Mr. Big was a band formed in California around 1988 by lead singer Eric Martin, guitarist Paul Gilbert, bassist Billy Sheehan and Pat Torpey on the drums. They got their name from a song by the band Free.
They were excellent musicians - especially Gilbert (one of my guitar heroes) and Sheehan - and the band's initial style was more geared towards hard rock. However, their greatest hits are mostly softer ballads, including an excellent cover of Cat Steven's Wild World.
They sustained a very successful career for about a decade when Paul Gilbert departed and was replaced by Richie Kotzen, who was supposed to be the subject of this post, but I changed my mind.
The band broke up not long after that, in 2002 but reunited a few times in the following years, until drummer Pat Torpey died.
I'd like to share some of my favorite tunes by the band, starting with "To be with you", which is probably the most famous song that they released.
Another great tune and one of my favorites is "Green Tinted Sixties Mind". This one had a little more "bite" but it is still essentially a ballad.
"Take cover" has this great drum intro and is a bit heavier than the others, at least in my opinion.
And to wrap thing up, the song I mentioned before, "Wild World", which is a cover a Cat Stevens' masterpiece. Some of you might know that I have an ongoing series of the greatest rock covers and this is definitely going to be featured on a future post of that series.
That's it for today folks! I hope you have enjoyed it and thanks for reading!
