TOM SAVELL

SANTA CRUZ , CALIFORNIA BASED ROCKER EXPLORES THE GREAT JOYS AND ROUGHER EDGES OF ROMANCE ON ‘ YOU JUST GOTTA LOVE IT ', HIS ECLECTIC SOLO DEBUT FEATURING UNIQUE TWISTS ON FAMILIAR AND OBSCURE COVERS

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The Veteran Audio Chip Architect, Who Received “Best Musician” in the 2007 Santa Cruz Metro Goldies Awards, Is Also The Longtime Frontman For the Popular Progressive Rock/Dance Band Superior Olive, Which Tours The West Coast And Performs Benefits For Toys For Tots And Valley Churches United Missions

            Tom Savell (www.tomsavell.com), the longtime frontman of the popular Santa Cruz based band Superior Olive (www.myspace.com/superiorolive), has a unique confession to make: he decided to get romantic on his long awaited debut solo album because he wants more women to dig his music.

Female fans around the country are already proving the versatile singer, songwriter, guitarist and violinist's title You Just Gotta Love It prophetic, rocking out to Savell's music along with their husbands and boyfriends—the same guys who might go crazy over Superior Olive's Zappa, Genesis and Pink Floyd-influenced progressive rock and dance band music.

The disc's first single, the bluesy mid-tempo “So Deep Within You” rose quickly towards the Top 40 on the AC/Hot AC New Music Weekly chart, as determined by the Spins Tracking System. So far, it's been receiving heavy airplay on secondary market stations throughout the Midwest — Wisconsin , Iowa and in the region around Savell's original hometown of Cincinnati . The album itself recently went on sale on amazon.com and CDBaby.com and the singer recently received “Best Musician” in the 2007 Santa Cruz Metro Goldies Awards.

Superior Olive has been a mainstay up there in hippie country for years, playing local hotspots like Henflings and the upscale Crow's Nest, performing often at Felton Community Hall and doing charity shows everywhere from their own town down to Escondido for groups like Toys For Tots and Valley Churches United Missions. Over the years, Superior Olive has also released three indie albums on their label Still Fumin' Records.

“This has been my band for a long time, and because it's more progressive rock than pop, it's been pretty much guys in the audience,” says Savell, who has opened shows for such high profile artists as Bela Fleck, Arlo Guthrie, Dougie MacLean and others. “Which is great…we love performing for them, but I also personally love a lot of other different kinds of music. I finally had the means and opportunity to branch out and create an album of what I call unconventional love songs, tunes that explore the many different sides of relationships. You Just Gotta Love It also gave me the chance to work with some of my favorite musicians from the area, as well as Aynsley Dunbar, who played drums with Zappa and the original lineup of Journey.”

Though Superior Olive has always performed its share of covers, Savell is a prolific songwriter who's composed everything from epic rockers to social commentaries and the heartfelt reflection “Lately I've Been Thinking” after emerging from intensive care one time. On You Just Gotta Love It, the singer takes a completely different approach, creating unique arrangements in a multitude of styles of eight songs from the rock era. Some are ultra-familiar, like “Can't Help Falling In Love,” which Savell re-imagines with a playful, fast grooving 80s new wave vibe; others like Neil Diamond's beautiful “Play Me” are well known but rarely if ever covered.

The first single “So Deep Within You” and the opening track “Simple Game” are more obscure chestnuts from the rich catalog of The Moody Blues, another of Savell's longtime influences; both were composed by band founding member Mike Pinder. You Just Gotta Love It also features a fiery blues-rock version of “Jezebel,” which was originally recorded by Frankie Laine in 1951; a charming and traditional 50s pop styled slow dance version of “Please Love Me Forever,” originally recorded by Tommy Edwards and later Bobby Vinton in the 60s; “Old Dog Song,” a simmering blues rock love song for a canine originated by early 70s British prog-rock band Seventh Wave; and the ballad “What Am I Living For,” by the late 60s-early 70s jazz-blues influenced British duo Mark-Almond.

            “All of these are great songs which I think in some cases haven't been presented in the past as well as they could have been,” says Savell. “Working with my producer Jacob John Save, I deliberately picked many tunes that people haven't heard before so they could be original in a unique way. I worked out my own arrangements to put in my own feelings of how they could best be heard and enjoyed by a modern pop/rock audience.

“I chose the album title You Just Gotta Love It,” he adds, “because every track is a love song in one way or another, but not in any conventional way. They run the gamut of emotions, with some relationships working out well and some like ‘Jezebel' going sour. When I started on the project, I had intended to include a few originals I had written, but then the concept of doing an all covers album started making more sense.”

When Savell isn't making music with Superior Olive or on his own, he's designing digital tools to help other musicians make their own. He launched his career on the technical side of the industry designing digital pianos for Korean manufacturers and 11 years ago moved up (with the rest of Superior Olive) from San Diego to Santa Cruz to work for E-MU Systems, a leading developer of digital audio products to serve musicians and audio professionals. Savell designs digital audio chips for effects processors (reverbs and delays) and sampling synthesizers. In addition to holding several patents in digital audio processing, his articles have been published in The Computer Engineering Handbook by CRC Press and IEEE Micro Magazine.

“E-MU wanted to work with me because I am first and foremost a musician, and will only design the kinds of products that I want to work with,” says Savell. “It's nice being part of both the technical and creative side of music and I'm very proud of the heart and soul and wonderful musicianship that went into making the album. It's great that it's getting out there and people are enjoying it so much. I also like the fact that different people are gravitating to different songs. There's something for everyone.”

And if the incredible music should fail to charm any given female out there, Savell always has the adorable album cover featuring a ten year old version of himself in cap and uniform, holding a bat and ready to swing. “When women see the CD, they tend to say, ‘how adorable, is that you?'”

You Just Gotta Love It!