville, Silverman decided it was time to record. He tapped world-renowned bassist Viktor Krauss, known for his work with artists as broad-ranging as Lyle Lovett and Bill Frisell, to produce and play bass on the album. Krauss was a natural fit — in addition to his seminal work with Frisell, he’s released two critically acclaimed albums of his own instrumental music, and has performed with Silverman for years. The record also features stellar contributions from drummer Derrek Phillips (Charlie Hunter, Greg Osby), keyboardist Tyson Rogers (Tony Joe White, Don Williams, Chris Stamey and cutting-edge jazz outfit The Blueprint Project) and finally trombonist Roy Agee, whose twisted musical contributions on several tracks serve as the perfect brass counterpoint to Silverman’s own demented digressions.
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