San Francisco-born and bred, Maurice Tani early on developed an ear for the Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and their ilk. In his early 20s, Maurice left for central Texas to work the hardcore country, blues and rock circuit between Austin and Dallas, playing five sets a night, seven nights a week for months at a time, eventually making his way to New York City as the punk rock scene of CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City was exploding. By 1977, he was back in San Francisco and joined The Phantom Movers, Roy Loney’s hugely lauded rockabilly band, recording four critically acclaimed albums over a five-year run.
For the next 15 years, Maurice was lead guitarist and a featured vocalist for Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and Big Bang Beat, two dance bands that toured internationally. In 1999, Maurice returned to his roots in original music, and has since been a key songwriter, singer and guitarist on the hillbilly noir side of Americana music, acclaimed for his bands 77 El Deora and Calamity & Main.
ABOUT VICTORIA GEORGE California Country happens when places like Northern California’s Marin County and country music meccas like Nashville collide. The result in Victoria George’s case is rather fascinating — a sound that’s part San Francisco folk, part Nashville/bluegrass twang, all heart and revelations and smarty-pants yarn-spinnin’. Gather round, Victoria beckons.
Victoria is by now a confident mid-career singer-songwriter who knows what and who she is. She comes from a family of artists and herself has a background in theater. And, well, she’s lovely. So it’s not all that surprising she commands a stage with the zeal of an Allison Krauss or Bonnie Raitt, artists who check their pretention at the door and prefer honest-to-goodness stories.
Music biz folks have indeed taken notice throughout the years. Victoria has worked in and outside of Nashville’s finest publishing houses and shared bills with the likes of Brandi Carlisle, the Doobie Brothers, Steve Earle, Delta Rae and other industry names that speak for themselves.
To a person, she’ll say she’s never fit cleanly into the San Francisco or Nashville Venn diagram. Ambitious as she is, Victoria really doesn’t care much for catering her sound to fit mainstream country conventions. She writes songs the way chefs surprise regulars — love songs turn dark and drinking songs morph into existential mediations with regularity (related warning: the song “Sweet Amnesia” should only be consumed right before happy hours). Defining tracks like “Letters” and “Tables are Turning” smack listeners in the face with street-philosopher smarts. Nothing quite like it in Nashville, California or anywhere radios hold court.
But she embraces her place in the lineage of folk artists primarily concerned with crafting songs to make people think and feel something meaningful. That’s the California Country way, and the Victoria George creed.
