The Planets is
the brainchild of two legendary Colorado musicians and songwriters,
Ted Mentry and Helen Allison Hawkins.
In 2001, shortly after Mentry released his third personal full
length solo album, Hawkins contacted him to play some dates as
lead guitarist for her own group, The Allison Hawkins Band, for
which she was the lead singer and driving force. After a year of
playing an exhausting schedule of Colorado clubs, bars, parties
and concerts, Mentry and Hawkins formed another musical ensemble
that could either play the club circuit doing cover tunes honoring
the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, Allanah Miles, Clapton,
Wilson Pickett, James Brown and others, or, more importantly, an
entire show based on original work already proven by Mentry’s
skills as an artist, writer and producer and new works collaborated
with Hawkins.
The result is The Planets,
a six (sometimes seven or eight) piece outfit that completed its’ first
original, full length CD in July of 2006, entitled:
It Is What It Is.
The album is a brilliant collection of rock, blues,
ballads and movements that typify all of the melodic strengths
of the genre with the backbeat of a band that has proven itself
in each of the arenas that it has explored. It has already been
described as “Annie
Lennox meets Pink Floyd with Dire Straits as the backup band.” Available
online and in stores July 4th, 2006.
Some of the musicians who lent their creative talents to this project
were Rebecca Folsom, Mark Oblinger (Firefall), Darren and Dawn Kramer
(DKO), Ed Edwards, Chuck Smith and Bill Miner (Cactus Jack).
The touring band features Ted Mentry on lead guitar,
Allison Hawkins on lead vocals and Colorado’s finest veteran
backing musicians, Larry Dews on bass, Ron Knight on drums, and
Mark Strivings on sax and keyboards.
