Live Your Music - Margaux Joy and Guest Gary Pihl 07/31/19

I am happy to have Gary Pihl as my guest for Live Your Music 07/31/19. Join us for a conversation about his musical career and hear two songs from the new album Fire & Grace by Alliance.

Raised in the suburbs of Chicago for his first 12 years, Gary Pihl relocated to the San Francisco Bay area just in time to witness the “San Francisco Sound”.  High school bands led to his recording debut with Day Blindness in 1969.  He says, "After  my time in Day Blindness, I was in a band called Fox with Roy Garcia and Johnny Vernazza.  We were really fortunate to get to be on some shows with Free, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Eric Burdon, War and Mose Allison."  

Gary spent four years in a band called Crossfire. He recalls, "Mitchell Froom was our organist.  He's gone on to be a great producer (Paul McCartney, The Pretenders, Los Lobos, Crowded House, Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, etc.). 

Pihl's first big break in came in 1977, when he joined Sammy Hagar's band, where he toured and recorded for 8 years.  Gary met Tom Scholz when Hagar was opening for BOSTON between '77 and '79.  In 1985 Pihl got a call from Tom Scholz of BOSTON.  He explains, "I was thrilled!  It was a dream come true for me to work with one of the greatest bands of all time!”  After recording and touring for “Third Stage” with BOSTON, Pihl saw a break coming up and decided to put together a project band called Alliance, with two former Hagar band members, David Lauser on drums and Alan Fitzgerald (keys with Hagar and Night Ranger). Robert Berry was introduced to them by Geffen Records. Fire and Grace is their sixth studio album.

http://garypihl.com