Chico Rey - Press Release/Biography - 2005



The ascent of Chico Rey from a New York City street kid plucking a cheap bass guitar to one of the instrument's acknowledged masters tells more like fiction than fact. Raised in a foster home, he was completely disconnected from his ethnic Native American/Latino heritage and was musically shaped by a curious combination of rock-star icons, jazz giants, and several blues greats. The classic if not somewhat improbable grouping of influential bedfellows included Cream's Jack Bruce, Miles Davis and Charlie Mingus, and legendary blues musicians Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James to name a few. The impact of these and others can be heard in Rey's music to this day.

Rey launched his musical career rather tentatively, when at age ten he began to explore the guitar. But two years later he switched to bass, initially because no one else seemed interested in it, and then because it felt so right.

By seventeen, Rey was on his own in New York scratching out a living playing and learning at every opportunity. He had gotten through high school, but realized that College didn't hold any career paths that interested him. He landed his initial professional gig with folk singer Tom Rush. While the folk genre was not high on his to-do list, it was, as he says, "better than a day job. Anybody and anything was."

From that point, Rey's musical odyssey began to unfold. His reputation as someone who was very much more than a hardworking bass player was rapidly growing and he found himself in demand. Some of this had to do with his early influences beginning to pay off in that he was able to deliver virtuoso bass performances behind a wide variety of musical styles. It was this ability that brought him into the studio and on the road with a large number of artists, including Carlos Santana, Bette Midler, Jan Hammer, Anita Baker, Phyllis Hyman, Rick Springfield and many others.

Then, in 1998 he performed a major chord change, taking on producer responsibilities for local Los Angeles bands, including Chump Change, Shoney Wells, Angie Bowie, and the Argentine Rock Group, Mirage. However, while he enjoyed this hiatus, he became increasingly restless as the need to create his own music compellingly surfaced. So, in1999, Rey and guitarist Jon Nichols formed the Rey-Nichols Shovel Head Band, which resulted in the release of "Music From the Canyon" on Thump/Universal Records.






In 2002, Chico Rey began working on his first solo album, "From This Moment," which was finished in 2003.

In Chico's words, "I have had many ups and downs and I have been around. My present album is a written history of my musical influences and my life story. Being a husband and a father to a young 5 year old boy is a gift and a beautiful burden, which I have expressed in "From This Moment", the title track of the album. "Can't Let Go" is my lament to love, my wife and marriage which I believe most couples can relate to, how the thin line between love and insanity can be blurred, but in the end we hang on because letting go means giving up on one another and life itself. "Leave Me" is about an abusive relationship, giving the final ultimatum - Leave Me while you still can."

"From This Moment" is a musical and personal statement from Chico Rey. He has tried to fuse his love of blues ,jazz & rock, as, well as his respect for well constructed pop ballads. "I suppose I could have just played Bass for 48 minutes, but who would care ?"

"From This Moment" combines songwriting and a voice that needs to be heard. In a time when artists are trying to write their own material, take control of their own future and musical identity , Chico Rey wanted to make sure he included "Howlin' For My Darlin'" and "You're My Girl", "because of the musical journey I have made. I needed to pay my respect to the past, and artists that inspired me."

Simply said, Chico Rey gathered together an extraordinarily gifted group of musicians to make "From This Moment" - it offers nothing less than a huge, remarkably satisfying musical experience.