- March 2007,Tony Balbinot
I was sitting on a sway back bed in another run down motel changing strings on my Firebird, preparing for the next gig somewhere out there on the road. The TV was on a local station and a very amateur reporter was interviewing bikers at some sort of motorcycle charity run. I wasn't paying that much attention, other than to occasionally smirk at the bumbling, fumbling interview techniques of another wannabe reporter. He asked the same questions of every rider; What's your name? Where ya from? What kind of bike do you ride? The guys would answer stiffly, usually looking in the wrong place for the camera. You know, we've all seen it. Anyway, I was just about done with the guitar when I heard a voice and a name from the TV that I hadn't heard in over 20 years. "Kenny Williams" he said. I shot my eyes up instantly at the flickering image on the dirty screen TV of the man who helped me, inspired me,
and launched me on my own musical journey. There he was... Kenny! Well sort of...

Kenny Williams was the first guy I ever talked to that was in a Rock and Roll band. He was tall, thin and gangly like me and played one mean guitar. Sort of a cross between Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry, I once saw him switch guitars in the middle of a song without missing a beat. This trick was just one of many he would pull off on the small stages around town where I would watch him burn. Always in a black cowboy shirt and boots with tight faded jeans, his guitar slung low, he was the coolest image of a Rocker I had ever seen in the flesh, loud, rowdy and reckless. But this was not the guy I was staring at in disbelief on the smoke stained tube in my should be condemned motel room. No, the man on the screen had a bloated face and stomach, a lousy beard and wore the corny: "I'm a biker" outfit that so many weekend wild ones are into these days . "I ride a Road King" he said as he looked straight into the camera like any veteran musician would do. He was looking right at me...Ah Kenny what happened to you? He looked tired and beaten down, with those hollow eyes that I've seen so many times before in the wounded and maimed from our ranks. "I work for Geico" was the answer
to the interviewers "What do you do?" More accurately would have been, "What have you become?"

Ten minutes ago I was feeling sort of sorry for myself because after some eighteen years into my career I'm still in ratty dumps like this, just making it each night on the shitty pay I may have to wrestle the club owner for. Yea, that was ten minutes ago but now I'm staring at my fallen mentor, I feel like crying, I feel anger and I'm confused. What happened to you man? Where's the Cat who could get the hair on the back of everyone's neck doing a dance? Where’s the fire? Where's your guitar? Where's that man? I got up real close to the TV and painfully looked hard at this thing he had become. It was like looking into a burned out gutted building searching for something personal and precious and finding nothing.

It was time to go. I slid the Firebird into it's bag checked the beat up lock on room 112 and fired up my truck. So long Kenny Williams, I'd sure like to talk to you but I've got a date with another smoky bar.


-Ventura County Star, Ventura 23rd October, 2003 -- Bill Locey
Guitars, Cadillacs, etc....
Tony Balbinot, that sad "Illinois Boy," will be fronting his band, the Cadillac Angels, at its CD release party Friday night at Wine Lovers in Ventura.
One would think he might be happy, what with this party and all, but there's that whole latest Cubs downer to get over. But he may crack a smile at point. Named after a car few of us can afford, Cadillac Angels is rolling out its 10th album, "Illinois Boy" -- making it one the most prolific and also one of the hardest-working bands in the 805 area code -- though it's seldom around to play locally. Still right in the middle of that endless road trip, the Angels has already played in about every state.

As usual, Balbinot -- whose stage name is Tony Ridge -- will be ably supported by longtime bass player Micky Rae, who is going to step down at the end of the year; she's put in her 20 years in the band. Every time this band plays Wine Lovers, Bartender Darrell and Barmaid Nicolette end up working extra hard in order to keep the thirsty packed house happy. But unlike the customers, Balbinot does not love wine or any sort of silly sauce at all, making him one of the funniest sober people around despite his temporary baseball trauma.

Meanwhile, Balbinot was tested with a little word-association exercise, which went a long way toward being funny. OK Tony, we're going to try something different this time. I'll say a word or two and you say whatever comes to mind. It could be a single word or a sentence or two, whatever. Ready? ...

"Music." Electric guitars.
"American music." I'd say everyone from Hank Williams to the Blasters.
"Your music." A mixture of everything from Hank Williams to the Blasters.
"Guitars." Actually, I like guitars more than I like women.
"Link Wray." My favorite guitarist, hands down.
"Albert Lee." My favorite country guitar player, hands down.
"Bass players." It's hard to find a good one. Micky Rae is here until the end of the year.
It's hard to find one that understands rock 'n' roll. Julie Jeeter is going to take her place.
"Buddy Holly." One of the world's injustices. He's dead and lesser people are still alive.
"Wine Lovers." My favorite place to play in Ventura.
"Santa Barbara." A nice place to live but I'm glad I wasn't born here.
"Illinois." I'm glad I was born there. I'm glad I don't live there.
"Arizona." My favorite state in the Union to play in.
"The Dakotas." Haven't been there yet. My friends warn me that my music won't go over too well with any people that don't have any front teeth.
"Florida." Played with Dick Dale there and had a blast.
"Texas." I don't know why Davy Crockett gave his life at the Alamo for Texas. They should've let Santa Anna have it; what were they fighting over down there?
"Tennessee." Home of Carl Perkins.
"Record deal." We don't need no stinkin' record company.
"Do-it-yourself." Yeah, everything except maybe brain surgery.
"Ten albums?" Yeah. I'm the songwriter that won't go away.
"Songwriting." Personal experience. It takes a while to figure out your own style. Just keep
writing. You'll have a lot of junk but just keep doing it and it'll kinda sneak up on you.
"Love songs." Don't really care for them unless they have a rock 'n' roll beat. I'm not really interested in what happens to people in their whiny little lives.
"Car songs." We had a bunch of cool ones there for awhile, then they kind of just
disappeared; maybe that's because "Hot Rod Lincoln" still sounds so cool and "Hot Rod Isuzu" doesn't.
"Cadillacs." Rich people buy 'em and poor people end up driving 'em.
"That long drive home." That's the only time I ever drink coffee. I've fallen asleep at the wheel 10 or 15 times. The last time I almost hit a cop and that straightened me out.
"Dancers." I love dancers of all styles. I don't care if they're jumping up and down or
just tapping their feet because tapping your foot is dancing. I think people should dance every day. I makes me feel good when people dance.
"Drunks." I don't mind drunks so long as they don't fall on me when I'm performing.
"Club owners." Contrary to popular belief, there are some good ones.
"Bartenders." I get along great with bartenders but I'm kinda jealous that they make more money than me.
"Roadies." Wish I had one. Don't know what it'd be like to have one; must be nice.
"Work." If you love what you do, you don't think of it as work.
"Music lessons." I have this one little kid who takes guitar lessons from me. He told me he was
going to be a lesbian for Halloween. When I was in fourth grade, I thought a lesbian meant you were from Lebanon.
"Illinois Boy." Micky Rae's not singing on this one, so it's sort of my stepping out debut
album, and there's harmonica; never had that before. I think it's a little bluesier, too.
"Those Cubs." I'm still (upset) about them. I thought, "Wow, here I am from Illinois; the
album is called 'Illinois Boy' and the Cubs are going to the World Series." I hope my record does better than the Cubs did.


VC Reporter 17th August, 2006 - Matthew Singer
Rock’n’roll mechanic: Tony Balbinot of Cadillac Angels looks under the hood of American roots music
Tony Balbinot is pulling off a pretty good ruse. Not that he is any way fake or something other than what he proclaims himself to be — the guy is as real as the dirt on his boots and the grease in his hair. But not everything about him is exactly as it seems. For example, he has been playing guitar for only 20 years. That is a hearty chunk of time, yes, but on record, with his band the Cadillac Angels, he sounds as if he came out the womb chopping a Gretsch. And while his albums, steeped in the blues, surf, classic country and rough-hewn rockabilly, would appear to be the result of decades spent meticulously dissecting the history of rock ’n’ roll, it hasn’t been until recently that Balbinot learned to hear with an artist’s ear for detail.

Although he was raised on a steady diet of Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Slim Harpo, the Illinois native says he is just beginning to fully understand the inner workings of the music he built his career from.
“The first time around, I listened to it and loved it. The second time around, I’m listening to it and I’m in awe of it,” explains Balbinot, who moved to Santa Barbara as a teenager, a few hours before a set at the Deer Lodge in Ojai. “I’m hearing things as a songwriter and musician I didn’t hear as a lover of the music. It’s like the difference between a person who looks at a Corvette and a mechanic lifting the hood. I’m lifting the hood now, basically.”

That Balbinot can exude such authenticity is a testament to his genuine reverence for the architects of American music. He is not dragging old forms out of the ground and dressing their corpses in retro-kitsch clothing, nor is he desperately trying to mold them into a modern context. He is paying homage to the past in a way that isn’t forced or disingenuous. It is that authenticity that has earned him friendships with the late Carl Perkins and Link Wray, a partnership with Wanda Jackson, an international cult following, and the respect of one of the most acute students of mid-century Americana.
“I was doing a show at Pappy & Harriet’s near Twentynine Palms,” Balbinot recalls, “and Robert Plant has a house up there. His manager came to the show. I didn’t know he was there. My manager came up afterward and said, ‘Robert really wants to talk to you.’ He put his hand out and said, ‘Fucking brilliant.’ I said, ‘Coming from you, that’s a hell of a compliment.’”

He meant that last part, but, truth be told, Balbinot is not really a big Led Zeppelin fan — he’s more into the Honeydrippers, Plant’s one-off trad-R&B project. Growing up, as today, Balbinot felt disconnected from the contemporary pop world. He didn’t understand Jimi Hendrix and the psychedelic movement, and he couldn’t even comprehend disco; he had been “brainwashed” at an early age by the likes of Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry and Patsy Cline.
“My mom was a huge fan of early rock ‘n’ roll,” he says. “We had a record player, and whether we had a TV or a stove, we always had a record player. The TV might not work, the hotplate might not work, but the record player always worked.”
His mother worked out a deal with a local bar owner where she would get the records from his jukebox after they became too worn out for public display; Balbinot would open the front door every few weeks and find a box of 45s sitting on the porch. But his addiction to the guitar originated from a different source: the galloping riff to the Bonanza theme song.

Living close to the poverty line, his parents couldn’t afford to get him a guitar of his own. Once he was able to buy one himself, he immediately formed the first incarnation of the Cadillac Angels with a bassist and drummer from his city league softball team. He didn’t take it all that seriously — until he met rockabilly legend Ronnie Dawson. Balbinot had booked Dawson to perform at a benefit concert, and afterward the two drove to the Angels’ practice space and chatted in Balbinot’s van.
“My drummer was coming out of the rehearsal studio,” he recalls, “and [Dawson] pointed to the drummer and said, ‘That guy ain’t gonna make it. Look at the nice car he drives. Look at the way he dresses. You can’t start out with those things and be a musician. Now look at you. Look at this old van. Look at the way you are. You can do it.’ ”

With the Blonde Bomber’s certification to inspire him, Balbinot ditched his aspirations of becoming a professional furniture maker and took the Angels out on the highway. Midway through their first tour, the first half of Dawson’s prophecy came true: the drummer quit.

Since then, Balbinot has barely left the road; he estimates he’s taken a total of three weeks off since the mid-’80s. In that span of time, he’s somehow managed to generate 13 records, all independently released, with his latest, Men Don’t Disco (a stab at his oldest musical enemy), dropping this month. It’s a calmer, more refined effort than the buzzing, blistering explosions that characterize most of his discography, but the themes are much the same: love, and lack of it.
“I’m big fan of keeping my mouth shut at restaurants and bars and listening to other people,” he says. “There’s a lot of heartache in world, a lot of loneliness in world. Too bad it’s easier to get shot than to fall in love.”

For Balbinot, what truly makes this album a watermark is that, after twenty years of honoring the ghosts of the past, he feels he is finally discovering how his own voice fits into that lineage. It may have taken him a while to do so, but a good mechanic never stops working — and a great one never stops learning.

“When I started writing, I wanted to be part of something. I wanted to be part of the rockabilly scene; I wanted to be accepted. At first, you try to replicate the sounds of people you admire. As you keep making records, more and more of you starts creeping in until one day you make a record and say, ‘Hey I can hear the influences, but I’m not thinking, “Will roots rock people like this?”’ In a nutshell, I wrote the songs and didn’t think if it would be something that sounded like Cadillac Angels would do. I’m finally getting there.”