Tom Roady

Tom RoadySt. Louis native Tom Roady brought a rich pedigree to Nashville. He's enjoyed sessions at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, survived the LA scene, and proved he could tour with the best of them to any point on the globe. Indeed, there are few who can approach Roady's breadth of experience. Whether it's down to Tom's zeal for each session date, or his relentless exploration of new sounds, he has garnered unanimous praise from the seminal artists he's accompanied. Equally significant, he's earned the respect of his peers.

In Nashville, where he takes his rightful place among studio freelance royalty, Tom Roady has graced hit after hit with his strong percussion grooves and his judiciously applied "ear candy", instinctively knowing how to augment the snare backbeat. Toca Percussion instruments serve him well by providing precision articulation, diverse timbres, good ergonomics, and consistent durability no matter what type of music he is playing including country, blues, pop, soul, Christian, World, and R & B.  And when the worldwide trend to digital project studios hit, Tom opened up his own facility in Kingston Springs, Tennessee called Big Bang Theory. Here he can produce artists, do overdubs, and send parts electronically while maintaining a solid Nashville presence.

That's a powerful presence, felt and heard for well over three decades on country hits by The Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, Randy Travis, Brooks & Dunn, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney—the list truly goes on and on. And then there's Tom Roady's lauded work with heritage artists including James Brown, Etta James, Mavis Staples, Wilson Pickett, Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Michael McDonald, Paul Anka, Andy Gibb, Art Garfunkel, Phil Driscoll, and James Taylor.

In the world of the session work, good chops and solid time are necessary, and Tom Roady exhibits both with an extra jot of finesse. He displays an uncanny ability to choose percussive sounds, appropriate and tasteful, while keeping a positive attitude. A fanatic when it comes to tensioning congas or manipulating a shaker in a mic-friendly manner, Tom is a wizard at electronics but favors acoustic Toca sounds, combining them with drumset on many dates. And if the part suggests something off the wall, like strapping bells to his ankles (Suzy Bogguss's "Diamonds and Tears"), Roady will do the deed and deliver a hit performance. There's more: Tom composes soundtracks for the likes of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

For more info, please visit tomroady.com, myspace.com/tomroady, nashvillemusicpros.com/profile/TomRoady

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