* En anglais uniquement
Hammond B-3 blues organist
Tony Z was long a fixture on the New England blues club circuit, and for two years as part of Boston-area guitarist
Ronnie Earl's touring band, the Broadcasters.
Born and raised in Boston, Tony Zamagni began playing organ at St. Patrick's School in Roxbury. He cut his musical teeth with the Boston band Combat Zone and then went on to play with
the Platters for the next ten years. He spent most of the latter part of the 1980s trying to organize his own touring band (no small feat) and working as a session player in Miami for TK Records, where he recorded an LP with the group
Miami. After meeting
Ronnie Earl through a mutual friend, trumpeter
Bob Enos, Zamagni teamed up with the guitarist and joined his road band, the Broadcasters, from 1989 to 1991.
In 1991, Zamagni moved to Chicago, where he worked for three years with guitarist
Larry McCray and found work as a session musician on albums by
Son Seals,
Saffire,
Little Smokey Smothers and
Lee "Shot" Williams. Zamagni's debut album, Get Down With the Blues, was released on Rounder's Tone-Cool subsidiary in 1995. The outing is first-class, self-produced in Chicago's Streeterville Studios with some stellar backing musicians: former
Roomful of Blues guitarist
Duke Robillard, drummer
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, saxophonist
Houston Person, harmonica master
Sugar Blue and former
Albert Collins band bassist
Johnny B. Gayden.
Buddy Guy was so impressed by Get Down With the Blues that he hired
Tony Z to tour with him. In 1998,
Tony Z released his second record for Tone Cool,
Kiss My Blues. The record featured another all-star cast including
Cornell Dupree on guitar,
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie on drums again,
Chuck Rainey on bass,
Lenny Pickett on sax and
Kim Wilson blowing harp on two tracks. Since then he has toured with
Buddy Guy and on his own, continuing to spread his unique take on the B-3 sound. ~ Richard Skelly