VINCE CONVERSE.

Houston-born singer/songwriter/guitarist Vince Converse began his musical career while still a sophomore in high school. He and his band, Sunset Heights, played blues-inflected rock in venues that he was still too young to patronize, appeared on international TV, and toured with acts like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Johnny Winter, Peter Green, and Fats Domino. After playing with the group for seven years, Converse struck out on his own, moved to South Dakota, and released a solo album, 1999's Nineteen Fifteen, named after the birth year of Muddy Waters. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide

Sunset Heights -- comprising Converse, bassist Jason "Big Daddy" Youngblood and drummer "Li'l Joe" Frenchwood -- is attempting just that with the release of Texas Tea, first in Germany, then in the States, and the initial returns look promising enough. Texas Tea was quickly named album of the month in the German press, and ZZ Top has been contributing welcome exposure by playing tracks off the album as pre-concert music for its stadium shows on the present Antenna tour. Converse has also been tapped as the only American player to contribute to the forthcoming A Blues Tribute to Peter Green -- honoring the founding member of the original Fleetwood Mac -- on the Viceroy label, which also handles Sunset Heights. As I write, Sunset Heights is on a three-week promotional tour through Europe, where SRV-style guitar slingers are looked upon with more anticipation than skepticism. 

  Converse, who entered the world of live music through high school saxophone and various skatepunk bands, met Youngblood at Houston's Kempner High School, where the two began jamming together. Converse contributed a blues fluency he credits to his guitar-playing stepfather, and Youngblood brought in his uncle as manager. With the addition of a drummer, the trio played its first gig in a Heights icehouse.

By 1992, with present drummer Frenchwood in place, Sunset Heights was steadily making the rounds of Texas blues-rock venues, playing energetic sets liberally sprinkled with SRV and Hendrix covers. A year later, the band had collected enough of a following to find themselves voted Best Up-and-Comers in this paper's annual reader's poll, and had developed a tight mutual empathy for the fat, authoritative blues tone of its forebears.

-- Brad Tyer