TOM MASON
Tom Mason is a true renaissance man. Life is a department store and Tom Mason is running up and down the aisles filling his pockets. A fine guitarist, a sizzling slide player and multi-instrumentalist, a seasoned actor, and a passionate songwriter, Mason is above all an entertainer, eager to share his lust for life every time he straps on a guitar or hits the stage.. Since arriving in Nashville in 1993, Mason has not only established himself as a favorite in nightclubs and studios, he’s also become a sought after actor in theater and film. With his new CD Alchemy, Tom Mason draws on all his talents to create a work filled with magic.
As a solo artist, Mason has released three CD’s “Where Shadows Fall”, the instrumental “A Slide Guitar Christmas”, and the brand new "Alchemy". He has also released numerous collaborative CD’s, including two by the Big Happy on Western Beat Records and one with Swampgrass, and has been featured on such compilations as “For Kate’s Sake: An Americana Christmas”, “The Other Side: Music of East Nashville”, and “Yuletide from the Other Side. In addition to being a solo artist and bandleader, Tom Mason has played lead guitar for a multitude of artists. Recently he’s been touring the US and Europe with Phil Lee, and frequently plays with Last Train Home, Supe Granda (of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils), and his wife, Australian Pru Clearwater..
In June of 2009 Tom Mason performed in greater Los Angeles in a critically acclaimed production of the Broadway musical “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash”, a show with which he toured the country in 2007/2008. Earlier in the year he played Clarence (brother of the king) and Derby in Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s "Richard III" in a production in which the Yorks and the Lancasters are competing performers on a Vaudeville stage. As a frequent member of Nashville’s Actor’s Bridge Ensemble, Tom has had roles in Mary Zimmerman’s "Arabian Nights" and "Metamorphoses", "American Duet", "How I Learned to Drive", and as the Stage Manager in "Our Town". In 2007 he was a guest artist at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center during their Cabaret Conference.
Tom Mason’s most recent film role was as Shams in Pouria Montazeri’s Shams and Rumi: The Fragrance of Axis Mundi, a visually stunning film about the Persian poet Rumi’s mystical transformation. Other roles have included kidnappers, drug dealers, the devil, and Dolly Parton’s Dobro player in a lifetime television movie.
TOM MASON BIO: FICTIONALIZED
Tom Mason (b.1898 Theodore Mashowitz) was the youngest of seven children of Rudolf and Minnie Mashowitz, who immigrated from Prussia in 1892. Rudolf Mashowitz was the inventor of the home entertainment center,c.1895, which, due to the rarity of electronic devices at the time, failed to catch on for another seventy years.
Recognizing her youngest son’s talent, Minnie Mashowitz re-christened Theodore “Tiny Tommy Mason” and would routinely usher the seven year old onto the stage of a Vaudeville show while another act was performing, where the ever-charming carrot top would execute his masterful impression of a fish. Within months, posters of the mother and son were pasted on stage doors, and a star was born.
= With the advent of the talking motion picture (1928) and the inevitable decline of Vaudeville, (and the proliferation of fish impersonators) , Tom dropped the “Tiny” from his moniker and began to prepare for the birth of rock and roll, spending the next three decades searching for the perfect pomade.
By the time Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard burst onto the scene, Tom was already a legend in the Poconos, where his upbeat interpretation of “Why Not Minot?” was a hit among returning honeymooners.
In the nineteen sixties, when psychedelia and the summer of love was sweeping the nation, Tom joined in on the fun and headed to Nashville, landing there in 1993.
The right Reverend Thomas Ezekial Mason, (b. 1935 Cat’s Paw, TN), followed in the footsteps of his father, spreading the gospel in the Church of Holy Matters and Pastry Suggestions. However, the budding preacher faltered in his libidinous teens, collecting the offerings at prayer meetings and spending them at dens of perdition. Cast off from the church and falling into a life of sin, he chanced to stumble into a roadhouse where the jukebox was playing Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light”, and at that point returned to the church with a new ferver and began his long battle to have Hank canonized.
Tom Mason (b.1972, Fort Wayne, Indiana) is best known for the discovery of “Alt- Country”. “I can’t remember what year it was, but I walked into a bar somewhere and saw this band who used to play punk rock singing a Hank Williams song, wearing cowboy hats, and talking in a really bad southern drawl”. Mason had previously discovered Christian Rock (he was listening to the radio one day when he heard Stryper singing about Jesus), and is widely credited with the discovery of neo-facist talk radio (though some would dispute that, as he was never able to listen long enough to verify what he was hearing.)
Among other innovations Mason has made in the music business are Standing-on-the-bar-with-a-microphone® and Offending-the-nice-couple from-Indianapolis®.
