OMGosh!!! I had heard of Ezra as a band of Joe's formative years, but never heard any of their music much less seen footage!!! His quote "we played Deep Purple covers and type music with Ezra" I always took with a grain of salt, catering to his later career as if he was "chosen". Turns out now, he was right! I'm baffled. A (pre-)historic artefact, no less. Vielen Dank fürs posten!
Both Joe's boyhood home and the one he bought with his Rainbow earnings (his ex and daughter still live there) are about a mile or so from where I grew up, so his visage was a familiar one for some of us locals. Prior to Ezra, he had a brief stint in another local band called Fillet of Soul who rehearsed down the street from me at the drummer's house - although Joe was not in the band at that point. I briefly dated his cousin in high school and several kids had Ezra promo pics inside their lockers along with the
de rigueur Led Zeppelin and Bowie. Over the years I have run into him in odd places, like the auto repair shop where I worked. Even now, when he plays in the area, the shows are as much a family reunion as they are a gig. My wife was, and is, a big fan, so we almost always wind up attending - even though the set lists have been pretty much burned into our brains by now. None of this, of course, was helped by the fact that I was friendly with a hotshot local guitarist who as a teenager was the biggest Blackmore / Purple / Rainbow fanatic I have ever known - yes, even bigger than you, Uwe.
