Born: Toronto, Ontario
Toronto singer Tommy Graham joined his first band in 1958 and managed to work his way through the Toronto club scene with Kay Taylor And The Regents at the legendary Club Bluenote.
Following this, he took one year away from the business, traveled to Los Angeles to hone his musical skills and developed contacts there. Returning to Canada he, and some others, formed the group Big Town Boys. The group gained prominence as backing musicians for vocalist Shirley Matthews on Tamarac Records with such songs as "Big Town Boy" (1963) and "Private Property" (1964).
The band broke out on its own with an album and several singles as The Big Town Boys and then BTB4. The group toured across Canada many times and for over a year were the host band on CTV's 'After Four' television show. Also during that time they made sojourns to New York City where they became favourites in several clubs, playing with some soon-to-be giants in the business such as Jimi Hendrix.
By 1968 The Big Town Boys (also known as BTB4) had run its course. Graham bought himself an airfare ticket around the world and began an odyssey of self-discovery, traveling and immersing himself in other cultures. He eventually arrived in India where, for a year, he would study sarode at the master sarode school in Calcutta called Ali Akbar Kahn School. Included at that time were many journeys throughout India as well as forays to east and west Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In 1970 Graham once more found his way back to Toronto where he began working for producer Brian Ahearn which led to much studio experience and playing on Anne Murray's hit doing backing vocal work on "Snowbird".
Capitol A & R Director Paul White, who was responsible for discovering Murray and Edward Bear (among others) gave Graham the opportunity to record for the label. His debut, 'Planet Earth', was released later that year with a crack studio band - Buddy Cage (steel guitar), Bill Speer (piano), Skip Beckwith (bass), and Ron Rully (drums).
His only charting single was a cover of Neil Young's "After The Goldrush" in 1972.
In 1972, his cover of Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" charted on many stations in North America and Europe. Graham's interest leaned more toward production and he would go on honing is production skills with many local artists (like Bruce Cockburn) and producing the critically acclaimed first album for Brent Titcomb.
In 1980 and he and his wife started their own computer graphics company that pioneered a new process of putting high resolution images on film. The Arial computer system preceded the introduction of PCs and MACs and was a force in the early computer graphics industry.
In 1993 Graham resumed his career in music. He traveled to the islands of Trinidad and Tobago where
his first project was 'Sounds Of Tobago', featuring environmental sounds of the Trinidad and Tobago rainforest with original quasi new age west indian inspired interprative music. He also produced his second CD for Brent Titcomb 'Time Traveler' CD by Brent Titcomb. Both projects were done out of
his new digital home studio.
Recently Graham has been traveling and recording in Ecuador and Colombia in South America. He is very enthusiastic with the music there and is involved recording indigenous, as well as progressive, Andean music.
with notes from Tommy Graham.
Singles
1971 Things You Say (Capitol)
1971 Sahajiya (Capitol)
1972 After The Goldrush (Capitol)
1973 My Happy Song (Capitol)
1974 Sea Cruise (Capitol)
with SHIRLEY MATTHEWS (featuring THE BIG TOWN BOYS)
1963 Big Town Boy (Tamarac)
1964 Private Property (Tamarac)
with THE BIG TOWN BOYS (aka BTB4)
1965 Put You Down (Tamarac)
1965 It Was I (Tamarac)
1965 I Love Her So (Tamarac)
1966 Hey Girl Go It Alone (Tamarac)
1966 My Babe (Tamarac)
1967 Do It To 'Em (Tamarac)
1967 Jack Rabbit (Tamarac)
Albums
1970 Planet Earth (Capitol)
Video
Compilation Tracks
with SHIRLEY MATTHEWS (featuring THE BIG TOWN BOYS)
1990 "Big Town Boy" on
Made In Canada - Volume One: The Early Years (BMG)
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