LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ LUCK Media & Marketing) Ted Amberson and Michael Baggett are a little too raw and blissfully old school - not to mention a few years beyond age eligibility - to audition for "American Idol." But as the fiery Southern Rock duo The Amberson-Baggett Band, they're bound to draw as much excited attention to "
Sweet Home Alabama" as fellow Alabamans Ruben Studdard,
Bo Bice and
Taylor Hicks did in their post-Idol heydays.
Digging into the treasure trove of timeless and edgy rockers penned over the years by Baggett, the Anniston, Ala.-based duo -- featuring Amberson on vocals and Baggett on electric guitar and bass -- amps up for a set of 11 tunes they facetiously call "The Greatest Hits of a Band That Never Happened." When folks hear it and start kickin' up dust and jamming along, no doubt their debut album title will prove prophetic: That's Gonna Leave A Mark.
Tracks such as "This is Real" and "Satisfied (Live My Life)" hark back brilliantly to an era when bands didn't want or need TV competitions to galvanize audiences hungry for real music. While "Satisfied" and the wistful look back on the good old days "Have You Been There" are focal tracks, it's the autobiographical "Shoes For My Pillow" (featuring expansive electric guitar passages, including a powerful 75-second intro) that strikes the most intense emotional chord.
Baggett, an accomplished guitarist, bassist, drummer and flutist, began writing music back when Southern rock greats like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band and Atlanta Rhythm Section could also be pop stars. He made a go of a musical career before, touring Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee extensively from the mid-80s to mid-90s with an original rock outfit called Shoshannim.
One of the most fascinating aspects of That's Gonna Leave A Mark is that while certain tunes like "High Time" and "Satisfied (Live My Life)" are brand new and written out of the energy the duo brought to the project, others had their origins as far back as 35 years ago. The blistering rocker "
Fallen Angel" has evolved over the years, but Baggett wrote it in his teens, and his hypnotic electric guitar line is exactly the way he conceived it back in the late '70s.
