Everyone Likes A Good Burger

It was 1985, turned out to be a pretty busy year, moved to San Diego for work, got married in the Spring (wife #1), and continued to feed my Jazz addiction; after all these years, at least I still have my music. One of the first places I made a regular habit of visiting after moving to San Diego, was the Tower Records store on Sports Arena Boulevard. Used to be, pre-internet days, I'd always search down the local record stores whenever visiting a new city; although it's far more convenient firing up Google or logging into iTunes or Amazon, I do miss that excitement I used to get from discovering a new recording at the 'record' store. I didn't end up staying that long in San Diego, or staying married to wife #1, for that matter; but the time I did spend in Southern California turned out to be very fruitful for my Jazz collection. Of all the albums I bought while there in 1985, Fattburger's debut, 'One Of A Kind' defines that year of my life. I remember laying on the couch in my townhouse in La Jolla on a Saturday afternoon flipping through the television channels, and coming across a public access program, it was a taping of a concert by Fattburger; at that time, I had no idea that they were a local group. I remember listing to them play '59th Street', 'Auto Bahn' and 'I Knew That'; the guitar player was great, as was the saxophonist. So I did what I had to do, head on over to Tower Records - only one thing better than finding a great new band, finding out that they're local! Over the years I've been a faithful follower of 'The Burger', in my opinion, they've gotten better with each subsequent recording, even though the late saxophonist Hollis Gentry III left the group as a full time member after this recording and guitarist Steve Laury, who is just an awesome player,  left a few years later - both Gentry and Laury have released recordings under their own names, which are definitely worth getting. Looking back over the years, San Diego never really did it for me, but, if I hadn't of moved there, chances are I might never have come across Fattburger and the Soundtrack Of My Life would be missing a chapter. One last note, as of this writing, keyboardist and principle composer, Carl Evans, Jr has some pretty severe health issues that call into question the future of the band. Listen to'59th Street'.

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