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Guest Occupation: Musician, Guitarist, Vocalist and Songwriter
Guest Biography:

KAL DAVID

Born and raised in Chicago, Kal’s recording career began as a teenager when, as a member of Kal David and the Exceptions, he was signed to a contract with King Records and later to Vee-Jay Records. Another member of the group was Peter Cetera, who later became the vocalist for a band known as Chicago.

Later on, Kal joined musical forces with guitarist Paul Cotton to form the group, The Rovin’ Kind. This band recorded for Dunwich Records and following a name change to Illinois Speed Press and a move to Los Angeles, Kal and Paul hit their stride, recording two critically acclaimed albums for Columbia Records, Illinois Speed Press and Duet. ISP was so loved that these albums have recently been re-released by popular demand.

Kal and Paul’s efforts with Illinois Speed Press served them well, for as Paul went on to become guitarist for Poco, Kal moved to Woodstock, New York, where he formed the Fabulous Rhinestones with ex-Electric Flag bassist Harvey Brooks. They recorded three well-received albums: Fabulous Rhinestones, Freewheelin’ for Paramount Records, and Rhinestones for 20th Century Records. With the Rhinestones, Kal refined his talents as a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter to the point where even today, long after its disbanding, the group is remembered with fondness and respect for its musical contributions.

While in Woodstock Kal met his singing, writing and production partner, Miss Lauri Bono, who is a featured member of Kal’s band. After a move to Los Angeles in 1978, Kal and Lauri made a commitment to the Blues. In the studio or on tour, it was evident in their work with Blues great, Etta James, or Louisiana’s own, Johnny Rivers, Kal on guitar and Miss Lauri and Kal on vocals. In the mid eighties Miss Lauri did a short stint with Bette Midler as a Harlette and Kal joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers as featured vocalist and guitarist, replacing Mick Taylor.

As a solo artist in his own right, Kal recorded two albums for SoulCoast Records, Never a Dull Moment and Double Tuff featuring the Tower of Power Horns. With chart topping, impressive sales internationally and numerous television appearances, including a one hour Kal David special on Ohne Filter, Germany’s premier concert series, Kal’s reputation for amazing performances has grown.

A move to Palm Springs, California in search of a more relaxed and creative environment resulted in a decision by Kal and Lauri to open their own incredible Blues club, Blue Guitar. They successfully ran and performed there for more than 6 years. Many of the Blues greats like King Earnest, Finas Tasby, Johnny Dyer, JJ “Badboy Jones,” and Randy Chortkoff and many more were often featured artists in their shows. They delighted many audiences from near and far. They created a “Blue Guitar family,” and when they sold the club in 2004 to keep up with the demand for touring, they were inducted into the Palm Springs Walk of Stars and presented with their own star in front of Blue Guitar. Three live CDs; Kal David… Live at Blue Guitar… by Request, Kal David… Live at Blue Guitar… Last Call and Lauri Bono… Live at Blue Guitar… Last Call, were recorded there.

Kal’s dedication to the proliferation of the music he loves has inspired him to pass along his knowledge and experience to the younger generations. As a guest artist at the esteemed Berklee College of Music, Kal has given several lectures/performances for eager groups of some of the finest upcoming talent in the country. In addition to Berklee, Kal has also taught at the National Guitar Workshop. He and Lauri raise funds and give lectures whenever possible to put instruments and music back in the schools. They believe that every child should have the right and access to music education. It is a proven fact that it helps in all other aspects of learning. Music defines our lives and lights the fire of passion. In another teaching endeavor, Kal’s very popular Blues Guitar Master Class DVD series is fueling the fire for a lot of new and established guitar players. Kal says, “It is incredibly wonderful and satisfying to share my years of learning and passion for what I do with a class and know that I have made a difference in their lives!”

In 2010 Kal and Lauri self produced their latest CD, Crossroads of My Life on the Crytone Record label. This CD pays tribute to Kal’s past 40 years in the recording business… reworking old favorites and newly written songs, all culminating in the title track, “Crossroads of My Life.” The CD has received critical acclaim, and the honor of being in the top 100 for radio play for 2011.

To fully experience Kal David’s tremendous talent, you must see him live. Kal’s soul-baring voice and blazing guitar playing along with Miss Lauri’s sassy, soulful vocals will provide you with an unparalleled electrifying performance!

“Years ago I started a jam at the Cinegrill, in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel…. It was one of those nights when a lot of players were just coming on stage unannounced and took a turn playing the Blues. One of those players was Kal David. Kal just plugged in and started playing on some long blues medley we were playing. When it came to his solo, it was like a flashback to my childhood in South Louisiana when the real players such as B.B. King, Johnny Guitar Watson, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, and the like would come thru town. The best of the players knew, this guy was the real deal…. I had found my favorite guitar players all wrapped up in one. Kal’s vocal style and sound matched his guitar playing – it was also the “real deal.” Growing up in Chicago had served him well. However, his singing and playing have since evolved into much more. Kal David has become a combo of all the best Blues guitar and vocal styles of the last 35 years….”

-Johnny Rivers

Guest Category: Performing Arts, Entertainment, Music
Guest Occupation: Music Artist of the Year and Vocalist
Guest Biography:

LAURI BONO

“Artist of the Year”

Kal David and Lauri Bono LIVING THE DREAM

Article by Bruce J Maier of www.damngoodtunes.com

We don’t give away a lot of awards here at DGT. This is due to the fact that we talk to hundreds of artists every year and we try to remain un-biased even if we really dig someone’s work. But each year a few are so outstanding that we just can’t ignore their contribution to music and to the arts. And for that reason, Kal David, with Miss Lauri Bono with their totally insane smash album, “Living The Dream” become our Top Artist(s) of the entire year!

To say that Kal David is just a great Blues Guitarist would be a shame, although he is. But then again other Blues guitarists don’t even come close to the wide range of his styles, the colors on his palette if you will. A short while after the fuzzy glow of the British Invasion had subsided a bit, and being a guitar player myself I immediately started listening to BB King, Muddy and one particular English fellow named John Mayall and his band, the Blues Breakers as I was seeking a higher meaning and more depth, feeling, and that elusive element known as “soul “. The Blues Breakers were home to many great guitar players including Jimi Page and Eric Clapton and one very young and talented Kal David, who was with the band touring and making records for some three years. Knowing that tidbit of history will make most reviewers pen a pretty convincing argument that Mr. David is indeed a fine and experienced Blues Guitarist, which as I said earlier – he is. But they’d miss his depth and the mark by a mile!

Kal David is a singer. He is a true vocalist, a professional with way above average vocal chops to be called a Blues singer. Few of the known men and women in the Blues really have much of a great voice at all with certain exceptions. And if asked, they would probably never dispute that claim either. For example, the now very rich and famous icon of Blues-Pop, Sir Eric Clapton who came from the same school of knocks “across the pond “as most of the American Blues legends had done and had to fight his own long battle upward to stardom, but when you talk to people that you think should know their music, they just go on about the old days of Cream and Yardbirds with no talk of the great songs he wrote and sang and earned Grammys on. He too was passed over as a singer by the critics and the media but I’ve always disagreed with that nonsense. Same is true for Kal David, as when I talked to many of my Blues connections and they speak about his guitar playing, saying how great he was on the guitar years back with little mention about his singing and original songs. Now though, I have re-discovered just what a total “all-around “musician he is and I feel he deserves all the same respect as Sir Eric is accustomed to. And I know that’s a big pill to swallow for some of you but it is this writers’ opinion that the world is about to wake up to a living legend of music, not just the Blues. And then, this is where the road starts to really divide and get interesting….

Miss Lauri Bono, music partner for many years to Mr. David is fully featured in this new record of theirs called “ Living The Dream “ and she is one of the most dynamic and amazing female vocalists I’ve heard in decades! You know how it is, with all these reality Talent shows on TV these days, with the seasonal new crop and even some old bloods who come on to compete with their trademark vocal “ gymnastics. These are the girls who sing a hundred notes a measure just to show that they heard Aretha records and they have something to prove, never knowing that as in the guitar like Kal knows how to play, less is always more. Lauri sings in a way that she can sound like soft velvet or turn on the gravel and guts – raising the old goose bumps on your arm and then, she pulls you right back into another soft passage of her angelic flute- like whispers of melody and you just say whoa…..and it’s like something spiritual just happened in front of the whole church-audience….yep, someone got saved! Now I don’t know a great deal about Miss Lauri and her own up-bringing or where she studied music but I know it is a gift. A gift that she has chosen to share with Kal David as they traverse the globe making records playing concerts, television shows and major VIP events. Most acts that consist of two great singers will usually take turns in the spot light but rarely an act like Peaches and Herb, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, Barry Gibb and Barbara Streisand – all seventies legends I might add – comes along and makes music history together singing as a real duet. Music, at least Pop and Country music has for the most part missed this element of the male-female duets and the power of two to tell a story. It worked well for Kenny and Dolly on “Islands In The Stream” and also Lionel and Diana with their “Endless Love “, but producers seem to focus differently these days on developing one icon at a time, one song of the week and one flavor of the month than to foster and market the passion and the power of a duet, as evidenced in this incredible new record by Kal David and Lauri Bono and released on Crytone Records.

We’ve been blessed with this magazine because of all the amazing talent and rising stars we’ve been able to meet, interview and review. And there have been hundreds of talented bands and singer-songwriters! There have been Blues artists who are really great at what they do and some of them were already major stars when we met them, and many were on their way to the top but not one of them were anywhere like or on the level of Kal David and Miss Lauri here on their brand new record, “ Living The Dream “ . There’s something so very special about the chemistry between the notes. You can’t just say “Oh Kal is the star here and write a review about him because they are a TEAM. And a team works synergistically toward the greater good of the total performance, the compete record. The members of the team don’t think they are better than the other; they co-exist because of and for each other. Perfect Harmony.

So we give this award whole-heartedly but not lightly. Kal David and Miss Lauri Bono are the most deserving Artists of the year but if we gave awards for best male-female vocal performance, they would win that one too! Every track of Living The Dream is great and I’ve played it over and over for a month now in my car whenever I travel, so I don’t have a favorite because they are all, forgive the pun….damn good tunes !

Guest Category: Performing Arts, Entertainment, Music
Guest Occupation: Filmmaker, author, advocate
Guest Biography:

Betsy is an award-winning filmmaker (What The Bleep Do We Know?!, Song of The New Earth, Pregnant In America) and a Best-Selling Author (Tipping Sacred Cows, Dancing In The Unknown (new), It Came out of My Vagina, Now What?! (A book on Conscious Parenting). She recently launched a new web series Radical Dating which follows 5 singles over 40 as they embark on a journey to finally find lasting love.

Guest Category: Entertainment, Love & Relationships, Physics & Metaphysics, Personal Development, Access Consciousness, TV & Film
Guest Occupation: American actress, filmmaker, producer
Guest Biography:

Bio Taken from Jennifer's Website Bio Page:

- Snip -

Jennifer is an American actress and filmmaker who is perhaps best known for writing and starring in the indie hits Kissing Jessica Stein and Friends With Kids.

Jennifer started her career as a New York-based theater actor, starring in over 25 Off-Broadway and regional productions before coming to Hollywood in 1997. Within weeks of her arrival, she landed a series regular role in ABC’s Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place, alongside Ryan Reynolds, Traylor Howard and Richard Ruccolo. That same year, she co-wrote and starred in an Off-Broadway play with Heather Juergensen called Lipschtick: The Story of Two Women Seeking The Perfect Shade, which caught the attention of Hollywood studios. The play was optioned by Radar Pictures to be made into a film, starring Westfeldt and Juergensen.

After one season on Two Guys, 20th Century Fox Studios pulled Jennifer from that show to cast her as the lead of another show for them, the short-lived Holding The Baby on Fox.

While Westfeldt was busy shooting sitcoms, she and Juergensen were also hard at work developing their play into a screenplay. Frustrated by the slow pace of studio development, they bought the rights back to their script and decided to make their film independently, on a shoestring budget. The film was Kissing Jessica Stein.

- Snip -

Guest Category: Arts, Performing Arts, TV & Film
Guest Occupation: licensed social worker, certified Reiki master, certified hypnotherapist, and provides meditation seminars throughout the country
Guest Biography:

Jacob Cooper, LMSW, RMT, CH is a world renowned public speaker on the afterlife. Through his profound Near Death Experience (NDE), he empowers others through educating and answering the mystery about life on the other side of the veil. He works closely with those who experience similar journeys in a monthly group forum, and provides services for individuals by appointment. Jacob is a licensed social worker, certified Reiki master, certified hypnotherapist, and provides meditation seminars throughout the country.

Since a young age, Jacob has been in touch with the spirit realm. In sharing his experience and message to others, he brings lightness towards death, and helps others re-remember their spiritual truths.

Jacob is also the Director and Founder for the Long Island (LI) Chapter of the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS) and conducts monthly support groups. He facilitates a comforting, supportive, and educational group for those who experienced or have interest in the Near Death Experiences (NDE), Out of Body Experiences (OBE) and Spiritual Transformative Experiences (STE). Guest lecturers for the Long Island chapter of IANDS include those who had NDE’s, OBE’s or STE’S, as well as individuals with expertise and insight into the hereafter. Jacob was recently a panelist and guest speaker at the IANDS annual convention in August, 2017 in Westminster Colorado where he shared his NDE .

He is a Reiki master and provides Reiki healing sessions for mind, body and spirit. He is also a certified hypnotherapist and provides private and group sessions.

He is a guest lecturer for several Wellness and Metaphysical Centers on LI, and has presented at local libraries throughout LI. Jacob currently provides mindfulness and hypnotherapy workshops and classes at Adelphi University and other collegiate programs in the tri-state area.

He is a published writer for metaphysical and spiritual blogs, newsletters and magazines, and has been a featured guest on multiple radio and television programs. He is also in the process of writing his own book about his own NDE and OBE’s, among many other themes.

When he is not at the podium providing spiritual healing or writing, Jacob provides services as a licensed master social worker and is employed as a mental health counselor. His website is: https://jacoblcooper.com/about/

Guest Category: Entertainment, Kids & Family, Paranormal, Self Help, Society and Culture, Spiritual, Variety
Guest Occupation: Healer, Ascension Guide and International Teacher
Guest Biography:

Deborah Mills is a gifted healer, ascension guide and international teacher who has been involved in Healing Arts for over 30 years.  She is the Director of Soul Focused Healing and teaches 18 Month Certification Programs in the Esoteric Art of Energy Medicine and self-mastery through a modern expression of the Ancient Wisdom Teachings. Deborah assists people in awakening to deeper levels of their Divine Essence and purpose, navigating from the limitations of the personality into the freedom of the Soul aligned with the Heart of God.

Deborah is also a liaison for the Ascended Masters and has been leading annual Sacred Journey Retreats to Mount Shasta since 2008 and serves as an ambassador for the ancient 5th Dimensional Lemurian community of Telos.

At the request of the Ascended Masters, Deborah has been co-facilitating Mastery Trainings in Mount Shasta with them since 2009. In 2015 the Masters asked her to take these trainings out beyond Mount Shasta which she continues to do, assisting people to awaken to deeper levels of their Divinity or I AM Presence within the heart.

Deborah is the Executive Director of the School of Healing and Enlightenment, a Global Project to help educate and support the awakening 5th Dimensional Consciousness on Earth. She is dedicated to the evolution of humanity and the Completion of the Plan of Light on Earth.

Guest Category: Energy Healing, Access Consciousness, Medium & Channeling, Clairvoyant & Telepathic, Mystic & Seer, Psychic & Intuitive
Guest Occupation: Culinary-team-building expert, speaker, prosperity coach, author
Guest Biography:

As the CTO/founder of CEO Chef Consulting, Jim Connolly believes in a purpose-driven business. In other words, We help businesses like yours, align your purpose to creating a fulfilling life, make effective use of your time, and help you achieve the results that matter to you.”

Jim is a culinary-team-building expert, speaker, prosperity coach, and author of two books and a soon-to-be-released third: Creating Leaders to Build Teams: Aligning Your Purpose Toward a Winning Work Culture.

He has the honor to call organizations like Facebook and Google among his list of clients.

Guest Category: Business, Philosophy, Personal Development, Self Help, Inspirational, Motivational
Guest Occupation: Writer, Author
Guest Biography:

Michelle Paquette began her writing career at the tender age of 10, winning many school accolades and awards. Since that time, her writing career has included working as a Magazine Editor and Freelance Writer, covering a multitude of genres. Her professional roles have included Script Reader and Screenwriter Coach, Marketing Director, Corporate Spokesperson, Motivational Speaker, Public Relations Guru and Media Coach. For the past decade, Michelle has worked with corporations in all areas of communications and marketing, both domestic and international, developing strategic partnerships, conducting media interviews, organizing press conferences and attending industry events and trade shows. Michelle holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and English.   

She is one of the authors in the newly released book, Positive Minded People. Her chapter “Just Knowing” talks about her trials and tribulations in life, the power of positivity and the importance of following your intuition.

You can follow her on Instagram at PaquettePR or Facebook at Michelle Paquette. You can also email her directly at mpaquette27@gmail.com.