The Guilty Pleasures: The name says it all

October 7, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

We all have guilty pleasures. You know, songs that you love but can’t defend. For example, there’s something about Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” that no matter how many times it’s played doesn’t get old.

Local musician Tom Sailor took the same idea and brought the music to life just over a year ago with his weekly acoustic gigs around the Valley attracting like-minded audiences looking to hear familiar classic tunes in a fun setting. The result became The Guilty Pleasures, which finds singer-guitarist-mandolin player Sailor along with singer-guitarist Timber Gilliland, singer-slide whistle extraordinaire Amy Young and singer-guitarist-kazoo master Sonny Hopcheck leading people down memory lane.

“Basically, it’s a collective of sort of all-stars from Youngstown,” said New Castle, Pa., native Sailor, a 1984 Neshannock High School graduate. “It’s sort of an old-school bunch of people who played Cedars for many years and had original bands in the past. Timber was the lead singer for the 8 Balls. I was in a band called Illuminatus. We were pretty big in the early ’90s. Sonny was in Sacksville R&B, and Amy was in the Swagger Kings up in Cleveland.”

From its very start, The Guilty Pleasures attracted a loyal audience interested in the band’s intimate, acoustic vibe, which tackles unexpected, if not obscure, material on a regular basis. “We’ll do anything,” Sailor said. “That’s the thing — we do a lot of songs you’d never anticipate hearing a band play like ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart’ or ‘Lonely Days’ by The Bee Gees. We’ll do ‘Watching the Detectives’ by Elvis Costello. We do good songs by the Stones like ‘It’s All Over Now.’ I play mandolin as well, so our arrangements are really unique for these songs. Here’s an acoustic outfit with one electric guitar player and four vocalists, and that’s all we have.’”

He added, “In some cases we did a Johnny Cash night where we learned about 40 songs. And then we did a Graham Gouldman night.”

Often, the act searches Wikipedia for a connection to gig dates. This is the case Dec. 8 when The Guilty Pleasures hosts a John Lennon’s 70th Birthday Tribute at The Lemon Grove, which is also a food drive. The quartet plans on playing everything from “A Day in The Life,” “Bad Boy” and “The Ballad of John and Yoko” to “Cry Baby Cry” and “Dear Prudence.” There’s also talk of adding “Come Together,” as well as the obligatory “Birthday.”

Sailor is hopeful people taking in the Lennon birthday celebration will leave with an “All You Need Is Love” mind-set.

“It’s really all about feeling good and having a good time,” Sailor said.