Skip to main content

A Time to Give Thanks


As a member of a band that has been in your minds and hearts for 45 years, without question, my first thought is to share thanks, on behalf of Nick and myself, for your continued support and enthusiasm for our music. Whether the time-tested hits played in concerts in your cities and home towns, or whether you travel long distances to hear us, we are thankful for your support.

When you buy a hard ticket to a theatre or concert hall, when you buy a CD or download our music, we hear you. We feel your love when you applaud, cheer, stand in line for hours to shake hands and ask us to autograph our records preserved carefully from your precious collections, and then your willingness to step forward and buy our DVD, CDs, and photos to take part of our professional work product home with you, adding to your collection.

Not for a minute do we take you for granted. The Buckinghams continue to ‘be’ because you continue to ‘be here now’ with us. We are grateful to have three professional musicians, Bruce Soboroff, Dave Zane, and Rocky Penn gracing our stage regularly and then when we add any and all of our regular exemplary horn players, Carlo Isabelli, Chuck Morgan, Rich Moore, Steve Frost, and Lou Curalli, we are doubly blessed to recreate the sounds just the way you heard them on the radio.

Thanks are easy to give when you feel blessed and though life is going well. Each of you— on our Facebook pages, MySpace page, Constant Contact list, and mailing list of customers—is a part of our world, for which we give thanks. To all of those entertainment professionals and colleagues we work with at shows, who book our shows, and stage our shows, we are truly indebted. You make our music magic.

On a personal note, you validate our creativity and originality when you buy the CDs that might include songs on them that you haven’t heard yet. You fill my heart with joy when you sing along to songs that I have written, from my heart, for you. You share your joy when we see you out in the audience singing along with us or swaying to the music.

On behalf of The Buckinghams, we all extend our thanks to you at this important holiday mile-marking week. Before the football games, before the turkey dinners shared with family and friends, before the worship services that remind us to give thanks, we take this opportunity to ask you to share your thoughts and memories with us.

—Carl Giammarese

Image courtesy of freeimages.co.uk

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

In Memory of John Poulos, March 31, 1947 - March 26, 1980

Five days before his 33rd birthday, we lost John Poulos, a dear friend who was like a brother to us, as well as The Buckinghams’ drummer. Often described as the heartbeat of our band, he was known to most Buckinghams’ fans of the 60s simply as Jon-Jon. To know John was to love him. With his outgoing personality, he never met a stranger. His talent is remembered best in the style he displayed on drum fills and riffs on our hits, including “Don’t You Care,” “Hey Baby, They’re Playing Our Song,” and “Kind of a Drag.” It’s not surprising that Jon-Jon was included as one of the Top 10 drummers in Modern Drummer Magazine. Contemporary MySpace profiles of aspiring amateur and professional musicians today include the name John Poulos among their musical influences. That’s an honor both fitting and accurate for a musician who was truly one of a kind. Nick and I recall that one of John’s own musical influences was Bobby Elliot, drummer for The Hollies, whose signature beret and tossing of his he...

In Memoriam — Martin Joseph Grebb

On the first day of a new year and a new decade, friends and family of Marty Grebb read a post on his Facebook page that sparked instant concern. The composition he shared had required much thought, and in it, Marty shared his love, regard, concern, and caring for virtually every person he’d worked with professionally, loved in his lifetime, and showed how deep his feelings ran for an earlier day and time when his body and mind were not wracked in pain by the five types of cancer he said he’d battled over time. The outpouring of love and support, expressions of concern, reminders of so many who had friended him on Facebook and felt as though they’d really known him, were nothing short of amazing. Offers of “please call me” or “we are worried about you” or “hang on, brother, we are here” filled the comments section. If there were a point in time when he was wavering in his attitude about what his plan was, everyone did whatever they could yesterday, New Year’s Day, to show their supp...

Remembering Frank Tesinsky, Beloved Chicago Musician, Key to The Buckinghams' Characteristic Sound

Each time the opening notes to “Kind of a Drag” come on the air, whether it’s your car radio, your phone, or choice of streaming media, the first 23 notes you hear inform you immediately that not only are you hearing “Kind of a Drag,” but you are hearing The Buckinghams. That instant recognition, in turn, is thanks to the talent of musician Frank Tesinsky, who arranged the iconic tune for producers Dan Belloc and Carl Bonafede in a 1966 recording session in Chicago’s Chess Studios. The Buckinghams family was greatly saddened to learn of Frank’s passing on November 9. Catherine Johns, his wife of 32 years, was a beloved part of his life and part of Chicago radio as well. In February 1967 "Kind of a Drag" was #1 on the Billboard charts for two weeks, and it forever defined the sound of five young men from the northside of Chicago. Just 27 notes, right? And yet, it defined the magic of what would become known as “the horn sound” that The Buckinghams are b...