Cold Blood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lydia Pense and Cold Blood
Origin	Oakland, California
Genre(s)	Rock, Urban contemporary, Blue-eyed soul
Years active	1969–present
Label(s)	Reprise (1972); Warner Bros. Records (1974); ABC (1976); Dig Music (2005)

Cold Blood is a long-standing soul-rock-jazz band founded by Larry Field in 1968 and originally based in the San Francisco East Bay area. They have also gone by the name Lydia Pense and Cold Blood due to the popularity of their lead singer, Lydia Pense.

The band first came to prominence in 1969 when rock impresario Bill Graham signed them after an audition and they played the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Pense has been compared to Janis Joplin, and it was Joplin who recommended the audition to Graham.

The band has often been compared to another long-standing popular Northern California group, Tower of Power, and like Tower of Power they were rare in that they featured a horn section in addition to guitar, bass and drums. The Tower of Power horn players have performed with Cold Blood on a regular basis since the early 1970s. Skip Mesquite and Mic Gillette have been members of both Tower Of Power and Cold Blood.Their fan base also overlaps with the Sons of Champlin, although their musical styles are quite different.

Their initial four albums, Cold Blood, Sisyphus, First Taste of Sin (produced by Donny Hathaway), and Thriller remain their best known work. The band disbanded in the late 1970s, reformed in the 1980s and stabilized with its current membership in the 1990s. Cold Blood continues to record and perform today, and some former band members such as Raul Matute (and some from Tower of Power) appear on its most recent album.

Original band members were founder Larry Field (lead guitar), Lydia Pense (vocals), Danny Hull (tenor saxophone and songwriter), Larry Jonutz (trumpet), Raul Matute (Hammond organ, piano, arranger and songwriter), Jerry Jonutz (Baritone, alto and tenor saxophone), David Padron (trumpet), Rod Ellicott (bass), and Frank Davis (drums).

Over the years there have been various incarnations of the band with some great players including singer/horn player Max Haskett, Tower Of Power horn player Mic Gillette, Journey keyboardist Stevie Roseman on Hammond B-3 organ, Sons Of Champlain drummer Jim Preston, guitar player Michael Sasaki, Tower Of Power guitarist Jeff Tamelier, Boz Scaggs horn player Tom Poole, Elvin Bishop sax player Bill Slais, bass player Michael White & others.

Current personnel are Lydia Pense (vocals), Steve Salinas (keyboards), Steve Dunne (guitar), Mike Morgan (percussion), Evan Palmerston (bass), Rich Armstrong (trumpet, percussion), Rob Zuckerman (alto, tenor, baritone saxes) and Donny Baldwin (drums).