The Complete Works of
Central Air

Tucson band of excellent musicians, circa 1978-1981. Band members were Terry Oubre (guitar), Rob Kilgore (bass), Charles Judge (keyboards) and Ralph Gilmore (drums), also with Mark Usvolk (original guitar player), David Dean (vocals) and Hollis Payseur (occasional vocals). The four instrumentalists first got together at North Texas State, now the University of North Texas, known as an excellent music school. According to one person close to the band, "they were brought to Tucson by Jim Bastin and Fred Knipe. Jim and Fred had started Sun Country Productions, and through some contact I'm unaware of, persuaded the band to be moved there to write and record. Jim rented them a house to stay in. I remember the living room was nothing but drums and instruments. It was quite the experience to sit there and listen to them practice at the house. A good part of their recordings are probably in a landfill somewhere. Sun Country had a 16-track mobile truck and probably 80% of all the recordings Central Air did was done in that truck. I engineered a lot of it, but the band did a lot by themselves too. I think Robbie was as much into mixing as he was into the bass. When I was working at the studio I'd take the 16-track tapes and mix them there on my own time. What an incredible time all that was. A life changing experience." It is unknown if any of the Sun Courtry recordings still exist (but some may be here under "Early Material 1978", but this has not been confirmed). What follows was furnished by John Pearson and others and is all known existing recordings of the band.

The 24-track demos were recorded in hopes of obtaining a recording contract, but it did not happen. The band never released a single record.

All tracks below are mp3s and are in chronological order.


Early Material, 1978 - Not all track or recording info available. All tracks are different from any others here except for the early version of Terrance:

Central Air - track title from which they took the band name

Track 02

Oldgnu

Track 04

Big One on the Wall

Terrance - early version featuring Terry Oubre and Rob Kilgore, written by Rob Kilgore

Track 07

Sherwood Island - written by Rob Kilgore


Live on the KWFM Jazz Show From Lee Furr's Recording Studio in June, 1978:

The Complete Broadcast - (commercial breaks were omitted) 1:18:32

as individual tracks (no track list is available, but some are identified within the show or identifiable from other recordings):

Track 01

Track 02

Track 03

Track 04

Track 05

Track 06

Track 07

Track 08

Track 09

Track 10

Track 11

Track 12 - Old Gnu

Track 13

Track 14 - Sherwood Island

Track 15

Track 16

Track 17

Track 18


Live to 2-track - November,1979:

Adventures in Thailand - written by Terry Oubre

Brand F

Better Days aka Down to You

One in a Million

Terrance

Tusk Tuskenin

Untitled Ballad


24-track demos, recorded at Lee Furr's Recording Studio in Tucson in January, 1980:

Adventures in Thailand

Terrance

Vistance

Lady Madonna

Down To You


Studio recordings from a cassette marked 1-13-80:

Adventures in Thailand - written by Terry Oubre

T Minus 10 (aka Terrance) - written by Rob Kilgore

Lady Madonna with David Dean and Hollis Payseur

Down to You - written by Charles Judge, Terry Oubre and Fred Knipe


Live on KWFM from Westwood Recording Studios, 1980 (vocals by Hollis Payseur):

Intro by Jim Ray

Terrance

Down to You

Solar Wind

Mama

Off the Waltz (probably the title as per Ralph Gilmore)

Vacation

Tough Customer

Reckless (or Reckless Days)

Love Has Come of Age

Adventures in Thailand

Fire

Entire Show - 56:21


More:

Tough Customer - Live at Westwood Recording Studios and appearing on the "KWFM On the Air" album, 1980


In 1982, three former members of Cental Air recorded one album with the Grass Roots. Those were Charles Judge, Terry Oubre and Ralph Gilmore. The album was titled "Powers of the Night". During this time, they played a record-breaking concert in Washington, DC on July 4, 1982 with attendence in excess of 600,000 people!

A couple of tracks from that album on Youtube:

Powers of the Night

Try Me


Central Air Youtube Playlist


For the best in jazz fusion: JazzFusionRadio.net

For progressive rock: ERS.rocks



Drawing by Maggie Keane, 1978

artist unknown