Sun King Rising ~ Rock Recording Artist Special Guest On 3/21/2022

Rock music and biomedical science are strange bedfellows, but it is the bed that PeacockSunrise recording artist, John Blangero, has made for himself. One listen to his soulful album, “Delta Tales” by alter-ego Sun King Rising will make the oddness of that pairing seem almost normal. Neither his music nor his work as a renowned genetic scientist are strange at all, it turns out. Call it “The Genetics of Soul.” Blangero quickly displayed prodigious musical gifts when he started taking piano lessons at age five in his hometown of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Five years later, he had absorbed not only the fundamentals of classical music, but also gospel and rock music. He joined his first rock band at 14 and was soon composing and singing his own music. Apprenticeships in a series of area bands culminated in the formation of his own original band, called Harlequin, with which he attained regional popularity throughout the fertile Pennsylvania/Ohio/West Virginia market At the height of the band’s popularity, though, he put music on the back burner to obtain his Ph.D. and become an active biomedical research scientist. During his twenty-year musical hiatus, he ascended to rock star stature in the international scientific community. But the music lying dormant within Blangero’s spirit would not remain silent. Playing casually with blues bands in San Antonio toward the end of the 21st century rekindled Blangero’s creative spark and prompted him to begin writing new songs. On October 2, 2020, PeacockSunrise Record released his first solo album—Delta Tales. Its songs are expressions of the soul and gospel influences that shaped him. Call it “The Rebirth of Classic Southern Rock & Soul.” “While Sun King Rising is not a full-blown band,” Blangero explains, I will be putting a touring band together around it in early 2022. Delta Tales is focused on my love of more organic rock music like that of Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, early Elton John, Dan Penn, and a host of others. It reflects my love of southern rock and Texas soul. I titled the album Delta Tales because it focuses on southern themes and because I live in the Texas delta of the Rio Grande Valley. “ Produced by Steven “Ace” Acker, formerly of notable 1970s MCA recording artists LAW, the album is a collection of ten original songs and one rather obscure 1968 R&B gem titled, “The Snake.” It was a complex production involving multiple studios and numerous session players and singers scattered throughout the country during the height of the global Covid-19 pandemic. While not a concept album, per se, “Delta Tales” is thematically coherent. It is about the southern experience. Its songs are vignettes of love found, love lost, family, faith, historical burden, betrayal, sin, and redemption set in a southern cultural landscape. Yet, they are also universal themes. 2 | Page PeacockSunrise Records ● A division of Melodic Revolution Records 1065 E State Rd 434 ● Box 5133 ● Winter Springs, Florida ● 32708 Throughout its production, Blangero continued his work at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley while living in Port Isabel, TX. He and his colleagues at the University and throughout the world worked tirelessly on the genetics of human response to COVID-19 infection. That he was able to concurrently record the album is a powerful testament to Blangero’s amazing mind and talent. PeacockSunrise president, Nick Katona, recalls, “When I first heard John’s material, I thought ‘Oh my God, this music is amazing.’ I told him ‘You have got to release these songs. You've got to be on our label.” Blangero and Katona decided to focus their early marketing efforts on the U.K. and Europe during the first half of 2020. A big radio push and full-page ads in major music magazines like Classic Rock, RnR, Relix, and others resulted in many 4 and 5-star reviews, interviews, radio airplay, and massive Spotify streams. For the second half of this year, they are turning their attention to North and South America and to Sun King Rising’s second album. Plans are to record the second album in late Fall or early Winter, followed by live tours and festivals around the world on the heels of its Spring 2022 release. Sun King Rising Online Website: https://www.sunkingrising.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SunKingRising Bandcamp: https://peacocksunriserecords.com/project/sun-king-rising/ PSR: https://peacocksunriserecords.com/sun-king-rising/