Lara Price Band

Lara Price Band - Faces of the Blues - 2002 - Independent

Lara Price Band with 22 year old phenomenon Laura Chavez on guitar; they sound, amazingly, like Janis Joplin backed by Albert Collins. I hope they don’t end up on the “Best Bands That Never Made It” list. © Brad Kava

Based in the S F Bay area, Lara has quite a following. She can belt out a song, purr through a ballad, knock you out with her sensuality and make you want to get up and dance. Influenced by Susan Tedeschi and the vocals of Aretha Franklin, she is a strong blues personality. Her band is Grade A. Drummer Fred Raughtman and bassist Jack Cannon keep a solid bottom, spurring on the vocalist and guitarist while keyboards of Gary Goldsworthy fill out the sounds. Laura Chavez is an outstanding guitarist. Read about her here, under the "Lara’s Partner In Crime" article. Her playing is terrific on the standout track “Can’t Quit The Blues." "Faces of the Blues " is an excellent album, and it's worth listening to the band's "I Got News" album.

TRACKS

1. Faces Of The Blues
2. Woman Down
3. If You Love Me
4. Cut You Loose
5. I Wanna Man
6. Rock Me Baby
7. Can't Quit The Blues
8. Where..When & Why?

MUSICIANS

Lara Price - vocals
Laura Chavez - guitar
Dennis Morehouse - drums
Tim Allen - bass
Gary Goldsworthy - keys
Fred Rahtman - drums
Jack Cannon - bass
Paul Dorr - keys
Bill Weir - bass
Jerry Ososkie - keys, backup vocal
Dennis Dove - drums
Brian Tucker - bass
Tom Polizter - sax

REVIEWS

Yeah, well, good luck if you're young and female and trying to make it with a brand of soul and blues that borrows from masters like Aretha Franklin and Ruth Brown. You can pretty much count on not getting any radio play at all, which means just try building an audience. But here comes a smoky-voiced, gutsy singer from San Francisco who studied operatic voice at Boise State University and isn't afraid to either rock hard with her band or put herself out in front with her band playing softly behind her. Price--along with guitarist and composing partner Laura Chavez--wrote five of the eight tracks on Faces of the Blues, which includes "Can't Quit the Blues," a Buddy Guy cover. Price's powerful delivery conjures up any number of blues blasters from yesteryear, but perhaps none more than Janis Joplin--no faint praise. © ( Tim Whitaker) http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UWIDDC23LvsJ:www.laraprice.com/review3.doc+Lara+Price+-+Faces+Of+The+Blues&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ie

Lara’s second self-released album pushes her further toward the big leagues of the blues, displaying not only her vocal prowess, but her songwriting skills as well. Since her first release, a collection of blues crowd-pleasers, she enlisted the talents of a young guitarist and her songwriting partner, Laura Chavez. The two composed five of the eight tracks, and wrap the entire package with a distinctive rock edge that confirms their musical roots. “”Woman Down” is a straight ahead rocker, and the mostly instrumental Buddy Guy cover, “Can’t Quit the Blues,” gives Chavez the opportunity to put her energetic guitar-playing abilities into high great The album closes with a live track, the slow-boiling “Where…When…Why?” with a powerful vocal delivery by Price that harkens memories of Janis Joplin in her heyday. The Lara Price Band has already established a reputation throughout the Bay Area as a live act and as one of the best unsigned blues bands on the West Coast. © (Steve Cagle) http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:UWIDDC23LvsJ:www.laraprice.com/review3.doc+Lara+Price+-+Faces+Of+The+Blues&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ie

SHORT BIO

Her musical journey started at the young age of 6, taking piano lessons with Legendary 80's music innovator Howard Jones. At 12 she was singing solo and went on to train operatically with Dr. Lynn Berg at Boise State University. She arrived in the Bay Area in 1997 in search of her dream of singing in a band. By 1998 she began running her own blues jam at JJ’s Blues, and was featured in an inspiring article about blues jams in the September 2000 issue of the Blues Revue. Lara fell in love with the blues without expecting to; "I didn't find the blues, the blues found me". She has come a long way in a short time, earning loyal fans worldwide. The journey of Lara's blues band (The Lara Price Band) includes 4 great CD's, a tour across the U.S.A. and China, and many performances at world renowned festivals such as the Monterey Blues Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival and Greater Ozarks Blues Festival. Lara and her band have shared the bill with headliners Etta James, James Brown, Buddy Guy, Leon Russell and many more. Lara also lent her talent to sing back-up with Triple Seven at the Fillmore in San Francisco, opening up for the pop band Smashmouth. Lara fronts and leads several musical projects: Lara Unplugged, an acoustic duo; Velvet Plum, a popular bay area cover band that includes talent from San Jose's finest musicians; the Lara Price band, a soulful rockin' blues band, and Lara Price & Yesterday's Band a wonderful mix of jazz, blues and R&B. Lara makes her reputation based on hard work, great players and great music. As of late Lara looks forward to recording a 5th CD with guitar great, Mighty Mike Schermer. She’s an All American singer with a sultry stage presence and a voice that demands you're attention-smoky, lonely, sexy, and powerful. It's no wonder her music transcends the blues and crosses a line into music that is unequivocally superb. "It’s all about the love of music and letting the crowd share in my passion." © http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:y-StWf11f0MJ:www.laraprice.com/bio.htm+Lara+Price+Band+bio&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ie

Lara’s Partner In Crime…Laura Chavez [ © John Orr, January 30, 2004 , http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:kXIzXv7ay-QJ:www.laraprice.com/review2.doc+Lara+Price+Band+-+Faces+of+the+Blues&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=ie ]

Laura Chavez traveled the same path to the blues as countless guitar players before her: hearing Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin blues-rock on the radio, then finding B.B. King and falling in love with the real deal. The difference between her and most blues guitarists -- besides her being a cut or two above most club players -- is that she's only 21. ''Led Zepplin'' was released in 1969, 13 years before Chavez was born. Hendrix wowed the crowd at Monterey 15 years before she was born. And King? He was a hitmaker before Chavez' parents, Tony and Catherine, were born But here she is, all 5-foot-3 of her, pulling big, rich, sweet tones out of her Fender Stratocaster or her Gibson 335, pushing music through a 1964 Fender Super Reverb amp that is 18 years older than she is. Those little tiny hands of hers reaching around the guitar neck Hendrix style, using her thumb more than her little finger, and wrestling with heavy gauge strings -- she says she likes a guitar that fights back -- Chavez plays with soul, depth and intensity that is rare among younger players. ''I don't want to force the music,'' she says of the way she plays, ''I've never been about seeing how many notes I can play per measure.'' Instead, Chavez lets the notes stretch out when that works best for the tune, with a style that reminds of B.B. King, the late Albert King, or South Bay greats Chris Cain and Michael Osborn. ''A lot of the music I listen to isn't guitar-based,'' Chavez says. ''I listen a lot to singers ... it's more melody based.'' Chavez has been a regular at JJ's Blues in San Jose since she was 18. She wasn't allowed near the bar and had to take her breaks outside the club. She is guitarist for the excellent Lara Price Band, which used to run the Tuesday jams, and now is striking out for bigger clubs and more lucrative gigs. Weekend shows at JJ's, maybe, and shows at clubs in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey and other cities. The band recently completed a nationwide tour. Chavez herself was one of three featured players at the 2004 Guitar Extravaganza January 30, 2004, at JJ's, the other two being club vets René Solis and John Wedemeyer. Solis' band, the Persuaders, backed all three. Solis is an excellent guitarist who has played just about every type of music ever heard from an electric guitar, and usually slings a Gibson 336; Wedemeyer is a magician with his 335, doing more with it than is dreamt of in most guitarist's philosophies, Horatio. Chavez can be heard on ''Faces of the Blues,'' a fine album by the Lara Price Band for which she co-wrote (with Price) a majority of the tunes. Perhaps Chavez' best performance on that disc is ''Where ... When ... Why?'' -- which was recorded live. (To buy the CD, visit the web site for the Lara Price Band.) At the Fog Bank in Santa Cruz Chavez is known as ''The girl who plays 'Little Wing,''' the Hendrix classic. She started with classical guitar lessons when she was ''about 8,'' but ''couldn't stand the teacher. My feeling was that -- being a girl -- he wasn't sure I should be playing the guitar.'' But when she was 13 or 14, she hooked up with Greg Vaughn at Draper's Music in Palo Alto. Vaughn was willing to teach her to play By the time she was at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, she was playing guitar in the jazz band, and also playing drums. the rock 'n' roll she was interested in at the time.When she got into the blues, she started playing at the JJ's jams, hooked up with Lara Price, and now the two have one of the better blues bands working in the Bay Area. And Chavez is now teaching guitar herself at Draper's Music. ''The great thing about teaching,'' she says, is that her students get her to listen to all kinds of music that they want to play. ''There's not a single kind of music I don't listen to,'' she says, ''or that I don't like.'' And Chavez is still coming up against sexism, from fans who are surprised when the find the guitar player is a petite woman. ''People look at me and -- I always get the surprised looks -- 'What's this gonna be about?' I had one guy say, 'You're the guitar player? I'll try not to throw things at you.''' But, after the shows, Chavez gets her props. ''It's nice to see people eat their words,'' she says.