A Taste Of California, new release from Tom Hansen.

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The Norwegian songwriter Tom Hansen has a big music heart for west coast music and has released three earlier albums: Standing Tall, Brazilian Night & The Millenium Project, all out of print now.

Now he is ready with his 4th release titled “A Taste Of California”

Here are words from Tom Hansen about the project:

I’m a musicteacher and composer from Tønsberg – 100 km south of Oslo down the coast. I was born in 1957 and has since 1970 been interesting in American westcoast- and soulmusic. The first LP’s I bought was with Barry White and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

My favorite artists has always been Al Jarreau, Earth Wind & Fire, David Foster, Pages, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston, George Benson, Fourplay, Pat Metheny, Kenny G, Shakatak, Gino Vannelli and David Pack.

When I started writing I had one dream: that one of the best american musicians could play on one of my songs and my favoritemusician was Larry Williams when he played the moog solo on “Spain” from “This time” (1980) with Al Jarreau.

I contacted Larry on Facebook in 2013 and asked if he recorded songs outside USA. One hour later I got a message from him where he wrote “send me the song !”. He liked it at once and recorded it in LA. I called the song “A dream comes true”. Last year he recorded “Song for Hansson” and both are on “A taste of California” which I will send you on Monday.

Other songs on this CD is “Brazilian night” and “Special friend” with Victor Brooks which you can listen to at Youtube. The first one is a tribute to Shakatak and Bill Sharpe sent me a nice message and told me that he liked it ! I used popular Shakatak-songs in the lyric.

This year we recorded a typical 1980 Earth Wind called “My lady” & Firesong with one of my producers and musicians Kenneth Eriksen as vocalist, John JR Robinson plays drums and Peter Friestedt has a guitarsolo. That song has been great ! Peter live two hours from my place.

I asked John JR what he thought about the song after mastering – “It’s smoking !”, he said.

There are also many ballads on the CD and “Stay with me” with Rheanne Lindeberg (born in Las Vegas) has been great. There are also a typical Al Jarreau-song called “Mr. Westcoast” in the style of “Mornin'” which has been great (in my view !) with Kjell Håkon Andersen on tenorsaxophone.

When Whitney Houston died me and my brother wrote “Standing tall” as a tribute-song to her. It’s in the same style as the ballads Michael Masser wrote for her in the 80’s.

My producers and multimusicians Nils Mathisen, Halstein Larsen, Kenneth Eriksen and Pål Johnsen have made a fantastic job with my songs. And Magne Arnesen has some fantastic piano- and moogsolos.

In July we met Al Jarreau and Larry in Oslo and I had a long conversation with Al. In the middle of his concert he told the audience that he had talked with a musicteacher, who was a friend of Larry, of how important music is in people’s life !!! There are 18 songs on the CD including two versions of “My lady” and the CD includes all my best songs through the years, most of them from 2013-15.

My next dream is that David Foster can get the CD and send a message of what he thinks !!!

Track List: My Lady, Song For Hansson, Brazilian Night, Stay With Me, A Dream Comes True, Vis A Vis, Falling Leaves, Standing Tall (A Tribute To Whitney Houston), T-Party, Special Friend, Mr. Westcoast, Enter 2000, Wessel Song, Magic Moments, Stay With Me, Fate, Time To Say Goodbye & My Lady (Disco Remix/Radio Edit).

The album features. John “JR” Robinson, Peter Friestedt, Larry Williams, Victor Brooks, Svein Finstad, Nils Mathiesen, Kenneth Eriksen and many other great musicians.

You can buy the CD directly from Tom Hansen. Email for more information at: thansen57@hotmail.com

More info at the official Facebook site.

By Published On: december 30, 2015Categories: In Focus, New Releases

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About the Author: Kbremer

Good music enriches your life. At BLUE DESERT we are passionate about this particular yet wide-ranging style of music we call West Coast Music. This site is a modest tribute to the music and the performing artists, who through the (many) years have given us - and continue to give us - endless hours of musical enjoyment. As long-time fans we want to share our enthusiasm, experiences and views with fellow connoisseurs as well as curious newcomers. If we can do our bit to help promote this great music and all the gifted artist – well, then we have succeeded.