Tony and Cheryle pride themselves in being a powerhouse duo. Tony says " people see a male and female guitar duo and think they're going to hear dreary folk ballads all night, but that's not what we're about." We call our music "Extreme Acoustic," Cheryle, Tony's wife interjects, "It's just the two of us but we have a lot going on."
The Crown Point couple performs classic rock, a hint of blues, a bit of alternative, and even some country thrown in the mix. What sets this couple apart is Cheryle's fierce vocals, the couple's barreling guitar rythms, and their smooth, almost bluesy, vocal harmonies. Tony and Cheryle's guitars, like their voices, mesh, like they have been playing together for many years.
Musically the duo inspire each other. Before they met, Cheryle was busy raising her 3 children. Tony was a bass player in a few other bands.
Tony, a computer consultant, met Cheryle while she was waitressing at the Lakes of the Four Seasons Clubhouse, where he was performing with Big Ticket and the Hungry Brothers. They began dating and soon they were trading licks on the guitar. "I picked up a guitar laying around the house", Tony remembers. "I couldn't believe it when Cheryle started singing. I thought, Where have you been all this time?"
Tony and Cheryle married on July 11, 2003 and began performing as a musical duo, first hosting an open mic night at R House of Brews in Crown Point. Tony even wrote "Voice of an Angel" a ballad for his new bride. "It's a song about meeting Cheryle and how she changed my life", he says. Cheryle says Tony gave her the courage to sing in front of an audience, something she never imagined she would be doing. "I had been playing the guitar since 2nd grade, but I never played in a club before I met Tony," Cheryle says.
Tony had an opportunity with Cheryle to strengthen his musical skills. 'It's a little more challenging to perform in a duo," Tony admits. "I was mainly playing the bass when I was performing with other bands. Now, I get to play the guitar and harmonica."
The rock 'n' roll duo merged their musical interests. "When I was a kid I listened to Bob Dylan and Crosby Stills Nash and Young," Tony says.
Cheryle preferred gutsy girl singers such as Gladys Knight and Stevie Nicks.
Tony and Cheryle developed a repertoire that reflected their diverse musical tastes- a mixture of Top 40 hits with the rock 'n' roll anthems of their youth. Their song list includes Bad Company, Tom Petty, Melissa Etheridge, but also the tunes of The Beatles, the Eagles, and Bob Dylan. They opened up a generation gap with their covers of Alice in Chains, Staind, and Sheryl Crow. They'll even surprise audiences with their own passionate original tunes.
Tony and Cheryle's renditions of rock 'n' roll classics are the best, especially the melodic hits of Fleetwood Mac. Cheryle has a chance to hit the piercing notes when she sings Gladys Knights's anthem of heartache, "Midnight Train to Georgia." And she sounds eerily like Stevie Nicks when she delivers a haunting rendition of "Landslide." Cheryle says the bittersweet Stevie Nicks ballad is always a crowd pleaser. "It's a beautiful song because it's so well written. Everywhere we go people stop and listen to that song."
Tony says he and Cheryle enjoy relating to the audience. "We have so much fun singing together, it kind of rubs off on the audience." he says. "By the end of the night we get to know most of the people. We have made some great friends through music."
There's no escaping the power of chemistry. "Tony can perform anything you put in front of him and all I have to do is sing," Cheryle says. "one of us will say, let's try this and usually it ends up going on our song list rather quickly." Tony says he admires Cheryle's fearlessness. "She's not afraid to take on any tune. She'll talk me into it, and it works everytime."
For booking information contact us at Booking@TonyAndCheryle.com