About the Band Members

Lloyd Bashkin GUITAR & VOCALS,
founding member of mrCharlie, is known widely for his soulful musical expressions. Lloyd's personal friendship with Jerry Garcia and other members of the Grateful Dead to varying degrees over the years, has greatly influenced his musical style. He has performed with Merl Saunders (from the Saunders/Garcia band), Pieces of a Dream, musicians from Van Morrison and Bob Dylan's bands and has played guitar with Jerry Garcia.

Toby Hill
BASS & VOCALS
Toby is an exceptionally talented bass player who has performed with numerous national artists.

Tamer Tewfik
PIANO & VOCALS
Tamer is classically trained pianist and vocalist. He holds a B.A. in Music and M.A. in Teaching from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He has performed from Maine to Moscow with greats Les Paul, Grover Washington, Jr. and Stanley Clarke. His jazz recordings and ensembles can be found on tamertewfik.com. When Tamer heard he could improvise in a rock band, he jumped on the chance to join mrCharlie.

Mick Joey
DRUMS
There are several talented drummers in the mrCharlie family. Each one brings a unique vision and interpretation to the mrCharlie sound. It is one of the main reasons why no two mrCharlie concerts ever sound alike.

There are tribute bands. And there are cover bands. And then there is mrCharlie. The five-piece, Philadelphia-based band is redrawing music boundaries with a one-of-kind, sonic blueprint that conjures classic rock and soul music in a manner inspired by the Grateful Dead.

“We are not a Dead cover band,” remarks mrCharlie’s founder, lead vocalist and guitarist, Lloyd Bashkin. Instead, he explains, the group’s concept is to re-imagine songs by the likes of The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, The Stones, Sting and Bob Dylan in a way that makes the listener hear — and experience — them in new and surprising ways, just as the Grateful Dead interpreted such diverse artists as Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry, Wanda Jackson and Dylan.

“We all grew up loving classic rock, Motown, reggae … the most classic rock and soul of the 1960s and ‘70s,” says Bashkin, who has actually played guitar with Jerry Garcia. “This is an opportunity to fuse our appreciation and love of The Dead and to take that incredibly creative improvisation the Dead do and fuse it with these classic songs.”

While there is no mistaking the aural similarities between mrCharlie and the Dead, that is a purely organic happenstance, rather than a calculated game plan.

“It’s not our goal to sound like the Dead,” explains Bashkin. “But because many of us, myself included, learned our instruments playing along to their music, the Dead has become an integral part of how we think about music. The result is a fusion between the Dead and how they experience music, with the classic love of rock and soul that we grew up on.

“The combination is awesome, it’s moving. And it cuts an irresistible groove that reaches my core.”