Tonio K. Artistfacts

Tonio K. song list

Tonio K. Artistfacts

July 4, 1950
He was born Steve Krikorian in Palm Desert, California.
Before becoming a solo artist in the L.A. music scene, Krikorian was in the post-Buddy Holly Crickets.
His three albums were released on three different labels.
He went on to co-write "Love Is," recorded by Vanessa Williams and Brian McKnight. It went to #1.
When Tonio K was at high school, he had ambitions of becoming an architect. However he decided he wasn't mathematical enough to pursue it as a career option. Tonio told us: "I gave up on architecture when I had to give up on math or start studying. I got through algebra okay without doing any homework or a little homework, but by the time I got to trig, it was, you can't do this s--t if you're not going to go home and do homework. You really have to study this."
Tonio considers "We Walk On" to be his best ever song. "Certainly not the most commercial," he told us, "but if I had to pick one song, that's the best song I've ever written, 'We Walk On.'" And if I was to put out one old school 45 with a big hole in the middle, I would have 'We Walk On' on one side and 'The Executioner's Song' on the other side."

Comments: 1

The Cat's Still In The Freezer from ArizonaTonio K turned my life upside down when I first heard Life In The Food Chain. it was a dark time for me. Tonio taught me that I had to "laugh at the fact that there ain't nothin funny". That was 40odd years ago. I wrote a fangirl letter. His publicist sent pithy press releases, and someone, I'd like to think Tonio himself, scrawled in the margins " is the cat still in the freezer?" Never understood that, but from that day on, I've kept a ceramic cat right where it belongs. I started feeling my anger ( H.A.T.R.E.D.), dancing out my feelings, and never again sat in a bathtub at 3am watching my blood swirl prettily into the water. AMERIKA might be my all time favorite album. I needed those songs for fuel to get down the road.

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More Songfacts:

We Built This CityStarship

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DarlinAvril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne's 2011 song "Darlin" was written much earlier; she says it's the second song she ever wrote, composed when she was an unsigned 15-year-old living in Napanee, Ontario. The song reflects those years when she was "trying to figure it all out."

StayShakespears Sister

"Stay" by Shakespears Sister is based on a 1953 B-movie called Cat-Women Of The Moon.

Amarillo By MorningGeorge Strait

"Amarillo By Morning" got its title from a Fed Ex commercial that promised to deliver packages the next day to places like Amarillo. It's George Strait's most famous song, but was written and originally released by Terry Stafford nine years earlier.