Review
Tracy Thornton started his musical career in a high school rock band in the American state of North Carolina. Fascinated with toy drums as a child, he later made a journey to Trinidad and Tobago to play the steel pan in the Panorama competition. Some panorama performances have a kinship to hard rock if only in one element – a fast paced cacophonous sound to the uninitiated. In Tracy’s musical journey the tight connection has loosened to diverse paths. Steel Drum Fever takes the listener to many cool places.
Tracy composed and arranged tracks one through seventeen. He plays the steel drum, djembe, bass and keyboards on all. Accompanied by eleven musicians on instruments such as the trumpet, tenor, alto and baritone sax, piano, violins and tabla one is pleasantly surprised to hear a range of tempos.
The recording covers several genre with soca and calypso on tracks one and two, respectively. The other tracks include pop, reggae, something jazzy and a waltz. The average listener like me could take the fastest tempo for rock or panorama. You could skip over those two tracks which will leave you with fifteen more to play all year and four bonus tracks for Christmas time. [eCaroh/Ron – May 2008]
Tracy Thornton
Tracy Thornton has been making his living as a professional steelpannist since 1995. He was the founder, leader and arranger for critically acclaimed “Been Caught Steelin’” and the nationally renowned “Sons Of Steel” which had been anointed “The Nation’s Most Exciting Steel Drum Band” back during their four year run. Each group produced 2 CD releases that Tracy produced himself and co-produced “Sons Of Steel’s” Carpe Diem title with world-renowned pannist Andy Narell. Other groups that Tracy has arranged and produced are “The Bahama Mamas”, “The Pink Flamingos” and “Steel Praisin’”.
In addition, Tracy has released 6 solo projects of his own. His fresh and exciting take on steelband arrangements are rapidly becoming performance favorites of steelbands throughout the country.
Since 1995, Tracy almost annually makes time to travel to the birthplace of “Pan”, Trinidad & Tobago to partake and perform in Panorama (the world’s largest steelband competition) during the Island’s Carnival season where he performs with bands that consist of 120 players. He has performed with Phase II, Potential Symphony, Solo Pan Knights, Petite Valley Harps and Tobago’s Hope Pan Groove.
Tracy has also performed with world-renowned pannists Ken “Professor” Philmore, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Robert Greenidge (Jimmy Buffet’s pan player) and Andy Narell among many others.
On top of all of that, Tracy makes time to perform an average of 200 shows a year domestically and internationally. He has opened for national acts domestically such as Santana, The Dave Mathews Band, Jimmy Buffet, Kenney Chesney, The Original Wailer’s Band, Burning Spear, Machel Montano & Xtatik, Shadow, Iwer George, Earth Wind & Fire, Barry White, Luther Vandross, Jeff Beck, The Ramones, The Strokes and the list goes on and on. He also has performed internationally in exotic places such as Trinidad & Tobago, St. Kitts and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to name a few.
Tracy has also performed stints at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center and made two appearances on Univision’s variety show “Sabado Gigante” that airs internationally to 100 million viewers.
Tracy is the first steelpannist to break through the pop mainstream media with his ever popular, critically acclaimed and “Ramones’ endorsed” CD “Pan For Punks…A Steelpan Tribute To The Ramones” where he has been featured in national publications including Spin Magazine, Global Rhythm, Modern Drummer Online, Billboard Online, MTV.com among numerous Online Magazines domestically and internationally as well as getting a lot of airtime on college, internet and satellite radio stations. His video for “Blitzkrieg Bop” is also a first of its kind for the steelpan art form. He was also personally invited to open the 2006 annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash at Irving Plaza in NYC.
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