Musical Honesty Gives Band a Boost

SAN DIEGO —  Bill Thompson is that rare musician who would seem to side more with his potential detractors than with his many advocates. It’s not that the guitarist for the local Mighty Penguins has a mea culpa complex, that he’s falsely modest, or that he lacks talent and therefore is only saving time and needless hassle by coming clean.

It’s just that Thompson, 40, is as honest and as genuine as the funky blues, vintage R&B;, and obscure soul music that has been the Penguins’ wellspring since the band’s formation in the winter of 1987.

In other words, he knows his place.

“Compared to the founding fathers of this music--the icons--we just don’t stack up,” said Thompson on Friday with typical self-effacement. One of Thompson’s current icons is Arkansas-born blues singer-guitarist Larry Davis, composer of “Texas Flood.” Davis employed the Mighty Penguins as his backup band in a recent gig at Elario’s. The Penguins headline at the La Jolla venue tonight and tomorrow night.

“Hey, I’d carry Larry’s gear ,” said Thompson of Davis. “On the other hand, I think the Penguins are capable of competing on the national level. We’re better now than we’ve ever been.”

That’s saying something, considering that critics and fans have been lavishing praise on the band since its inception.

The Penguins’ secret is that they have no secret. Their repertoire of blues, jazz, funk, and boogie isn’t the stuff of illusion; it’s in-your-face, kinetic music sung with cauterizing passion by front man Thompson and given a coltish kick by widely versed drummer Paul Kimbarow. Ex-New Yorker Kimbarow has played behind soul singers Ashford and Simpson, Latin-jazz flutist Dave Valentin, and jazz keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, among others.

Versatile bassist Kevin Hennessy and keyboardist Bruce Donnelly--a former staff songwriter at MCA Publishing with many internationally recorded songs and jingles to his credit--round out the quartet. A couple of months ago, be-bopping alto saxophonist Steve Fierabend replaced Al Garth as the Penguins’ “hired horn.”

Nonetheless, Thompson is the band’s trump. In conspiracy with his bouncer’s mien and boxer’s build, Thompson’s soulful vocals and virtuosic guitar work invest credibility in the Penguin’s brawny, grit-down sound. In fact, so “authentic” is his singing and playing that recently Thompson was the recipient of the highest grade of compliment--a reversal of his own modest self-assessment.

“I gave a copy of our demo tape to Cash McCall when he was at Elario’s in February,” said Thompson of the veteran Chicago-style and Delta-blues guitarist, who is black. “He actually listened to it between his own sets at the club, and at one point he asked me, ‘Listen, man, are you mixed ?’ ”

Thompson laughed. “I said, ‘Hey, thanks, but as far as I know, the only blood I can claim is Italian.’ ”

The toughness, however, is real. Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Thompson spent his youth moving with his civil-servant mother from that state to Georgia to Louisiana to New Mexico to Arizona and, finally, in 1965, to Coronado. The suburban-island lifestyle posed a bit of an adjustment problem for Thompson.

“I was an unhappy, rowdy kid,” he said of his high school years. “I thought the other guys at Coronado High, these Navy transfers from Virginia or wherever, were real wimps with their hush puppy shoes and all that. I couldn’t relate, so I drank a lot and fought with everybody. It seemed a natural thing to do. I’d been a Golden Gloves boxer in the sixth grade, until I got knocked out. After I graduated from high school, I kept brawling with sailors in Coronado. I was pretty bad.”

Music channeled and eventually tamed most of Thompson’s hostility. He took up the harmonica in 1971 and guitar in 1972 and played in a succession of local country, Top 40, and rockabilly bands. From 1978 to 1981 he was a member of the new-wave band, Fingers, with guitarist Joey Harris, now of the Beat Farmers. A brief stint in Gary Puckett’s Las Vegas band followed.

In 1987, Thompson returned to his first love, the blues and soul music that had been the soundtrack of his scuffling youth. For several years, the Penguins’ stage show mostly consisted of B- side soul tunes, the less-covered works of the blues masters, and other unsung efforts by the likes of Professor Longhair, Johnnie Taylor, T-Bone Walker, and Clarence (Gatemouth) Brown. The material’s comparative obscurity made it seem fresh in spite of its vintage.

Apparently, Thompson is a good student; of the nine tunes on the Penguins’ current demo tape, seven were penned by the bandleader. They’re shopping the tape to prospective labels, including the revived Capricorn Records--once the Macon, Ga., home of several Southern rock acts, among them the Allman Brothers Band.

“We’re getting some interest,” said Thompson, who believes the demo far surpasses even last year’s four-song Penguins sampling. “We recorded most of the tracks here in San Diego at Silver Strand Studios, then we went to L.A. to record the horn parts. It sounds real good.”

Among the session horn players the Penguins landed for the project were saxophonist Dan Higgins of the Seawind Horns and Greg Smith of Jack Mack and the Heart Attack, and trumpeter Joe Davis, who plays in the studio band on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

While they fish for the break that will take them national, the Mighty Penguins continue to draw good crowds to their local gigs.

“We’re really happy to be a part of this Monday-Tuesday series at Elario’s,” Thompson said of the regular blues showcases presented by promoter Rob Hagey. “Already it’s brought some great talent to town, and for us it’s an honor even to be inserted into the rotation.”