A Double Header Concert with Broken Arrow and Laurel Canyon - Tickets Here
Sunrise Theatre, Fort Pierce, FL, Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Submitted by Songwriter Gary Burr of Laurel Canyon
Offer us a brief history about your band that may not be found in your bio supplied to us via your website.
Mark Hudson and I have known each other for close to thirty years. As a producer in the rock and roll world, he had done many albums for big stars and had Mark Mirando and I come into the studio and sing harmonies with him. Albums by Ringo Starr, Ozzie Osbourne…people like that. One day he called and said, “We sing great harmonies. Why don’t we start a Led Zeppelin Tribute Band?” I reminded him that Led Zeppelin had almost NO harmonies and made a counter-proposal of CSN&Y. The three of us agreed and became Laurel Canyon… because CSN&Y was taken!
What is the most interesting experience or story that you and your band have had over the time of your playing together?
During COVID, we tried to play at any venue that would stay open. We played a venue in New Hampshire where no one was allowed inside. They built a stage in the parking lot and we played to a parking lot full of cars. At the end of every song, if they liked it, they honked their horns. If they didn’t, they tried to run Mark Mirando down because he was on the edge of the stage closest to the cars! Luckily for him, we are amazing and there was 100% honking. (That is also the name of the band biography “100% Honking. The Laurel Canyon Story.”)
Tribute bands have become tremendously popular throughout the country and there are many covering the same original bands. What about your tribute band makes you stand out from the others that are out there?
The fact that one of us is a Grammy winning writer and producer who starred on TV as the Hudson Brothers is a good place to start! Also, another one of us is a member of the Songwriter Hall of Fame and has written fifteen number one songs. We have a pedigree no other tribute band can match. We challenge any and all of them to any competition they can name! Leg wrestling. Dominoes. We fear no one. “We are the champions.” (Freddy Mercury)
What led you to want to perform this music? Was this group one of your favorite groups growing up or was it just happenstance that led you to play their music?
The three of us love harmonies. We grew up on the Beatles and those three voices just clicked with us. CSN&Y came along just when we were all picking up guitars and putting down our baseball gloves. It was a natural fit. I really thought Mark Hudson would ask to do a Beatles Tribute band but there are so many of them…we weren’t sure we could add anything new to the mix…so we turned to CSN&Y and tackled the intricate harmonies that bring other bands to their knees.
Anything new and exciting on the horizon for your group?
We have one EP we wrote and recorded. We can’t record THEIR music (because of “laws”) but we are all professional songwriters so we write songs that sound like them. We are starting our second EP. We are back out on the road in January and are looking forward to standing around a microphone and singing “Helplessy Hoping” until our knees give out.
Is there anything else you would like people to know about you/your performance?
People should know….our show is not just songs. We take an audience on a trip through Laurel Canyon. We tell the stories behind the songs, tell trivia about the era they might not know, funny stories about Cass Elliot, The Monkees, Joni Mitchell, the whole cast of characters that make up that magical time and place. The audience will leave with a whole lot of new facts in their heads and old songs in their hearts.
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