The performer who currently sits #1 in the "Play Crossroads" competition is a 13 year old....kid, I guess you'd have to say named Tallan Noble Latz. I wasn't familiar with his stuff, but his resume is impressive--and the list of musical/corporate sponsors who have glommed onto him is staggering.
Here's his complete bio, as per his Play Crossroads homepage:
Description: Tallan Noble Latz (aka: T-Man) is a 13-year-old AWARD-WINNING HIGH ENERGY rock/blues/pop guitarist/singer that seems predestined for the big stage. He has been playing music since the age of 3, picking up the guitar for the first time at 4 and finally getting serious about the guitar at age 5.
At age 5, Tallan was taking lessons 3 days a week, soaking up all the information he could about the guitar. The dedication of a 5 year old practicing 3 hours straight was unheard of to his guitar teachers. Tallan devoured everything they gave him and left him hungry for more. As his first guitar teacher said, “This is unbelievable that he can learn the lesson sitting here. His speed of learning never existed in any student I have ever had in my 25 years of teaching!”
Tallan began performing regularly with local bands when he was 6 years old. He quickly became a crowd favorite everywhere he performed. Everyone started talking about this young DYNAMIC guitar playing PHENOM who possesses an old musical soul; the way Tallan carries and conducts himself on stage is something that just has to be seen. As one reporter wrote, ¨When T-Man takes the stage; people stop what they're doing and collectively stare. People entering the room look up and stop as if their shoes were suddenly glued to the floor, not moving again until the song is over, when they reflexively break into wild shouts and applause. Everyone is saying the same thing ¨You gotta see this kid called T-Man!!!¨
The BUZZ was swirling around Tallan so much that the decision was made for Tallan (age 7) to start fronting his own band. The name of the band became T-Man’s Blues Project and then when Tallan was 8 years old the band named changed to The Tallan Noble Latz Band and it is still called that today.
The talk grew and expanded quickly. Tallan (age 8) was asked to do a cameo in the movie, “Wildfire, the Arabian Horse”! This experience gave Tallan the bug to want to explore movie roles more in the future.
In 2009, Tallan (age 9) collaborated with the AWARD WINNING musician named Louie Zagoras. Louie recognized immediately that Tallan had something and took him under his wing. With Louie’s guidance they quickly went into the studio to record 5 original songs: Journey Man, Slippin Away, Other World, Kid in the Region and a song for Tallan’s mom called 4U.
Tallan then started working harder to carve his place in the Wisconsin music scene and that caught the attention of the fans and the music industry. Together they voted Tallan (age 10) the WAMI's 2010 Rising Star of the Year Award Winner!
In 2011, Tallan (age 11) went back into the studio and collaborated with #1 BILLBOARD BLUES ARTIST, Anthony Gomes. Tallan and Anthony did their work at Sawhorse Studios in St. Louis, MO. The collaboration produced 2 songs, one was called Blues Child and the other rightfully named at the time, Blues @ 11. The songs relate to Tallan’s experiences of being so young and being on the road playing music in the adult world. With the addition of top studio musicians Joe Meyer, Preston Hubbard and David Grelle to lay down the groove, allowing Tallan to focus on his guitar and vocal tracks. The tracks were then sent off to WORLD-RENOWED MASTER MIXER Jim Gaines and he mastered the songs and gave us what we have today!
At age 12 Tallan became a sought after guitar clinician and guitar instructor. Tallan partnered with Dangerous Guitars and together they will be releasing Instructional videos and books designed to help the young guitar enthusiast advance quickly, learning the skills it requires to achieve future greatness.............
Tallan takes great pride in what he does and with his countless hours of practice and his experience of 500+ shows, together it helps him create that perfect musical storm! Tallan takes his music prowess and mixes it with his jaw dropping stage presence to create a MUSICAL EXPERIENCE that very few entertainers at any age can achieve!!
Tallan’s accomplishments over the last few years rival that of any professional musician of any age. Some of his accomplishments are:
Tallan has been featured on many TV Shows, such as: NBC's America's Got Talent, CBS' Rachael Ray TV Show, WGN’s Morning Show, Fox’s Morning Show, NBC's Today Show with Kathy Lee and Hoda, CBS’ Early Show, FOX News: Studio B with Shepard Smith, The Bonnie Hunt TV Show, CNN, Milwaukee’s Morning Blend, NBC's Today Show with Meredith Vieira, Chicago's WLS TV Morning Show, Madison’s Urban Theater and Almost Live with Johnny B TV Show are just a few on his impressive list. Tallan has been talked about on news broadcasts and radio programs all over the country and around the world; Tallan was even featured on the BBC segment. His story has appeared in every major newspaper in the country and even some worldwide papers. He was the feature story on Yahoo’s Homepage multiple times! Tallan has received over 25 million YouTube hits on his videos. Tallan also has appeared on TV shows around the world. While in Denmark on tour, Tallan actually appeared on all 3 national TV networks within a 1-week span, which is an unheard of accomplishment for any musician.
Tallan has had the privilege to share the stage side by side and trade licks with some of the greatest musicians around: Joe Bonamassa, Buddy Guy, Jonny Lang, Hubert Sumlin, Jackson Browne, Ian Moore, Derek St. Holmes, Van Wilks, Devon Allman, Bryan Lee, Anthony Gomes, Guitar Shorty, Michael Burks, Chris Duarte, Walter Trout, Greg Koch, Albert Cummings, Eric Gales, Wes Jeans, Lance Lopez, Eric Mantel, Louie Zagoras, Tommy Katona, Rob Hunt, Eric McFadden, Bugs Henderson, Pat MacDonald, Chris Aaron, Lonnie Brooks, Wayne Baker Brooks, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Jim Peterik & the Ides of March and JJ Grey & the Mofro to name just a few. Probably the GREATEST HONOR Tallan has had was the honor of sharing the stage with the LEGEND himself, Mr. Les Paul. At age 8, Tallan was the youngest person to have ever shared the stage with Mr. Paul.
Tallan has had the opportunity to play at some of the best venues in the country. Venues such as: Antoine’s (Austin, TX), Ground Zero Blues Club (Clarksdale, MS), Bradley Center (Milwaukee, WI), Kessler Theater (Oak Creek, TX), BB’s Blues Club (St. Louis, MO), Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar (Memphis, TN), The Brat Stop (Kenosha, WI), The Bone (Deep Ellum, TX), Keys Lounge (Ft. Worth, TX), Wild Horse Saloon (Nashville, TN), The Grove (Anaheim, CA), Sundance Saloon (Waukegan, IL), Strokers Bike Shop (Ft. Worth, TX), Pabst Theater (Milwaukee, WI), Alpine Valley (East Troy, WI), Turner Hall (Milwaukee, WI), Maggie Mae’s (Austin, TX), Legendary Tolbert’s (Grapevine, TX), House of Blues (Chicago, IL), Sons of Herman’s Hall (Dallas, TX), BB King's Blues Club (Memphis, TN), House of Blues (Dallas, TX), Cowboy's Dance Hall (Dallas, TX), Anaheim Convention Center (Anaheim, CA), Buddy Guy's Legends (Chicago, IL), Sprague Theater (Elkhorn, WI), Knuckleheads Saloon (Kansas City, MO), J & J Blues Club (Dallas, TX), Summerfest (Milwaukee, WI), Austin's Fuel Room (Libertyville, IL), BB King's in Times Square (NYC, NY), Raue Center for the Performing Arts (Crystal Lake, IL), Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI), The Harley Davidson Museum (Milwaukee, WI), Reno’s Chop Shop Saloon (Dallas, TX), Club 152 (Memphis, TN), Shank Hall (Milwaukee, WI), BB King’s Blues Club (Nashville, TN), BB King's Lucille’s in Times Square (NYC, NY), Brown Theatre (Houston, TX), Dogwood Center for the Performing Arts (Fremont, MI) and Amager Bio (Copenhagen, Denmark) are just a few from a long list of great venues.
Tallan has performed at many major festivals around the country. Here’s the........
.....short list: Ain’t Nuttin But the Blues Fest, Summerfest, Lil Bear Ribfest, Northwest Ohio Rib-Off, Urbana Blues Brews and BBQ Festival, Ozark Blues Fest, Blues Bandits and BBQ Festival, TX State Fair, Bloomin Days, Blues Café, Oak Creek Lion’s Fest, Great American Biker Rally, Round Lake Beach Fest, St. Fabien’s Festival, The PRS Experience, Dallas Guitar Show, Bamfest, Prairie Dog Blues Fest, Lakefront Art Fest, Steel Bridge Songfest, IL Blues Fest, Harley’s 105th Birthday Celebration, Paramount Blues Festival, WI State Fair, NAMM, Children of Fallen Riders Fest, Ruben’s Run, Westmont Blues Fest (Muddy Water's Blues Fest), Northbrook Days, WI Harley Rally, WI/IL Border Rally, Sun Prairie Blues Fest, Jimi Hendrix's 67th Birthday Bash in Times Square and CO-HEADLINED (multiple times) The Stevie Ray Vaughan Ride and Concert in Dallas, TX. These are a few of the festivals already on Tallan’s resume’ and some of these festivals Tallan has made multiple appearances at over the years!
Tallan has also traveled abroad to Denmark: While in Denmark, Tallan appeared on multiple TV shows and played at a number of different venues with the highlights being performances at the Odense Internationale Bluesdage and the Frederikshavn Blues Festival.
Tallan has endorsement deals with: Ultimate Ears, PRS Guitars, Shure Microphones, Mojo Hand FX, Amalfitano Pickups, Ultrasone Headphones, Munder Pedals, Mogami Cables, In-Tune Guitar Picks, Curt Mangan Strings, Morley Pedals, Effects Pedal Boutique, Soulful Impressions, LR Baggs, Diamond Finish, Seymour Duncan Pickups, N-Tune, Graph Tech, Peterson Tuners and King Kase Company. Tallan is the YOUNGEST musician that any of these companies have ever endorsed. That speaks volumes of what the industry thinks of his talent and potential.
2013 is poised to be an amazing year for Tallan, as he’s working on multiple projects. Tallan will be headed into the studio and then will be hitting the road in support of the CD release with a nation-wide and possible worldwide tour. Stay tuned for some very exciting news on this musical journey that Tallan will be bringing to his fans! See you all on the road! _______________________________________________________
Whew! He's got some impressive management. I'm fascinated by the marketing machine that gets behind young white men who play blues guitar. I haven't thought this through, but I think it may be one of the most striking musical phenomena of our time. Latz may be the equivalent, in his own way, to the great violin and piano prodigies of the past. (Do young violin and piano prodigies still exist?)
Here's a video with 15 million hits. "8-year old guitar prodigy stuns audiences." He's playing Freddie King's "Hideaway"
And here he is only one month ago: random club gig. 500 hits on the vid:
And here he is with his own band in November. It's probably fairer to judge his current performances on the basis of this vid. He's quite a rock-blues shredder:
I saw him open for David Lindley a couple of years ago in a Dallas Theater. He played an acoustic set, which I think may have been at DL's insistence. Or maybe it was professional courtesy or maybe he was trying to diversify.
He was good, but not so good that I got the feeling I was in the presence of a prodigy. It may have been my own cynicism, but I felt like I was in the presence of a marketing phenomenon. I felt kind of like I was an accomplice in a skateboard theft.
I tend to agree with your impressions. Cute kids w/talent are a slippery slope. Lotsa times it comes so easy to them that they get pulled in the marketing and ego driven direction.
That last video of his shredding and jumping up and down turned me off. Once again, the talent is there, but not prodigy talent.
Have seen videos of kids his age (from overseas or latin america) playing jazz guitar that were letting their music speak for them - not stage antics and/or in your face speed chops. This is the talent that gets me excited.
Too bad the bulk of the population is so easily impressed with flash w/out substance and make judgements based on the first 30 seconds. ---------- The Iceman
He's good...I'm not knocking the kid, but there are a bunch of young "heirs to the SRV throne" these days. Austin Young, etc. I dunno, maybe I'm an old hardened Blues curmudgeon, but the young and cute thing only goes so far.
Obviously a talented young man, from. the SRV mold. There are lots of youngsters like this across the globe, always have and always will. Some have success like Jonny Lang and others do other things. His song entries sound over produced, like the music is the vision of someone else (the producer's!) and not the kid. I am sure he has a voice, it just doesn't shine through.
I too am impressed by the marketing muscle behind this kid. But then again I am always amazed how some well conceived marketing concepts can turn an ordinary artist into the next be thing. And it isn't mutually exclusive to young white men who play blues guitar.
Speaking of marketing, I applaud your particular change of marketing for your entry. First you were a gate crashing harp player thumping out a manic version of Crossroads. The next day you're a band featuring a red hot guitar player from the streets of Harlem name Satan who should grace the greatest stage in the city, if not the world. This is well suited to the greatest guitar festival in the world. Mr. Satan is our ticket to the big stage.
hey you gotta give him some credit.. he has obviously worked hard to get his chops where they are.. when he does sky is crying he credits elmore james and albert king before SRV... guess we will see what the future brings for him, he will be around for a while
contrast the amount of work he has put in to his craft to the guy on the other youtube who has all the hits at the level he plays the harmonica... the bar is a hell of a lot higher for a young guitar player than it is for a young harp player! of course this kid is further into a professional career too
I certainly give him some credit--and yes, he's put in a lot more work into the instrument than some other folks who can't play much harp but get a million hits. I see Latz as both a curious phenomenon, representative of our time, and somewhat of a victim of the adult world that knows it can make money off him. He's just a kid who started playing very young and really likes music. Nothing wrong with that: there have always been child prodigies in music, and they've always, as a group, received adult encouragement. What's changed in our own time are the stakes and the media: very big money and the internet. Too, there's a specific fascination that the spectacle of a conspicuously pre-adolesecent white boy playing the blues (guitar, but occasionally harp) has for white folks these days that strikes me as new. I'm not sure what it's about, but it has no contemporary parallel in black America.
Stevie Wonder, 50+ years ago, is the exception that proves the rule. Micheal Jackson in his Jackson 5 days is arguably a second exception. But that's 40-50 years ago, not today. Today it's about white boys--and I mean boys--who play guitar. What's missing from the whole thing is all the life experience and seasoning, not to mention vocal training, that go into really learning how to play and sing the music.
The words "virgin" and "bluesman" didn't used to go together. Now they do. That's weird.
I used the phrase "a virgin bluesman" when I wrote a magazine article about, among other things, Brody Buster many years ago, and his mother wrote an angry letter to the magazine. That's a new one, too: mothers of famous young bluesmen defending their sons by writing angry letters to magazines. It wasn't a nice thing of me to do, even if it was true, and if I were Brody Buster's parent, I probably would have written an angry letter, too. But I also would have taken my kid aside and said "Look: do you want to live the life? Do you want to understand what this music is REALLY about? Congratulations: your heart now feels what it is supposed to feel. Gussow is the best thing that could have happened to you. Now quit whining and play the best damn blues you can."
OT, but have you heard any Brody Buster lately? he plays guitar now. What he's doing now is basically jam band stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r24jEQoQxRE
The Brody Buster Band is a blues/rock based band out of Lawrence, Kansas. Brody Buster is a former Child prodigy who was featured on countless television shows including the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Brody was also a regular performer at B.B.King’s Blues club and performed with BB himself several times. BB King was quoted saying, ” Despite his age Brody Buster is one of the greatest harmonica players of our time.” Brody has also performed with Quincy Jones, James Cotton,Keb Mo, Chaka Khan, Robert Downey Jr and Richie Haven, just to name a few. Brody Buster now 27 formed the Brody Buster Band in 2009 and released the album “Will Die Young” in 2011. The Three piece Band has been constantly performing shows and writing new material for the last three years.Along the way they have gotten to open up for such acts as BB. King, Robert Randolf and the Family Band, Taj Mahal, Split Lip Rayfield, Sugar Blue, Cedric Burnside and Jimmy Thakery. Brody and the band have also performed at countless festivals, bars, juke joints, city events and blues clubs all over the Midwest. The Band is currently performing around 150 shows per year and working on the next album. They also hope to see you at an upcoming show. The Brody Buster Band Consists of Brody Buster, Guitar/ Harmonica/ Vocals other projects include Dead Man Flats and 1950 D.A. Chris Handley, Bass Guitar other projects include Dojo. Matt Davis, Drums other projects include Super Massive Black Holes and MGD’s. The band recently added a second Guitar player Jimmy Lacy.
ah yes, Brody Buster... the cute little kid that plays harmonica. Always wondered how he would turn out when he stopped being cute and little.
Another example of the cute kid syndrome I mentioned above. He never developed any depth - just rode the cute kid wave. Now he sounds like "dime a dozen" other young players.
The one really talented kid - Sunny Girl - got out of music because her "stage dad" was pushing and pushing her to be another "cute blues kid". Having taught her for 6 solid years (till I moved away from Detroit), I'm here to tell you that she is the real deal - talent that runs deep. She made the right decision to tell her dad that she was through before he turned her into one of the above kids....
Colleen (Sunny Girl) is a totally well rounded musician that could play blues as a sub category of music. We worked on her vocals, stage presence, fearlessness and other styles of music including jazz. Her ability to improvise is amazing.
She tells me that enough time has passed and she is feeling drawn towards music again, but only on her own terms. I look forward to working with her again. ---------- The Iceman
I think the same reason you don’t see young black prodigy guitar players is basically the same reason you don’t see a lot black blues acts...it’s not currently the preferred genre of music. You do see and have seen a lot young Hip Hop stars.
Young guitar shredding sensations are nothing new…there have been many of these flash in pan stars and very few, as is to be expected, actually grow into mature well rounded players.
Think about the influences, who generally sits around their house playing guitar and going to blues jams… white guys, dads and most importantly big brothers…thus you see a lot young white guitar players.
Who is generally walking around the house quoting rap and soul lyrics and laying down vocal beats…black guys, dads and most importantly big brothers…thus you see a lot of young hip hop and rap artists.
>I think the same reason you don’t see young black prodigy guitar players is basically the same reason you don’t see a lot black blues acts...it’s not currently the preferred genre of music. You do see and have seen a lot young Hip Hop stars.<
Seems like there's definitely more young white kids playing blues...but it depends on where you are. I've seen a few young black kids from around Memphis & Clarksdale, MS who are pretty hot guitar players. (heirs to the Hendrix throne). and then there's Homemade Jams Blues Band.
