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Gene Black and The Pack debuts at Hilltop Music Shop Gene Black, front, with drummer Matthew Kriemelman, left, keyboard player Nick Garrett-Powell and bassist Greg Frederick. [Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch] Wednesday Apr 26, 2017 at 1:25 PM Apr 26, 2017 at 2:30 PM Laurie Heuston Mail Tribune From the rock clubs of Detroit in the '70s — riding on the tail of the automobile industry's most profitable run — along with the clubs and recording studios of Southern California in the '80s, and ultimately a 17-year stint touring with Joe Cocker, Gene Black experienced some exhilarating times as a guitarist, singer and songwriter. These days find Black and his wife, Diane Doyle, living a quiet life in the Rogue Valley. "We've been here for about a year now," Black says during a phone interview from his home in east Medford. "We live very close to RoxyAnn Winery, so one night we decided to see who was playing up the road. It was L.E.F.T. with Bret Levick, Don Harriss and Greg Frederick. Greg and I talked for quite a bit, and I mentioned that I was burned out on the meanness and the quality of life in L.A., and he said 'Yeah, we're all refugees here.' "I played with L.E.F.T. a couple of times at South Stage Cellars in Jacksonville, and that was fun. The thing I noticed right away is how welcoming people are." Black says he'd wanted to start his own project here, but didn't know how to go about getting a lineup together. Frederick, who knows every musician in the Rogue Valley, helped him, and a new band fell into place. Gene Black and The Pack — with Black on lead guitar and vocals, Nick Garrett-Powell on keys, Frederick on bass, and Matthew Kriemelman on drums — will debut at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at Hilltop Music Shop, 205 N. Phoenix Road, in The Shoppes at Exit 24, Phoenix. Tickets are $10 to $15, and reservations can be made by calling 541-897-4525. The show is open to all ages. "It just all came together," Black says. "Nick was wanting to play keyboards outside The Fret Drifters, and I wanted a piano player on the project. Nick's also got a wonderful voice, and Matthew's a great drummer. We all got together, and the timing was perfect." To start, the new group will play blues-based rock covers, Black says. "Like John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Keb' Mo,' a sweet man, even Bob Dylan and John Lennon," Black says. "Lennon is one of my favorite singers and songwriters, and he's kind of where my voice is. We can have some of those elements of folk, but they will cross over to rock. I don't think about categories so much as good songs. Songs that speak to me. When there's some real emotion behind it, that's where I go, to that heartfelt stuff." Black and The Pack will play acoustic and electric, reinterpreting some acoustic songs electrically. Each show will feature a different genre, a favorite blues singer or soul singer, or a favorite band, to change things up and keep it interesting, Black says. "I don't think we're going to play frequently," he says. "We're kind of a special project. Eventually, I want to move into my own songwriting. I have some songs, but I don't know if we'll get to them for the first show. I'd like to do some solo or duo shows at the wineries. Right now, it's fun playing with the guys." Black will do most of the lead singing with The Pack. "I've always worked backup behind amazing singers, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Cocker," he says. "When I did write songs, I would write them out of my key, which I tend to do for some reason. So I've never really got out front to see what I could do. I don't have the range Rod Stewart or Bryan Adams have, but there's a place where I'm comfortable. Over the winter, I was listening to great songs by my favorite writers, and I want to go out and play that music. "Part of that comes from me playing loud rock for so many years," Black says. "I'm enjoying a break from that. It's easier on the ears, and you don't have to sing as hard." Born Gene Bloch in Ohio and raised in Toledo, as soon as he reached adulthood Black relocated to Detroit and began working as a musician. "It was a great music city, a great rock 'n' roll town in the '70s," he says. "There were tons of rock clubs. We played gigs with Bob Seger, Iggy and the Stooges. You could work all the time." Black eventually worked with hard rock, glam and heavy metal band Marcus, named after its lead singer. The group signed with United Artists in '77 and went to California. "We'd do stuff by Bowie, Zeppelin, and our own material," he says. "Our success was very much because we had a black singer, Marcus Malone. I have to say, with the right management, he could've been a heavy metal version of Prince. But people didn't quite know how to take a black guy dressed like Bowie who sounded like Robert Plant. We were an anomaly. "But that label is what took us to L.A. It never gave us true support, and the band broke up. Some of the guys went home. I thought, 'If I'm going to be out of work, I'm going to be warm and out of work. Instead of freezing and out of work.' " Black played clubs and in recording sessions with Stewart, Eddie Money, Berlin and others. Later he wrote songs with Holly Knight and played and recorded with heavy metal band Device. It released one album, "22B3," produced by Mike Chapman, in 1986 on the Chrysalis label. "It had a hi-tech trashy sound," Black says. He worked on Tina Turner's album "Simply the Best," released in 1991 on Capitol Records. It was Roger Davies, manager for Turner and Cocker, who hired Black in '97 to tour with the "Sheffield Soul Shouter." Black can be heard on Cocker's live albums from that time until 2014. "We didn't know at the time, when we did a live DVD in Cologne, Germany, in 2013, that it would be Joe's last tour," Black says. "That album went platinum over there. We'd play 20,000-seaters two nights in a row in Berlin and sell out each show. We'd play the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and the Paléo in Nyon, where we were on with Bob Dylan. It was brilliant. "I think one of the reasons Joe did so well in Europe is because people there are not into the flavor of the month or the blue-eyed pretty boys," Black says. "They're into the music and the artist. They are loyal to that. "Quite different than America, where we'd play festivals like the Britt or theaters like The Wiltern in L.A. People in the States didn't know he was making records every year and doing these huge tours in Europe. I think Americans saw him as more of a novelty act, but in Germany he was an artist." Black and his wife lived in the Studio City neighborhood of L.A. for many years. "L.A. is all about 'The Voice' now," he says. "The music business is run by television." "There are few places to go play original music in front of a few people for a bit of money," Black says. "The quality of life we moved there for doesn't exist anymore. It's changed radically. They've knocked down the cute, little Spanish bungalows and put in ugly box mansions, and people don't say hello to each other on the street. "We want to live in an environment where people still say hi to each other."