Tom Lilienthal

"Deal It Out" by Tom Fogerty

Story by Tom Lilienthal 

This album was a result of Tom coming out of "retirement" to record with the group Festival.Tom had come into Mountain Jack's in Lafayette, CA., where we were playing and after a brief conversation, I asked him if he would like to sit in with us. He ended up showing up practically every night that we played until he moved to Maui to retire. He called me several months later from Maui and asked if he could come to one of our gigs so that we could talk business. When he arrived back in CA., we met and he asked if the band would be interested in making an album with him.

Initially, he wanted to produce an album of our music but Fantasy insisted that the album feature him.

Kim Park (sax, keyboards, flute, backround vocals and former member of the Stan Kenton Band) ended up writing some of the tunes on the album. Mark Russo (alto sax, keyboards), another member of the group, went on to become the lead alto with Tower of Power, later to join the Yellow Jackets and now has his own CD out. Scott Morris (drums), toured and recorded with Richie Cole. Other members of the group were Tom Lilienthal (leader, bass, backround vocals) and Bill Swartz (lead guitar).

We started the album with Tom Fogerty as producer but Fantasy stepped in and insisted that we get two members of Van Morrison's band to produce the album. Unfortunately, they had little experience and an entirely different concept. The album became something less than what Tom and Festival originally had in mind for the project (Our rough cuts prior to the producers coming onboard were great).

Because Tom had no desire to tour outside Northern California, we ended up turning down offers to tour Japan and Europe. We played in San Francisco, Sebastapol, Fresno, Sausalito, Strawberry (Sierra foothills), Angels Camp (Gold country), Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, among other places.

We would start the show with two tunes by Festival and then bring Tom on to sing blues, reggae and whatever else he desired. About half way through the show, we would switch to CCR tunes and the crowd would go wild. We usually ended up playing about two encores.

BTW, Festival played Tom's wedding and welcomed CCR (John was reluctant but was urged to the stage by Jeff, Tom' son who at the time was sixteen) to the stage for a great set of their music.

- Tom Lilienthal