STREET BEAT LOCAL ARTIST PROFILE FEATURE 

TONY & CHERYLE 

by Ernie Thomas 

Chicago-born and raised bass player Tony Klimczak had a hard time concentrating about sixteen months ago, when his former blues band Big Ticket & The Hungry Brothers played a private party at the Lake Of The Four Seasons Clubhouse in Crown Point, Indiana.    

“I just couldn’t stop watching the waitress,” he laughed.  Klimczak ultimately made the Hoosier honey his new musical partner and the acoustic duo of Tony & Cheryle was born.  He has gone from singing the blues to singing the praise of his new musical and personal union.  “We just got married this July” he crowed.    

Born into a musical family, Klimczak has been playing guitar for 40 years.  “I started the year the Beatles came (1964) and I’ve been playing ever since,” he said.      

“I’ve been singing and playing guitar since I was little, but never played in a club before I met Tony,” said the former Cheryle Machowicz.   “I’m having the time of my life!  I should’ve done this a long time ago! ”      

Cheryle took guitar lessons as a child, to accompany herself while singing.  “I remember sitting on my bed, practicing and singing for hours,” she said, citing her dad’s old Jane Oliver records as her biggest influence. “I loved the way her voice sounded.”    Cheryle’s biggest audience up until last summer had been those attending “Guitar Mass” at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Hazelcrest, Illinois.      

Klimczak currently moonlights as bassist for The Calumet Brothers, a jazzy rock band from the region, but the duo is his passion.   “I love playing with Cheryle,” he said.  “She’s an amazing singer who knows no boundaries.  She’s willing to tackle any tune, and somehow she always makes it work, like when she insisted we do The Temptations’ ‘Just My Imagination.’  That song should not work as a duo, but it does with her.”     

Growing up in Detroit, soul music impacted Cheryle, and it shows when she belts out songs by Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin and others.    

“I call what we do ‘Extreme Acoustic’ music,” said Klimczak.  “We make the most music possible for just two people. We both sing and play acoustic guitar and we switch off on electric bass. I play harmonica and Cheryle plays different percussion instruments.”   

 “What we play depends on the audience we’re in front of,” added Cheryle.   “We know over 100 songs,” said Klimczak.  “We do Stones, Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, if it’s an older crowd.  And Incubus, Stained, Alanis Morrissette and Alice In Chains if its a younger crowd.”  A dozen country tunes are also on tap should an audience have a mind to “boot scoot ‘n’ boogie.”    

A half dozen original songs, soon to be immortalized on CD, also get slipped in to a typical night’s set.  “Two that get great response are ‘Abandoned’ and ‘Trigger Stuck’ that Cheryle wrote,” said Klimczak, who also writes.    

The duo play 4-6 night club gigs a month, frequenting places like Shannon’s Landing in Lansing, The Coachlight Inn in Chesterton and House of Brews in Crown Point, as well as local coffeehouses.   

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