Tom Guerra
Since the late 1970s, Hartford, Connecticut native Tom Guerra has been a very popular guitarist-songwriter on the New England circuit, playing solo and with a host of leading blues, rock ‘n’ roll and R&B acts. Born in 1963, he started his club-gigging career while still in his teens and gained national notoriety after being profiled in the March 1991 Guitar Player magazine.
In addition to his six-string skills, Guerra is an avid songwriter and music journalist who’s contributed to publications including Vintage Guitar, Premier Guitars, and ToneQuest Report. He’s written liner notes for several groups, perhaps most notably for his friend Johnny Winter’s 13-album Live Bootleg series. Despite being widely recognized for his work as a guitarist, Guerra says that writing is how he’s been able to set himself apart. “There are so many great guitarists out there,” he says. “I’ve always felt that the way to differentiate myself is to write well-crafted rock ‘n’ roll with meaningful lyrics.”
This objective has been recognized by the many who’ve praised his unique songwriting talents. Bassist Kenny Aaronson (Bob Dylan, Hall and Oates, Billy Idol, Joan Jett) says Guerra’s tunesmithing abilities are superb. “Tom is a great songwriter. He has great pop sensibilities, and I really like his way of crafting a melody,” he says. “He’s a sensitive and keen observer of the human condition, as one hears in his lyrics.” In 2017, Guerra was asked to write original music for the iconic British rockers The Yardbirds.
MAMBO SONS, HEAVY DAYS
Guerra is perhaps best known for his work with Mambo Sons, the group he formed in 1999 with singer Scott Lawson Pomeroy. Aided and abetted by guitar legend Rick Derringer, the group recorded four critically acclaimed albums on Omnicide Records over 10 years, culminating in their 2009 double album Heavy Days. The 20-song outing includes “The Early Train,” “She Just Wants to Ride” (an energetic live cover of the Hendrix classic “Stone Free)” and the group’s most popular song, “Overend Watts,” written about Mott the Hoople bassist Peter “Overend” Watts.
In 2009, The Hartford Courant made the LP a Release of the Week. “Accordingly, Guerra is the focal point here, and deservedly so,” wrote the paper’s Eric Danton in his review. “He peels off blistering slide guitar licks on opening track ‘She Just Wants to Ride,’ dials in an acoustic-Zeppelin feel with the faintly Eastern-sounding riff on ‘Love is Strange’ and unleashes enough funk on ‘I Love My Family’ to make Sly Stone proud.” In early 2010, Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Report named Heavy Days the best straight-ahead rock and roll recording of the year.
GOING SOLO, ALL OF THE ABOVE, TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE
In 2012, following the announcement of Mambo Sons’ hiatus, Guerra began a solo career that to date has generated four full-length albums, with many of the songs addressing current social issues. One tune, “Love comes to Us All,” was written to honor those impacted by the Sandy Hook school shooting. Another, “Put Up Their Names -Ballad of the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans,” honors the 74 sailors lost aboard the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans Naval disaster off the coast of Vietnam in June 1969. According to Guerra, the purpose of the song is to bring attention to the US government’s refusal to list the names of the 74 who died on the Vietnam Wall.
In 2014, Guerra cut his first solo album, All of the Above, featuring 11 original songs, aided by Morgan Fisher, pianist from Mott the Hoople and Queen. His second solo disc, Trampling Out the Vintage (2016), again featured Morgan Fisher along with Matt Zeiner, drummer Mike Kosasek and Kenny Aaronson. After Aaronson joined The Yardbirds in 2017, he asked Guerra to collaborate on some new songs for the group and the pair wrote three tracks together, “The Lyin’ King,” “Goodbye to Yesterday,” and “Family of One.”
AMERICAN GARDEN, SUDDEN SIGNS
In June, 2018, Guerra recorded his third solo album, American Garden, with 10 new songs including the three that he and Aaronson wrote for The Yardbirds. Also included were “Blood on the New Rising Sun,” featuring guitarist-vocalist Jon Butcher, and “Meet Me at the Bottom of Your Glass,” Guerra’s duet with Mott the Hoople’s Fisher. The album is rounded out by his take on Tom Petty’s “Walls” and his rendition of Brandi Carlile’s “The Story.”
Guerra’s latest solo effort dropped, Sudden Signs of Grace, dropped in May 2020 and a number of critics noted his songwriting prowess in addition to his guitar skills, “With his previous albums, Tom established himself as a fine rock and roll guitarist,” wrote Pete Prown, music editor for Vintage Guitar magazine. “Sudden Signs of Grace shows his growth and new direction as a songwriter steeped in the Laurel Canyon school of songwriting.“ The LP consists of nine originals including the single “Lover’s Time” and two covers: “Streets of Baltimore,” as popularized by Gram Parsons, and “Gimme Some Water,” an early Eddie Money composition.
“When I heard Eddie was sick, I recorded one of my favorite tunes of his and sent him a copy,” he said about Money, who was among his closest friends. Former MTV VJ Martha Quinn, another of Money’s longtime friends, gave Tom’s version a thumbs up. He recorded Sudden Signs of Grace just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdowns and said he felt “compelled” to get it released as soon as possible “because people need music, especially during times like these.”
OTHER COLLABORATIONS
Over the years, Guerra has recorded and/or performed with hundreds of well-known artists in addition to those named above. Among them are Jack Sonnie (of Dire Straits), The Dirty Bones Band, Max Weinberg (of The E Street Band), Mark Nomad, The Easton Brothers, Muddy Waters’ bassist Charles Calmese, members of The Allman Brothers Band, Second Son, Guitar Shorty, Adolph Jacobs of The Coasters, Alan St. Jon and The Delrays.
