The Cheetles

The Cheetles are a group of legendary, or at least noteworthy, Chicago musicians. They have dedicated themselves to performing history’s greatest catalogue of music with the respect and dedication that classical musicians devote to Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Conceived by born-and-bred Chicagoan James Coffey, the project requires a particular skill-set, and more than a mere fab four. “Right off the bat, I knew I’d need six people to pull this off”, relates Coffey. The “six” are vocalist Skid Marks (Charming Beggars, Box-O-Car, The Ladies & Gentlemen), percussionist Larry Beers (Mucca Pazza, Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra) bassist Dann Morr (Wells Next The Sea, The Gear, The Clambs) multi-instrumentalists Tom Slater (Thomas Pace) and Donnie Briggs (The Sprague Brothers, The Gear, The Brunswicks), and Coffey. “There’s just so much going on in every song”, says Coffey. “This isn’t just a ‘cover band’. The idea is to treat this like classical music, with the recordings serving as our ‘scores’. Every hand-clap, vocal double-track, nuance, and even mistake has to be faithfully reproduced. Once we get a couple of shows under our belts, we can start devoting time to transcribing all the orchestrations, and working in additional musicians. Eventually, this band will be able to perform every single song the Beatles have written, precisely as they were recorded. We might even bring in real livestock when we play ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’”.  Sounds like quite an ambitious undertaking.

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