The Planets
Blues Planet Project (now called simply, The PLANETS) is the brainchild of two legendary Colorado musicians and songwriters, Ted Mentry and Helen Allison Hawkins. In 2001, shortly after Mentry released his third personal full length solo album, Hawkins contacted him to play some dates as lead guitarist for her own group, The Allison Hawkins Band, for which she was the lead singer and driving force. After a year of playing an exhausting schedule of Colorado clubs, bars, parties and concerts, Mentry and Hawkins formed another musical ensemble that could either play the club circuit doing cover tunes honoring the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, Allanah Miles, Clapton, Wilson Pickett, James Brown and others, or, more importantly, an entire show based on original work already proven by Mentry’s skills as an artist, writer and producer and new works collaborated with Hawkins. The result is THE PLANETS, a six (sometimes seven or eight) piece outfit that completed its’ first original, full length CD in July of 2006, entitled, It Is What It Is. The album is a brilliant collection of rock, blues, ballads and movements that typify all of the melodic strengths of the genre with the backbeat of a band that has proven itself in each of the arenas that it has explored. It has already been described as “Annie Lennox meets Pink Floyd with Dire Straits as the backup band.” Available online and in stores July 4th, 2006. The touring band features Colorado’s finest veteran backing musicians, Larry Cotton on bass, Dan Cresap on drums, Mark Strivings ..boards and sax and Ted Mentry on guitar.
