This year proves to be exciting for a TALKING HEADS fan, what with the recent reissue of “Stop Making Sense” and a tribute album with Miley Cyrus and other unlikely followers involved – only the ensemble’s streak of surprises is not over yet, and November 8th will see the appearance of “77” in expanded form. It’s three CDs and Blu-ray, packaged into an 80-page hardcover book that’s filled with liners from all the four members of the band and photos, look quite exhaustive.
He played on “American Bandstand” and saw his song covered by Cher, his ivories can be heard in “The Blues Brothers” and on Gene Simmons and Peter Criss’ solo offerings, he performed and wrote together with Stephen Stills – and then, he disappeared, and the world forgot about Richard Gerstein, also known as Richard T. Bear, and a string of top-notch solo records he’d cut back in the ’70s and ’80s. Yet he emerged anew, re-energized, in 2021 with the robust new album “Fresh Bear Tracks” – accompanied by friends like Edgar Winter and Robby Krieger – which was followed by the brilliant "The Way Of The World" in 2024. And the veteran didn’t stop at strictly studio work: he went on the road with Walter Trout – that’s where this conversation found him.
Why Terry Wilson-Slesser, a man possessed of a stunning pair of blue-eyed-soul pipes, didn’t turn into a star he deserved to become is puzzle of those people who savored the Geordie warbler’s voice first on a sole, self-titled album by BECKETT back in 1974, then on two platters by Paul Kossoff’s BACK STREET CRAWLER, and after Koss’ untimely passing on two longplays by CRAWLER. It was not that the singer couldn’t write – IRON MAIDEN’s choice of “Rainbow’s Gold” which he co-penned for the B-side of “2 Minutes To Midnight” suggested otherwise – but Wilson-Slesser, for all the multiple appearances he put on with other artists, has never issued a record under his own name. Until now.
His given name was George but everybody called him Zoot – yet Money was his real last name for this man was no poor man’s Georgie Fame. Zoot Money, who passed away today at the age of 82, was a performer in a class of his own. He’s been ill for a few months now, and still we hoped he would recover; sadly, he did not, and the world became all the poorer for it. A singer and an organist, Money was a benevolent taskmaster for an entire generation of musicians, his BIG ROLL BAND becoming a British rhythm-and-blues institution in which such prominent figures as Andy Summers and Colin Allen had their proper start, and Zoot’s talent as organist and singer made him a smiling luminary on the radar of many a music lover.
While rumors started circulating of “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” seeing expanded reissue next year, a project emerged gathering artists who jump on the GENESIS album’s 50th anniversary bandwagon – or, rather, preceding this vehicle. Titled “it” and credited to SONIC ELEMENTS, the endeavor’s masterminded by Dave Kerzner, a keyboard player most suited to handle it, as he didn’t only helped out the legendary English ensemble with their sounds during the veterans’ last tours but also ended up owning a few of Tony Banks‘ instruments of which some were used in the creation of his latest tribute platter.
