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Alternative Healing Center Joey Stann Joey Stann is no newcomer to the music scene. In the late 70s, Joey joined a band called the Werewolves, managed by Andrew Loog Oldham, manager/producer of the Rolling Stones. In addition to releasing two records on RCA, they toured all over the country and after the band had broken up, Andrew stayed on as Joey's manager. With the help of Andrew, Joey then got involved with drummer Mitch Mitchell, from Jimi Hendrix's band and started meeting some very influential people.
In 1975, Joey got asked to play baritone sax on Aerosmith's album "Toys in the Attic." Joey explains, "There was a musician who was a major studio baritone sax player in New York. He ran into some problems and wasn't able to show up for a lot of his sessions. At the time, I was playing the New York scene. People heard me and they started calling me. I was getting a lot of the top sessions at that point and Aerosmith was one of them."
Then in 1979, Humble Pie, with the help of Oldham, decided to do another album, "Victory", which Joey also was involved in. Shortly afterwards, Joey got a call from Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The Jukes were looking for another sax player and in 1980, Joey hopped on board to join the "Love is a Sacrifice" tour. As soon as the band went out on the road, they cut the double live album, "Reach Up and Touch the Sky", Joey's first album with the Asbury Jukes.
While taking time off between Southside Johnny recordings, the Jukes horns got called to do Gary Bonds' "Dedication" album. At the time, Gary happened to be looking for a sax player and Joey got asked to join the band. At that time, Johnny had decided to take some time off.
Joey stayed with Gary for four years. In 1985, the Juke's tenor sax player, Frank Elmo, was called to work for Julian Lennon. At this time, Joey was asked to come back with the Jukes and he's been playing with them ever since. Joey still plays with Gary "U.S." Bonds whenever he's available.
After a bit of encouragement from Southside, Joey's first solo CD, Family Tree", made it's debut on March 2nd, 2001 at a Jukestock weekend, a 3-day gathering of Jukes fans from around the world at the Holiday Inn in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
"Family Tree" is a CD with quite a bit of spiritual overtones. The song "Adversity" deals with the I Ching (in it there's a hexagram called adversity). The words in "Adversity" are "When adversity comes your way, don't let it break you and lead you astray. Work on what you need to learn and you'll become stronger in return." Joey explains, "the whole premise with the I Ching is that adversity is only a bad thing if you let it break you. If you look at the lessons you can gain from it, you look at why you go through certain changes and it becomes a learning experience.
That's a Chinese concept and a lot of concepts and knowledge like that come from the old Chinese history. So I took the I Ching and wrote "Adversity" to make the connection in hopes that it will raise people's interest there. "Family Tree" basically means that we're all one family and we need to understand that and work together.
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