It’s funny how seemingly random
occurrences can shape our lives. Two days after my sixth birthday, The Beatles
appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for
the first time. It was probably then that I decided being in a rock band might
be pretty cool. Unfortunately, I didn’t
have a guitar or drums, and I was only six years old. However, a couple of years later, I inherited
an upright piano from a great aunt. I started playing the piano and also played
saxophone for a few years in grade school. What I really wanted was to learn
how to play rock and roll and the songs I heard on the radio. One day, when I
was about eleven, in the music store where I took piano lessons, I saw a book, 50 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Oh baby!
Finally! It probably cost just a few dollars, but it is one of the most
valuable things I’ve ever owned. I still
have it and I still play songs from it. By the time I was in seventh and eighth
grade I was playing in kid bands with some of my buddies. By the time I got to high school I was
playing semi-professionally and have never stopped.
My name is Tom Fetter and I am a
keyboard player and vocalist, living in Tucson, AZ. Over the years I’ve played
hundreds of gigs at night clubs, casinos, private parties, street fairs,
festivals and concert halls. I picked up some of my musical style by listening
to piano players such as Leon Russell, Ray Charles, Doctor John, Mose Allison,
Bill Payne and Ian McLagen. I can play a
wide range of musical genres including rock, reggae, funk, latin, soul, rhythm
and blues, world beat and country, but my best stuff is probably classic rock
rooted in the blues with a little touch of jazz and some elements of folk music
thrown in. My earliest influences were songwriter/musicians such as The
Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, Joni
Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Little Feat, Warren Zevon and dozens,
if not hundreds, of other artists. My main instruments are piano, organ and
synthesizers, but I also play some guitar, harmonica and percussion
instruments.
I currently play keyboards with The
AmoSphere!, regular R&B and funk fixtures at various bars and
roadhouses in Tucson and Southern Arizona. The AmoSphere! was nominated for a 2012
TAMMY Award and has opened for Ivan Neville’s Dumpstafunk. My longest
running project at present is The Usual Suspects, playing blues
and classic rock. Over the past four decades I have played in dozens of bands and
was a member of the world beat ensemble Pulse for 12 years, including a one
year Sunday night residency at the Chicago Bar. Along the way Pulse
opened for King Sunny Ade, Kanda Bongo Man and Queen Ida, to name a few, and
were ongoing Downtown Saturday Night favorites. Pulse garnered a few
TAMMY nominations over the years as well. I was featured on the 1996
Pulse CD “Calling All World Citizens” and the 2000 live CD titled “In
The Raw”. I was also a long time member of the country western group The
Blue Prairie Dogs, releasing a CD in 2002 titled “True To Our Nature”. I
have worked briefly with Steel Ribbon, Statesboro, Rockers Uptown,
Black Cat Bones and Cross Cut Saw. Some of the
performances I have given have been at The Rialto Theater, Club Congress,
Centennial Hall, the Tucson Blues Festival, Nam Jam and the 4th
Avenue Street Fair. In 2016 I began working with The Juke Box Junqies. Besides
playing in bands, I also sometimes preform solo, just vocals and
piano, or as a duo with my good friend Oscar Fuentes on guitar and vocals, presenting
something that is much more personal and intimate. I recently recorded and
released a CD of my original music, “I Almost Forgot To Tell You”. It includes ten songs and features some of my very
good friends, from various bands, whom I have worked with over the years.
Tom Fetter keyboards and vocals
tom.fetter@yahoo.com www.tomfetter.com
