Search - Thaddeus Hogarth :: Trying to Believe

Mike C. from LOWELL, MA
Reviewed on 11/23/2008...

Born in England, a young Thaddeus Hogarth played piano when he was about seven years of age and switched to guitar when he was nine. The aspiring musician played classical music for about five years before switching to electric guitar, playing pop/rock and reggae. His early influences were Stevie Wonder, the Isley Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Earth, Wind & Fire, Joan Armatrading, Bob Marley, Chicago, José Feliciano, Steel Pulse, Third World -- a broad range of styles and sounds. Raised in the West Indies, Hogarth played in hotel bands on the island of St. Kitts doing Top 40 covers. He also performed in funk bands in Miami, FL, in the early '80s as well as some rock bands. Also in the early '80s, in Boston, he played with some notable reggae groups -- Jah Spirit, Danny Tucker -- then moving to a band that made a bit of a splash in the early '90s, the Heavy Metal Horns, staying with that ensemble as the principal singer/songwriter/guitarist until 1994. Thaddeus was a student at Berklee College of Music between 1984 and 1988, eventually teaching at that prestigious establishment, with 2005 being his fifth year as a faculty member. Starting in 2003 he began working with the Bose Corporation, which resulted in their sponsoring an album, Live at Bose, recorded in front of an audience at the facility on the famous "Bose Mountain" in Framingham, MA. His own recordings have an authentic sound perfecting his technique while producing many of the tracks for Heavy Metal Horns and branching out to oversee a full album for singer Jules Ellison, a woman born in Liverpool, England, who has lived in the U.S. for the better part of two decades. Acclaimed in Billboard magazine, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, and other media, Hogarth has put together a "powerhouse unit" that performs serious funk-rock R&B. The lineup includes drumkit and percussion virtuoso Joey Scrima, who has worked with Connie Stevens and David Benoit, bassist Wesley Wirth -- formerly with Chuck Mangione and Bob Moses, and keyboard/backing vocalist David Sparr. Hogarth's material has been featured in film soundtracks like The Orphan and Steve Rosenberg's Watching Mrs. Pomerantz, as well as episodes of MTV's Undressed and The Osbournes. Thaddeus and his band have shared the bill with the likes of such legends as Tower of Power, Johnny Winter, and, when with Heavy Metal Horns, Peter Wolf. As a sideman, Thaddeus has performed with virtuosos Kenwood Dennard and Tony "Thunder" Smith.