Connecticut Musician Awarded
East Coast Endorsement for RC Davis Amplifiers

NEW HAVEN, March 5, 2006 - Connecticut’s Vinny Cervoni, founding member and guitarist in Bluzberry Pi and guitarist in Shakin' Not Stirred, was the first East Coast musician selected to endorse RC Davis Amplifiers. Cervoni, who catapulted Bluzberry Pi into the semi finals of the Connecticut Blues Society Blues Challenge in 2005, met Rob Davis, who builds the amps, at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California in January. The four-day show, produced annually by NAMM, the International Music Products Association, is the world’s largest musical instrument trade show and the site of major new product launches and live music exhibitions.

Intrigued by the hand crafted, point-to-point wired tube amplifiers, Cervoni plugged in a Stratocaster, as well as a Les Paul guitar, to check out the sound. He played some blues riffs, a few chord progressions, a few nine chords and a major and a minor for good measure. Then he rolled back the volume and tone on the guitar and played a jazz chord progression, mixing in some thirteen chords, as well as major and minor sevenths.

“I was quickly impressed with the amp’s response, and how it translated my every touch of the guitar,” said Cervoni.

The amps are hand crafted by Rob Davis, a drummer in San Francisco who owned a repair shop in the San Francisco Bay area for 20 years. Davis performed factory service for various manufacturers, and watched the pool of vintage amplifiers dwindling rapidly. Aware of escalating costs and the tendency of vintage amps to be high maintenance, he started RC Davis Amplifiers in 2003, when a client asked him to build an amp to replace a vintage one that had been breaking down repeatedly.

His goal was not to create a better sounding design than a vintage amp, but to build a less expensive replacement for a vintage amp with a comparable sound.

“These amplifiers are really geared towards the gigging musician who can no longer afford to (take and) lose his or her vintage amp on the road and desires a quality amplifier for performance at an affordable price,” he said.

Davis selected Cervoni for an endorsement because of his reputation as a guitar player, as well as his enthusiasm for the RC Davis Amplifiers. That enthusiasm is evident when Cervoni explains why he was impressed by the amps.

“In this day and age of amplifiers with too many controls, too many channels, and too many sound changing options, I had been searching for a simple amp with a great sound,” he said. “On these amps, the controls are simple. There are only four knobs on the face of any of the amps - bass, middle, treble, volume. The reverb control knob is on the back of the amp, which comes with a foot-switch for the reverb on-off. What is great, is there is a knob on the foot switch which acts the same as the knob on the back of the amp; just reach down and turn the knob to increase or roll off reverb.”
Using the RC Davis 30 watt and 50 watt amps has simplified Cervoni’s life on the road, while creating the sound he needs, whether he’s playing originals in Bluzberry Pi, or cover songs with Shakin' Not Stirred.

“With the amps I had been using, I always left home the foot-switches,” Cervoni said. “I used the clean channel on the amp and changed sounds with the various pedals on my pedal board. To switch to a ‘dirty channel’, I kick in the Blue Tube pedal on my board. For leads or solos, I kick in the Bixonic Expandora pedal. With the RC Davis 50 watt head, I dial in a clean sound and use my pedal board to make the different sounds I might need for a cover gig.

“For the original music in my repertoire, I can rely upon one good amp sound and get it by dialing in the right amount of ‘dirt’ on the RC Davis amps. The mid control is much more active than on most amps. It almost acts as a gain control, boosting mid, and allowing a very active sound at most volumes. To get rich, complex distortion, I turn up the volume. It's some of the most musical amp distortion I've heard in a long time,” he added.

For more information on Bluzberry Pi or its debut CD, “Search for Something Sweet,” www.bluzberrypi.com. For information on Shakin' Not Stirred, www.shakinstirred.com. For more information on RC Davis Amps, www.rcdavisamps.com.

Contact: Mary Lou Sullivan
Phone: 860-742-1492
Email: mlsullivan@snet.net




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