The perfect road trip accessory! A musical masterpiece! Born to Be Wild will have you singing and dancing all night long!
– Victoria Snee, WB33 Entertainment Reporter, Dallas
Un-freak’n believable!!! Big-T takes you on a wild musical ride!!! When I first heard about Craig “Big-T” Thompson’s Sumo-to-Sinatra transformation, I knew his life was a great news story. But I wasn’t prepared to love his music as much as I do! His range on this CD is amazing—hard rock, swing, big band, jazz…he moves effortlessly from one to the other. “Big-T” is the biggest thing to come out of “Big D” in years!!!
– Jeff Crilley, Fox 4 News, Dallas
Who is this expressive, mugging man with a powerful arrangement behind him and a blazing soulful voice that seems to play for the audience’s affection above all else? That would be Big-T on his new release album Born to Be Wild (Big-T Music)….From [the] diesel powered start the audience gets toured into swinging tracks like “Pride & Joy” and “Let the Good Times Roll,” a beautiful rumba in “Girl From Ipanema,” and an equally gorgeous bolero paced rendition of “Tangerine.” The bluesy standards are well packaged for delight, too. Enjoy yet another artist’s interpretation of perennial T-Bone Walker classic “Stormy Monday” and Big-T’s live venue final track “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.” The sound of this album is big studio orchestration, and that is a credit to all the musicians that make up the Bada-Bings, as well as the back-up singers that allow Big-T to flash a comical smile and play for the crowd with a bag full of emotional appeal. Consider this a CD for fun, dancing, selection, and familiarity when it comes to material, and if not, then Big-T suggests you fuggeddaboudit.
– Frankie Hagan, ATOMIC Magazine
I will try not to gush, but I warn you, I can’t help myself….Born To Be Wild is probably one of the best new CDs that has been sent to me in quite some time.
Craig Thompson is “Big T” and the vocalist of this hard-to-define big band ensemble.
As you begin listening to the album, you think you have his vocal style nailed down, when the next track sidetracks you again and yet again with each passing track. Mr. Thompson’s song stylings are all over the map and, fortunately for us listeners, he is able to cover such a wide array of musical styles with such greatness that he is not easily pigeon-holed.
He can cut a rug in the Louis Prima genre with songs like “Caldonia” and “Buona Sera”; he can soothe us with lovingly-phrased standards, such as “Since I Fell For You” and “Girl From Ipanema” a la Tony Bennett; and he can torch us with his blues renditions of “Pride and Joy”, “Dance With Me” and “Let The Good Times Roll”” in the panache style of Stevie Ray Vaughn. But he is none of these people—he truly makes these standards and well-known songs his own….
The backing band, “The Bada-Bings,” is excellent in their tone and style and compliment Craig’s vocals with aplomb. This is a good band to be backed-up by, with arrangements that re-energize these standards for repeated listening. The production values of the recordings, themselves, are clean, crisp and very well engineered.
I say, “Run – Don’t Walk” to pick up this very exciting CD that has crossed my path. It will become a part of my permanent collection and I can’t wait to listen to it again and again and again….I give these 6 Martinis out of a possible 4. Thank you, Craig, for sending this my way. Bottoms Up!!
– Steve Lambert, Outlet Radio Network
Wow! I can’t stop listening . . .
This CD is an incredible experience! It’s full of great music and so much fun to listen too! I had the privelege of seeing Big T and the Bada Bings perform at Beau Nash and I was caught up in the magic and energy that Craig displays when he performs. I loved it!!!
– Cindi Howard, Flower Mound and
Chamber of Commerce, Flower Mound, TX
Luv ’em all….The songs on this CD are so diverse, it should be difficult to get all of the performances at a high level, but he does it, and each are done in a style befitting the mood of the songs, and all are so exiting, I simply cannot help but move to the rhythm.
– SKT, Tokyo, Japan
Three Cheers and Four Stars for Big-T
…Big-T has a wonderful voice, especially evident in my favourite song of the whole set, “Since I Fell for You”. He really does sing very beautifully….All the music is wonderfully arranged, and is really just a joy to listen to. There are songs on this CD that I’ve heard by other people and not been particularly fond of, that I just love on this. It’s very loungy, and very nice (sorry, nice is such a weak word. But it is nice). If anyone doesn’t find themselves singing along after the second time of listening to the songs, I shall eat my hat. Or at least be very surprised and point at you. So…do buy the CD… there are so few really good musicians out there at the moment, and they need all the encouragement we can give. Besides, from the point of view of a connoisseur of amusing accents, the whole thing’s quite catching, too: Embarrassingly, I’ve caught myself dropping the excellent phrase ‘Hey, fuggedaboudit’ into everyday conversation. Which’d be fine, if I could get away with it. As it is, since the only American accent I can do is Daisy Duke’s, and I’m not entirely sure what accent she thought she was doing anyway, it doesn’t sound too good. I’ll keep freakin’ practicin’!
– Elaine, United Kingdom |