11. September 2013 By Walter Price 0

Ah, Damn Yankees Shaw Styx!

Tommy Shaw

Today The GTC would lie to wish, guitarists & songwriter extraordinaire, Tommy Roland Shaw a very Happy 60th Year of life!

There is a lot we could say about your efforts to save Styx from going all ‘pop-goes-our-band’ in the 80s and maybe a few things about Shaw Blades (w/ Jack Blades – Night Ranger/Damn Yankees).

But we’d like to thank you, on this day of your birth, for the good-time supergroup, Damn Yankees. A band, for some long lost reason, I just didn’t want to like. 

But is was hard to ignore the power of the rock you, Michael Cartellone , Ted Nugent and Jack Blades put out. Tracks like “Bad Reputation”, “High Enough”, “Come Again” and “Coming Of Age” were enough to change my alt-rock leaning brain. I agree with me when I say Damn Yankees wasn’t near as good as your solo work, but DY was a darn good party in my ears.

So, thanks Mr. Shaw for the all the rock over the past, near, 40 years!

Enough of that, let’s hear something from you…

“I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I’ve got a real nice house, I go crazy when I’m there.” – Tommy Shaw

“By the time I did that third solo album, I’d finally learned how to do it, but I’d also learned that I liked being in a band.” – Tommy Shaw

“I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.” – Tommy Shaw

“If music became extinct now, I don’t know what I’d be good for.” – Tommy Shaw
Also Born Today: Charles Kelly – Lady Antebellum (1981), Richard Ashcroft (1971), Jonny Buckland – Coldplay (1977), Ludacris (1977) & Harry Connick Jr. (1967)