#tim breon

FRIDAY FLASHBACK—“Navajo” by Ben Kaplan… https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/navajo Yá’át’ééh. The Wayback Machine lands on 1999 to a recording session in Pennsylvania, but the song feels more like the 4 Corners of the Southwest—that mystical region with ominous mesas, vast skies, and the murmur of long-gone civilizations. “Navajo” was the opening song from Ben’s fine album, DEEPER DOWN. On this track I played keyboards along with Bill Engel (banjo, guitar), Tamara Kaplan (vocals), Bill Matlack, Jr. (drums), and Easy Mark Tomeo (pedal steel guitar). It was engineered and produced by Tim Breon, who also played bass and guitar. Ben morphed into a multi-media artist and now lives in St. Louis. Enjoy this track and remember our Native American brothers and sisters: 

FRIDAY FLASHBACK + HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SKIP KLINE…In 1993 I started to work with Davy Jones (Monkees) to make recordings. That unfolded into hours of song-crafting, planning, and commuting to studios around central Pennsylvania (where we both lived at the time). Sometime in 1999 he rang me up to say, “There’s a chap with a recording studio just down the road from my house. He seems to have it going on with gear and a room. Come over and check him out.” That chap was Skip Kline, an engineer-producer-musician who is as saintly as he is talented. He was/is also a local star: The voice of the iconic “Beaver Motors” radio ads that permeate the local airwaves.

Skip ran a well-kept and well-appointed room called Songcrafters Studios, equipped with a grand piano, the right gear, and the know-how to do what we needed (the studio also had a couch that cast sleeping-spells on anyone who sat on it). Over time Skip and I found a rapport, discovering what we had in common and didn’t have in common (no coffee-maker in the studio?), and we had great brainstorming sessions. He is a straight-arrow, a true Pennsylvania friend, and a “go to guy” that Davy and I could count on—we notched up 100s of hours at Skip’s studio (still a running operation). Here’s a track we did at Skip’s—“It’s Just a Matter of Time” is an original song by Davy Jones, featuring Tim Breon on lead guitar. Meanwhile, HB Skip!

https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/its-just-a-matter-of-time-2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a remarkable bassist, guitarist, producer, teacher, vocalist, and audio wizard Tim Breon. For many years he was a principal on my recording projects, and we shared stages anywhere from biker bars to symphony orchestras. Tim’s modesty exceeds his resume, which includes gigging with Paul Anka, Olivia Newton-John, Martha Reeves, and other notables. No genre is outside of his skill-set, and he was one of Davy Jones’s favorite musicians to work with. While I could dial up a number of tracks with Tim’s dazzling musicianship, here’s “Leavin’ it up to You”, an original Davy Jones song with some outstanding Breon guitar work…HB TB:

https://johnnyjblairsingeratlarge.bandcamp.com/track/leaving-it-up-to-you