Angelo Palladino & The Street Hawks

Angelo was born and raised in the Whitechapel district of East London in 1949 to an ebullient East End mother and a P.O.W. Italian father. His family was forced to live in the Jewish quarter of the East End because of racial threats and bigotry against his father. “My dad learned how to speak Yiddish in about a week, then he taught me how to speak it rather than Italian, because it was safer”, Angelo says, “which is why I can still speak Yiddish today.” As Angelo got older, Blues music became his calling. “When I heard the blues, it became a constant tapping on my shoulder, a constant shadow that I moved through.” His early musical experiences were influenced by performers such as Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly. Angelo has a special affection for Elvis Presley, and remembers the the King “turned a black and white musical world into Technicolour”. Later he was influenced by the guitar talents of players like Micky Green from The Pirates and Steve Cropper (from Booker T and the MGs). Angelo’s tastes in music extend to many of the greats on the Blues, Rock and Roll, Jazz and Contemporary stages, as well as the talents of the Roots musicians who gave inspiration to many of the great writers and performers of today. Angelo’s career as a musician has taken many roads. He spent his formative playing years in South Wales either leading or being part of various musical ventures that led to limited local recognition. These experiences in South Wales, and also for a time in the South West of England, cemented in Angelo’s mind that music would be his calling and what he would do for the rest of his life. He gained confidence in his both his songwriting and guitar-playing abilities and he realised that musicians like the aforementioned Buddy Holly and Bob Dylan wrote, and were actually writing their own music and lyrics. This revelation inspired Angelo to produce and perform his own songs which he has done to this day. However, the death of Angelo’s father in 1975, when he was 25 years old, was a turning point for him. He returned to London in 1976 and stopped playing guitar for about two years and took various jobs as a dockworker and a roof asphalter. But in 1978 he felt the yearning to play again. He bought new equipment and soon formed the Angelo Palladino Band which played the era’s legendary venues The Bridgehouse, Dingwalls, The Speakeasy and a memorable appearance at The Hope & Anchor opening for Eddie & The Hot Rods. Along the way the band gained rave reviews from such music papers as the NME and Meloday Maker. Around this time Angelo met his future wife, Alice. She was singing with Jerry Richardson of Last Exit, whom Sting was also a member of at one time. After marrying Alice they moved south of the Thames to Brockley in SE London. Angelo and Alice started playing with a band called Get Out Of Jail Free. They played a range of New Orleans-style jazz including much of Fats Waller’s work. Angelo & Alice eventually split from that band to form their own group called Barflies. They played all their own original material, along with cover tunes, that were sometimes drastically rearranged to fit the both the band’s playing style and Angelo’s musical vision at the time. Barflies played, at least to begin with, rough areas of South London like Deptford and New Cross. Deptford, in particular, had a thriving independent music scene that spawned bands like Squeeze and Dire Straits. In fact, Barflies played many of the same venues that those bands had played including the Duke pub in Creek Road. But it was Barflies’ once-a-month residency at the Royal Albert in New Cross that cemented their reputation as one of London’s best pub bands of the era with their electrifying performances attracting attention from fans and music industry luminaries alike. But, after five years of constant touring around the UK and Europe, and also such recordings as the long since lost “There’s A Fire” 45, the cassette-only album “Down to the Bone,” and the recently rediscovered “Live at the Marquee” 12 inch single, Angelo decided to change musical direction and split the band up. After relocating to the small West Yorkshire town of Rawdon in 1989 the band that was to give Angelo his biggest audience to date was born. The Palladinos, managed by Miles Copeland and signed to Sting’s Pangaea record label, released their debut album “Travelling Dark” in 1994. More acoustic than his previous ventures, The Palladinos toured with Sting around the UK, Europe and the US, including concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York’s Madison Square Garden. The album did well on both sides of the Atlantic, helped in the most part by the song “(I Won’t Be) Going South For Awhile” that was included on the soundtrack to the Nicholas Cage movie “Leaving Las Vegas.” During this period he also supported Squeeze at various dates around the UK and Europe. The band’s reputation soon spread and they went from strength to strength. The band also played shows alongside Jools Holland, Sheryl Crowe, the Chieftans, and Steeleye Span. Angelo also began writing songs with such different musical talents as Carole King, Ted Nugent and the Bangles. After a few years deep involvement on the music industry treadmill, Angelo had had enough and decided to call time on The Palladinos to continue writing and recording as a solo artist. In 2004 he reemerged with a new album called “Blood, Blues & Bad Dreams.” After the layered, some would say over-produced nature of “Travelling Dark,” this nine track album was as raw as it got. Produced by former New Model Army drummer Robert Heaton, it was the most representative recording of Angelo’s playing and writing style up to that point. A lyrically dark and musically stark journey, “Blood, Blues & Bad Dreams”is a collection of stories set to music based on characters that live in shadows, but are constantly pursued by ghosts from their past or their imagination. Angelo, at the time, remarked that the songs could also be construed as being about the life of Robert Johnson - albeit loosely - and he dedicated the album to the King Of The Delta Blues singer. The album also gained gained a great deal of positive attention from the music press, especially Stateside. Rolling Stone gave it a 3 1/2-star review commenting that Angelo “can sure mine beauty out of gloom.” Blues Review’s Hal Horowitz called the album “striking” and a “sonically and psychologically memorable listening experience.” Reviews by Alabama’s Birmingham Weekly and Hartford Courant, based in Connecticut, also weighed in with positive takes. Angelo now re-emurges with his new band Angelo Palladino & The Street Hawks. STREET HAWK DIARIES VOL 1 OUT NOW!