Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville
Tony Mantor talks with entertainment industry people in the U.S. and internationally that have made a mark for themselves.
Conversations with those behind the scenes people that help them achieve their success along with up and coming entertainers as well.
Stories that give a deeper understanding on what it takes to achieve success in the entertainment industry.
Whether listening for entertainment or for tips on how others faced their challenges this has something for everyone.
Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville
The Evolution of Cimarron 615: From Poco to Nashville's Harmony Masters
Michael Webb of Cimarron 615 shares the band's origin story and their deep connections to legendary country rock band Poco.
The Nashville-based quartet brings harmony-driven California country rock to life with their unique blend of musical expertise and collaborative spirit.
• Band name combines "Cimarron" from Rusty Young's classic Poco song with "615," Nashville's area code
• Members Michael Webb, Jack Sundred, Rick Lono, and Ronnie Guilbeau connected through Poco and the Flying Burrito Brothers
• Their musical style emphasizes rich vocal harmonies inspired by bands like Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Eagles
• Recently released their second single "The Truth," co-written by Jack Sundred and Nashville songwriter Kent Agee
• Album release show scheduled for February 28th at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville
• East Coast tour beginning in March with shows in Virginia, New York, Philadelphia, Louisville, and Cincinnati
• The band prioritizes connecting with fans through live performances over extensive social media presence
Come see Cimarron 615 on their upcoming East Coast tour starting this March. Visit cimarron615.com for all show dates and information.
My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolve into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is Michael Webb. He is one of the members of Cimarron 615. This group connected through the legendary country rock band Poco, which created a rich tapestry of music and memories. You'd be hard-pressed to find a band with a more impressive collective resume than Cimarron 615. Michael is here to share the story of how the band came together, what they've accomplished and their exciting plans for the future. We're thrilled to have him here with us. Thanks for coming on. Oh, thanks for having me on here. Oh, it's my pleasure. So I'm interested. How did you come up with your band name?
Speaker 2:Well, we had three of us in the band had toured with Rusty Young as Poco and Rusty Young died and we went out to LA to record a DVD and an album kind of covers of some of the songs he wrote with Poco. And we had done a solo album up there near you and Hendersonville at Cash Cabin for Rusty, and we'd done a Poco album called All Fired Up. Anyway, after we had finished recording all that, the label blew along, asked us about doing our own album and we did it and we got to recording and then we were having trouble finding a name because it's not as easy as it used to be. Everybody ties them up in every little town. Our first like 20 stabs at names were already taken in just little ideas we had that we thought would be appropriate.
Speaker 2:And then Rusty Young one of his classic songs is called Rose of Cimarron. It's been covered by many people. Emmylou Harris had a great version and we would do it every show at Poco and it was a big piece. At first we thought, well, that could be kind of good, that could be a good fit. And then 615 being the area code of Nashville, because we're really all from Nashville, we do our recordings in Nashville. So we threw that one out and everyone loved it. The trademark people loved it, the label loved it and it gets us to a T, because we are of the Poco heritage and with 615 sounds kind of young and yeah, it does sound cool.
Speaker 1:I always like to get the origin of a band name, because there are so many names out there where people just wonder where it came from and the thought process behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was quite a ride because with anybody trying to come up with a name, it's kind of like finding yourself a type of song to write. You have to wade through a few levels. You know that's how it came about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can understand that completely. So give us a little information who's in the band and how it kind of formed Well.
Speaker 2:I joined Poco back somewhere around 2008, or I can't remember and I toured about 10 years and our bass player had toured with Rusty and Poco for 30 years. His name is Jack Sundred, s-u-n-d-r-u-d. Jack Sundred and he once had a band that toured out, had a record deal named Great Plains, so he and I really hit it off when we toured and recorded together as Poco. And then our drummer is a guy named Rick Lono, l-o-n-o. Rick Lono and I have known each other since the very beginning of the 90s when I first moved here and started playing. He's a drummer both in sessions and live and he moved here from California and he and I have done countless sessions together and played live here in Nashville.
Speaker 2:We other rock singer-songwriter originals we're musical brothers. At one point Coco was on hiatus and when we were talking about getting back together, kind of retooling, rick Lano also sings. It's a high, big vocal band so he was the logical choice and at that time we had already in between Poco touring, jack and Rick and I were already playing once a month or so at a club called Duckless Corner. It's gone now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I certainly hated it when that closed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we would play and have guest musicians and guest writers. And in that band we had on guitar Rick's old running buddy that he had toured in the Burrito Brothers with named Ronnie Gilbo, g-u-i-l-b-e-a-u, and Ronnie's father, who was Gib Gilbo, the classic tittle player, guitar player and a member of the Fon Burrito Brothers. They were fixtures of the California scene before they even moved here. So when I first met Rick Lano he and Ronnie had already been playing in California so they kind of moved here together. They also happened to co-write Poco's second biggest hit it's All that Love. That came out in the early 90s or late 80s. It was a triple A hit.
Speaker 2:So Ronnie and I had also done a lot of work together over in Berry Hill in the studio world back in the late 90s and the 2000s and we just think alike. We were musically similar. So basically in between Poco gigs, while Rusty Young would be back in Missouri, jack and Ronnie and Rick and I would play at Devil's Corner and we were already going to Blackbird recording some demos and things like that. And then when Coco got back kind of retooled and we took Rick back out with us, that kind of put that band on a bit of a hiatus and then we kept recording with Rusty Young and then, somewhere around 2019, poco went on another little bit of a hiatus and during that time I took a touring on the road with Hank Williams Jr. That's how we all came together through Poco and the Burrito Brothers.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. Now you bring those four people up with all the different styles and different entities, gives you a wide variety and style of music to play. So, with that said, what did you develop into and what are you doing now?
Speaker 2:During the course of all this time through POCO we really are harmony driven. This to come in link to all the bands of the California country rock is that harmony, so a lot of people can play that style. You have to have fairly imaginative, committed harmonies on every single song and we all love that and we all love the challenge of coming up with harmonies or background vocals that lift every song, give it its own personality, and we're all versatile and we all really get a charge out of that as much as we do, being adept at our instruments. So that's one of the things in this band. We really appreciate the commitment to background vocals that the bands like Crosby, stills and Naxx and the Eagles and they raise the bar. We really take that seriously and that's the most fun part of every album we've done After the tracks and after the lead vocals getting together, and we'll sometimes spend half a day just on one song we love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. I love harmonies. There are several bands over the years that I hate to say this they weren't the greatest musicians in the world, but their harmonies were spot on and that just made bands over the years that I hate to say this. They weren't the greatest musicians in the world, but their harmonies were spot on and that just made all the difference.
Speaker 2:That's just a really great thing to have in a band and that's great harmonies. We love it. We take a lot of pride in it, in blending not just parts but finding our vocal blend. You know we've been around living in Nashville. You get to witness and participate with the best of the best in everything we do. So we don't look at it as competition but learn that it's kind of like going to school. We try to do our own version of living up to those who we get to see here in Nashville as well as the past. For instance, we're all friends with Marty Stewart's band as well as the past. For instance, we're all friends with Marty Stewart's band. They're so excellent and we get to see them in various forms on a pretty regular basis. So having that as just the contemporaries makes us pretty honest with our own selves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true and that drives everybody here in Nashville. So what label was you on?
Speaker 2:again, we're on a label out of Los Angeles called Blue Align. Okay, e-l-a-n blue, like the color Blue Align. They have a good variety of artists. We have Air Lee Taj, they have Chris Shiflett, the guitar player of the Foo Fighters, morgan Miles one of the boys I guess we're their country rock band Jennifer Magnus, who's a blues icon really, and they have a really varied roster. They believe in a variety of music. It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So what are the plans moving forward? I've seen where you either are going to release a new single or you have released a new single. What's going on there?
Speaker 2:The second single is out right now. It's called the Truth. The first single came out in the fall. It's called Bootler Rose. It's kind of Cajun-flavored and had a lot of accordion on it, and the new one is one that Jack Sundred co-wrote with a writer named Kent Agee. So an interesting story. Kent Agee is a well-established Nashville finger songwriter. He's just had every level of success you can have as a music row writer and then as an artist himself, and he during COVID. I don't know when he exactly began, but that's when we all were aware of it. He started writing poetry it was Facebook or Twitter or wherever just different poems. He didn't put the pressure on himself to turn them into songs. Anyway, he wrote one. It was called the Truth.
Speaker 2:Jack Sundred saw it. He could see where we could put music to it and there would be a good song for us. Right away. From the first time he brought it to us we realized like, oh, this is a charmed song and we really dug into it, tried to make it have a plumpy edge to it, kind of bring the song to 100%. We brought in Paco Shipp, who's the legendary harmonica player. Rick used to play with him with the Jamie Hartford Band years ago. Paco is a harmonica virtuoso and all of us that were musicians in town would go to see them. We also had Ray Flack on lead guitar. It was a super band, paco. He's just got such intelligent and soulful command of harmonica. We thought, yeah, if we had Paco add to our track, set it to a higher level Again. As soon as we we heard it we knew that it was a charm track and it's the same live. Everyone just responds to that song yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:Speaking of live, are you doing many live shows now?
Speaker 2:we did for the new album. We talked quite a bit last year. The year before, at the year of our first album, we didn't really tour much. Frankly, touring was still finding its footing post-COVID. We did a few things. We went and played South by Southwest, we went and played our album release at the Rock CNLA for the first album and then we did a few shows, of course, here in Nashville. But last year we were able to kind of finally pick up and do quite a few shows last year at theaters, a lot of the venues that Poco used to play, a lot of east coast, a lot of midwest. Of course we went back to California, played a couple of times, but we actually hit the road and did fairly extensive touring last year. We're looking forward to just picking right back up with it this year. We made this album. We started it about a year ago. We started the new album recording about a year ago and we even, once we started on the road, we had to keep mixes on the road, like the old days.
Speaker 1:I remember those days for sure.
Speaker 2:So we would listen and we actually came up with the album order, the sequencing of the album on the road. We had to send notes to our mastering engineer from the road, like three seconds to the end here. It was fun. We did it all as a gang but instead of being in the studio we were out on the road. It was a lot of fun, yeah the road.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of fun. Yeah, that is, it's a lot of fun. That's kind of dialing it in the old-fashioned way. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, so is it being released just digitally, or do you have some vinyl or CDs to go along with it?
Speaker 2:No, we have CDs and digital. We don't have the vinyl and the new one yet, but we will. The official release will be February 28th. Cd release show, or album release show, is going to be at the Bloomberg Cafe. We chose that because we all have a lot of history with Bloomberg Cafe and it just felt like the right place to do it. Jack goes to singer-songwriter nights there. Rick and I have played there countless times for the Christmas parties, their anniversary parties with the Jay Patton Band. My first show I ever played in town was at the Bluebird with Jonel Mosser, and Victor Wooten was on bass. So the Bluebird just seemed like the only true place for us to release our album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's such an intimate room, you get to feel the vibe from the audience. And it's such an intimate room, you get to feel the vibe from the audience and it's just great for interaction. You made a wise choice.
Speaker 2:Yes, the first big act I'm recorded with was a singer-songwriter named Mark Germino and I was part of the band. We were called the Sluggers and I met them at the Bluebird. They kind of came to see me play with Jonelle actually, and Mark was a classic singer-songwriter on the Bluebird lineup. You know one of their favorite sons. In fact they have an acoustic guitar and smashed at a rock show hanging as you go to the bathrooms at the Bluebird. I just have so many memories there and I played there every which way way from in the round quietly to being part of bands, to watching people from outside. It's just the home. It's like my home, the whole band's home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a great place. So what's the plans over the next few years? What have you got planned out? Anything big coming up?
Speaker 2:Our first anchor this year is we're already hitting the road again in March. As soon as we're done with this show, the 10 days after that we'll be on the road hitting the East Coast again and we just would pick up where that left off and really already into halfway into April and other gigs coming in within that framework. We don't want to think about recording anymore for a minute, but we already have another three or four songs that are ready to go that we may start sneaking in here or there out on the road to see what works and what doesn't. We did that with a couple of these. We're kind of lucky that way, in that we've always played live. We're not afraid to try something out live If it works or not, adjust. We used to do that, douglas Corner, all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I miss Douglas Corner. It was an intimate little venue. Yeah, I've done a lot of shows here, but unfortunately everything changes and unfortunately again, we've lost a lot of venues to play in Yep. So all we can do is go with what we have left and just do the best we can with what we have.
Speaker 2:Yes, it sure is. We still have the Bluebird and we still have Station Inn.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:We still have a lot of good venues over in East Nashville now. The five-spot has been around long enough. It's one of the old ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, been there several times.
Speaker 2:We all do like our walk things there, but we've played the Five Spot twice actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great place. Sounds like you've got a lot of good things coming up. I love it. One thing I'm willing to bet on is that where you've been and played so much together, the tightness must be spot on, because you know each other so well, know what to expect. That gives you a great blend so that even when you have an off night, it's still a great night.
Speaker 2:That's a good observation. That's true because we stay pretty tight because we're playing at least once or twice a week. If we don't have a gig, we'll at least rehearse that second nature. If you sing as much as we do, you can't really take the second nature of the playing for granted, because as soon as you're thinking about what you're playing, it affects your vocals. If I'm playing keyboards or accordion, as soon as I think about what I'm doing, my vocals will get constricted. You know we have a lot of instrument changes and you have enough to think about that. We try to maintain as much second nature awareness as possible. We take it very seriously but we want to have fun with it. We're all so seasoned. We don't have fun if we can't remember what we're supposed to do. We're being well-prepared so that we can have fun.
Speaker 1:You mentioned instrument changes. Your promo shot shows three guitar players and a drummer Right, so do you change to keyboards as well and how does that work? Generally on the road.
Speaker 2:I'll have a B3 and an 88-weighted keyboard in an L formation. Then I'll come out front if I'm doing accordion and then I'll play guitar on a few rhythm guitar. I don't really Ronnie does all the leads on guitar. I played rhythm guitar most of my life in band suits so we don't like to keep the sound limited. Okay, one of the things we developed with Poco accordion when appropriate don't make a big deal of it, and we've also done a lot of shows with mandolin, for instance on Jack's songs. He likes to play acoustic guitar so I'll generally go to bass. In general I'll play bass on Jack's songs.
Speaker 2:Sometimes if we go back to some of the older Poco catalog and I'm on accordion and Jack's on acoustic guitar, ronnie will play bass. But we don't try to really make that so much of a gimmick there. For a while it seemed like the instrument changes were becoming their own thing. So over the years we've kind of keep it, trying to structure the set to where it's kind of in chucks so it's not distracting, so that I'm not going from keyboard to accordion and then to bass and then guitar. We try to keep it kind of cool. I really enjoy that. I like playing a lot of different instruments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. It sounds to me like you're creating dynamics within a set as well as a dynamics within a song.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's it. We've actually had three or four versions of different songs so that we could do them on the radio, do a full-blown, you know the theaters and then kind of clubby versions, because you're a keyboard player, correct? Yes, that's right. Sometimes you've got to be ready to think on your feet and only do everything on one keyboard. It's not ideal, but you've got to be ready in case that happens. And sometimes you have to be ready that it might be an acoustic-based show.
Speaker 2:So we'd been prepared for virtually every contingency and before we were even formed we kind of first got together down on a radio show run by George Hamilton V down in Columbia. Yeah, I know him, and these are all old friends of ours, george and Tom Comet, Michael Pell. We couldn't have been in any more comfortable environment, but of course it's a classical radio station, there's no room for digital keyboards and there's no room for a drum kit in any more comfortable environment but of course it's a classical radio station there's no room for digital keyboards and there's no room for a drum kit and there's no room for the accordion to be as loud as everything else. So we would have to adjust because again, those vocals we have to all be able to get in there and blend our vocals. We kind of developed our own little versions of the songs, for perhaps instead of piano I play mandolin. A lot of them are accordion or mandolin based. Anyway, we were able to kind of tweak that on the air. We like letting the songs and the harmonies adapt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, perfect way to do it. Now, how do people find you? How can they follow you and get to know you so they can follow your musical journey?
Speaker 2:Well, we have a website Cimarron C-I-M-A-R-R-O-N. 615, the numbers 615.com. That's our website. That has all shows and all the info. Of course we have an Instagram from that and a Facebook. But then from that we found that our audience doesn't need any more than that. We don't have TikTok, we don't have Twitter. It's such a social media world right now. We were being kind of told that we needed to have a TikTok presence and a Twitter presence or whatever it's called now, and we quickly found out that our audience, which is the POCO audience, the California country and kind of some overlay into younger bluegrass alt country, they don't really care about Instagram and Facebook and our website. They want to see us play live. They like hearing our songs. So nothing against that, but we're not as young as a lot of the bands that you know really have a TikTok. It's just really not our thing.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense. You have to do what your fans want and, most of all, you have to do what works for you and, after all is said and done, that's really all that matters. Yeah, our fans are a lot of all. You have to do what works for you and, after all is said and done, that's really all that matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Our fans are. A lot of them are friends actually, you know, from touring with Poco all the time and they're our biggest supporters and they've really helped take an active hand in making our touring on the road success. So they don't really they like to see the pictures of us in the studio or see what we're up to, but they don't really. They like to see the pictures of us in the studio or see what we're up to, but they don't go on tiktok and neither do we.
Speaker 1:So we didn't that. Uh, that makes perfect sense. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell the listeners about what you're doing or what what's coming up, so that way they kind of can keep looking out for you?
Speaker 2:well, we're getting ready to tour. We'll be on the East Coast, we'll be in Virginia, we'll be in New York. We'll be playing Daryl's house. We're going to be playing in Philadelphia. Come out and see us. That's what I'd like for us to do. And then we're going to be in Louisville, kentucky. One of my old aunts will be in Cincinnati. We're excited to get back on the road and we hope to see everybody out there Absolutely Well.
Speaker 1:This has been great. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Well, I appreciate you having me. It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantour production. For more information, contact media at plateau music dot com.