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i Entertainrr I Mick f rail ? The* HfF ! .! The powerful tenor of rock i 'n' roll singer Mickey ] Thomas has graced the i airwaves for several years J now, first as lead singer with the Elvin Bishop Band (he 1 sang their biggest hit, .1 "Fooled Around and Fell in ? Love") and, since 1979 as the lead singer with Jefferson Starship. His new album is called Alive Alone. Produced by Bill Szymczyk (The Who, Eagles, Joe j Walsh, Joe Vitale, Bob Seger) and Allan Blazek (Elvin BishoD. Outlaws. J. Giles) and released in August 481, the 10-song Alive Alone is the latest and one of the most significant milestones of a musical ^ career that dates back to the ; _1 I mi * ? iinu- ou s wnen 1 nomas, men a 15-year-old living in Cairo, Georgia, was in his first band, inspired as so many others were at the time, by The Beatles. Seeing the band from Liverpool in concert during summer *65 at Atlanta Stadium was all Thomas and three of his friends needed to ^ move toward fulfilling their 9 young men's dreams and schemes. "We saw and heard 50,000 screaming girls 1 ? d ! ff. \ I*!: ?< \ V ill Wt \ \\ * I ^ VMickey Thomas has a du? lent ev T y ? 'Foo going crazy and said, 'Hey, this is IT! We have to form our own band!"' Thomas says, recounting their excitement at the prospect of having 50,000 groupies clamoring for their, ahem, affprtinnc "Nnnp r*f nc Viar\ any real musical backgrounds, but we got our instruments together and a record player to learn how to pick out a few chords. After a bit of practicing we became The Inner Souls." ine Danamemoers parted ways when they graduated from high school and headed for different colleges. Thomas opted for nearby Valdosta State, where he enrolled as a history major. "I wanted to get a degree in history and then go to law school to become a lawver. Now, looking back on it from the standpoint of someone in the entertainment biz, it might have been a smart move to become a lawyer first!" At Valdosta State, Thomas met others who'd left their high school bands behind and they began weekly jam sessions at the school's Student Union. After about two years, his interest in . p .. - .. al career as a solo artist and music superseded his interest in classroom studying, cn hp Hrnnnprf nut tn an nn fhp road during '69, playing along the Georgia/Florida/Alabama club circuit. The next year saw him working with what he terms "a really psychedelic band" Kncn/1 in TVAoorvn nanrrfio uao^u in i, VJgia called Orgonzable. The group was manage by Alan Walden? (brother of Phil Walden, head of the late Capricorn Records), who at the time also managed Wet Willie and Lynyrd Skynyrd. But after eight months of brain-frying in Macon, Thomas decided he'd had enough and returned to college in '71. "And then a strange thing happened that changed my life forever," Thomas intones with mock melodrama. "I was watching Sonny and Cher's show for some reason on television one night when this gu> named Gideon came on fronting this wild gospel i group canea rower, uiaeor was singing these hard-eon gospel tunes but they hac contemporary lyrics, like 'Man's gonna have tc .. ll n l: ? i:.t jeuerssuii sumiiip vu^dini. Iroui change/his way of living.' he had three back-group singers? a Japanese guy, a Filipino and a white guy, and a pnnnlp nf hl?r?lr cfnva anH ? 1 ",,v* an Italian were in the band. His whole message was to get all kinds of people together. Anyway, on the show he went running through the audience with this robe on and a scarf tied around his head? roallv wild. Two weeks later, totally out of the blue, he called me on the phone, asking if I wanted to join his group. "Gideon's Filipino tenor had quit, it turned out, and Gideon specifically wanted a 1 white tenor from the south to replace him. So he'd gone , down South, going from town to town asking people for suggestions Hp ran intn someone in Tallahassee who knew me and gave him my r phone number. Gideon and I i arraanged a meeting and ' three days later? this was in , '71? I was in Los Angeles I singing with Gideon and i Power. i ? "The time I spent with > them was well-spent," ~ Thomas continues. "He was I _ L? _ !?i?l . _ a very uig lnnuence on my musical attitudes. Up to that point I'd mostly been in copy bands singing incorrectly, just trying to duplicate what I heard on the radio or the juke bok and blowing my voice out all the time. Gideon taught me how to sing naturally, to take my voice for what it is and not try to sound like somebody else, or not to try to do what the voice doesn't naturally do." Fallowing a move to SanFransisco and a few national club tours, Gideon lost his record deal (the group didn't record while lnomas was a member). Figuring that he wasn't able to support the band the way he'd like to, Gideon dissolved it. In spring '75 he received a call from blues/rock/country guitarist Elvin Bishop, who he'd met a few years before through Gideon. Bishop had just landed a recording deal with Capricorn and was in Macon recording his Juke Joint Jump LP. "Elvin knew I was nearisy in Valdosta so he asked me to go up to Macon and do some background vocals," Thomas recalls. "He liked my work and was looking to strengthen his band vocally, so he asked if I wanted to go back to j California again. So 1 moved . back and I've been there ever since" (he now calls Mill Valley home). _ Jf 1? 31 M ^ y r - j as EB's lead vocalist on th< Struttin' My Stuff LP released later that year, am then Hometown Boy Make Good (76) and the liv Raisirt' Hell (477). "I wa with Elvin for three yean Bafflin By CHRI Staff "When the Wind Blows," novel in search of a coherent j The reader is beraged wi seemingly have no motivatio from the first page of the bool Saul never decides whet psychological thriller or a su] irom tne lacK decision Dan book. THE STORY concerns you killed while exploring the lo< since a mining disaster 50 along with her mother, own Christie's new mother (Chris before the start of the book). The idea does not please E Miss Edna, she has been she! ever since she was born. To complicate matters the When the wind blows, so tl children, the still-born childr< mine. It is from these elements terror. There is little terror problems is that Saul fails I characters. The success of ability of the author to make characters. SAUL DOES not do this. TJ book are either poorly desc roarfor irtantif ir?ntir?r? imrvteeil & vuuvi ?uvaa?>uiVM?iv?i Saul also fails with his poi which is a surprise since chil his earlier works. The child] everything else in this book than contrivances of the auth Everytime a reader pic agreement with the writer, about what I am reading if y believe in." Although Saul d breaks his agreement with little that is believable. when the Wind Blows is do if there is no other alterna i i t r~ r" y lin^Li Mi'c ? J \ i To^i iftytui^ , 3 then left the band." (Thomas e says he may be busy now, ? but not like during those d years, when it wasn't s unusual to do 40 or more e dates without a single night s off.) ?> ui:Mi (If VVIIIII SHANDAL Writer John Saul's latest effort, is a structure. th events, murders, acts that ?n and hints of the supernatural i to the last. her this novel was to be a pernatural one and what results les the reader throughout the ng Christie Lyons. Her father is ;al mine which has been closed years ago. Diana Amber, who c fho minp rtarMrtac tn hivnnin tie's natural mother having died dna Amber, who the town calls, Itering her 50-year-old daughter town is victimized by the wind, he legend goes, one hears the en of the indians buried near the that Saul constructs his tale of 1 in hie talo thnnoh Hnp nf thp :o create believable or original a horror story depends on the the reader sympathize with his ?e people he has created for this Tibed, as with Diana, making ble, or they are too cliched. rtrayal of children in the novel dren have played major roles in ren do not seem realistic. Like they appear to be nothing more or. ks a book he is making an , "I will suspend my disbelief ou will present something I can nM nrMPnt a roaHahlp nnvAl hp the audience by providing very a lot like a tie in football. It will tive but it still doesn't satisfy