Alan Thomas / Island

Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Allan Thomas started his professional music career in his native New York City at age eighteen in 1966 when he signed his first record deal, releasing two singles on Scepter Records. After Thomas' first album, "A Picture," was released by Sire Records in 1971, he moved to the Hawaiian Islands in 1983. Thomas continued to record demos without record deal there by late 1980’s. Thomas flew to Los Angeles with the idea of new songs and started to record four songs with Stephen Barncard, who produced and engineered Thomas’ demos of 1980 - 1982. Michael Ruff was the first choice as keyboard player for both Thomas and Barncard, so asked him to record with them. The result was that Michael Ruff took a major part of the record, providing head arrangements. And it should be noted that Thomas could have Valerie Carter to sing harmony on the chorus of a song “No Win Situation”. Despite that the album recording sessions were finished in Los Angeles and went back to Hawaii, Thomas and his producer could not get a label deal, hence they started their own Black Bamboo Recordings and finally the album “Island” was released in 1990. According to Allan Thomas, the “Island” CD has been sold about seven thousand copies and to this day people still buy it from the artist on-line. Personally I came across the CD in the summer of 1997.

Release: 1989
Label: Black Bamboo Records, USA (BBCD-210)

Tracks:
1. Hold On Tightly
2. Our Little Secret
3. Across Blue Water
4. WindRider
5. The Island
6. No Win Situation
7. Yes or No
8. In My Automobile
9. Love or Something Like it
10. Kindred Spirits

Producer: Stephen Barncard

Allan Thomas: Vocals, Guitar

- Musicians -
Guitars: Brian Kessler, Zeke Zirngiebel
Slide Guitar: Zeke Zirngiebel
Bass: Cliff Hugo
Drums: Rick Schlosser
Keyboards: Michael Ruff, Russel Ferrante
Electronic Wind Instrument: Judd Miller
Background Vocals: Michael Ruff, Leslie Smith, Joe Turano, Nancy Shanks, Valerie Carter

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