Backyard Breeze Band

About Us

The Backyard Breeze Band plays an eclectic combination of rock, blues, country, island, & other genres in both electric and acoustic setups. We mix beloved cover songs with killer originals and are available for public and private performances in and around the front range of the Colorado Rockies. (see Contact Us form at bottom)

Photo Gallery

Demo reel

Meet the Band

Michael james roberts

lead vocals

Mike is a classically trained singer and multi-instrumentalist. He was born into a musical family and was picking out tunes on the piano as soon as he could reach the keyboard. A fan of the western cowboy tv shows that were popular at the time, Michael taught himself to play the bugle at the age of 7 so he could play cavalry charges much to the chagrin of his parents.

Singing in the school choruses and playing trumpet in the school bands all through school gave way to the guitar and folk and rock music at the age of 16. Michael and his younger brother Gordon were soon performing in coffeehouses and other venues available to young teens and were always big fans of vocal harmonies with the special blend that comes from familial voices. Michael also began to write songs at this time.

As a vocal performance major in college Michael continued performing solo and in various groups in coffeehouses and the like and performed in college recitals and choruses. Michael and his brother soon moved to California and formed a band called Oro that became a cult favorite in the Santa Barbara area.

Marriage introduced a change in Michael’s life with a degree in computer science and a career in IT and soon a family. He continued to play solo and in bands and write music as allowed by his work and family schedules. Retired from the IT world and kids grown, Michael is once again concentrating full-time on music and is loving his musical life.

Michael believes that passion is a necessary component of any musical performance and strives to bring that to the stage in every performance.

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Hardy Wright

Lead guitar

Hardy is a military brat, who by the age of 5 had traveled to every state in the contiguous United States, and spent a year in Japan, immediately after the Korean War. He loved Liberace and TV westerns, along with Howdy Doody, and other kids shows. Even at that age, it was not uncommon for him to be moving around the house humming or singing one of the popular tunes of the day.

After Japan his family returned to Denver and Hardy began performing at the age of 6, when, knowing his fascination with singing, he was enrolled by his parents in the Fred and Faye Talent school. It was associated with the popular Fred and Faye Show, a regular kid’s show on local TV, and performed on the show several times doing brief song and dance numbers.

Later, he sang in the school chorus and developed an ear for vocal harmony, and began folk guitar lessons at 14, after moving to Arlington, VA. He played in three bands in high school, at local venues and private parties. By this time his interests had moved towards the newly emerging rock from England, by groups like Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the Who. After graduation in 1968, at the age of 17, his family moved back to Colorado.

On arrival, he connected with an old friend from his childhood, who introduced him to the blues, and they spent hours listening to Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, BB King, and Willie Dixon, among others. It was an interest that was to shape his guitar playing to the present day. He joined a band, Union Dues in the early 80s and began writing songs. He played the Colorado bar scene for the next 18 years.

When Union Dues ended, he was approached to play guitar and sing baritone in a Doo Wop/Oldies band, the Nostalgics. For the next 20 years, they played select venues all over the city with some of the best four-part harmonies to be had. During that period, Hardy joined Danny and the Fried Shrimp, a jam band that played half original, and half covers in an open format, often inviting other locally known musicians up to the stage to sit in. After 20 years, the Nostalgics broke up, and Danny Pitcher, the leader of the Fried Shrimp passed away from brain cancer.

This was a time of great personal and musical emptiness; as luck would have it, while receiving radiation treatment for his own cancer, he met his current bandmates, and the music was a very healing experience.The group has been playing ever since, in one form or another, resulting in the Backyard Breeze Band.

Best quote: “They’ll have to pry this guitar from my cold dead hands…”

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Doug Swanson

Badass Bass

Doug Swanson started playing bass at 16 after developing fingers of steel learning guitar on a Silvertone flattop. He learned to play guitar from a Beatles songbook and was in a folk duo that evolved into an electric garage band—The Spring Street Society—notably one of the first multi-racial teen bands in the Saint Louis area, carting around their gear in an old milk truck. The band had a lot of fun and gained experience playing frat parties and house parties. Doug moved with his younger brother Fred and formed a country/ rockabilly/ blues band, Smokehouse, through most of the ‘70s.

Marriage and kids intervened and becoming a psychopathic workaholic became Doug’s focus. Fortunately, he realized that playing music would set him free, and he began playing bass furiously every night. He is now nearly completely harmless while he works to be a better bassist.

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debra buenting

The Dr drummer

Debra wanted to play drums and be in a band since she saw a certain British band on a Sunday night variety show at about age seven. She started beating coffee cans with pencils and used whatever she could get her hands on to beat out rhythms (including school books and desks). When given the opportunity to study music at school, she expressed her desire to drum. However, her parents thought it would be more lady-like to play something else, like the flute, so she studied clarinet for nine years, playing in marching and concerts bands.

Deb picked up guitar around the same time as the clarinet (age 11) and played electric guitar in high school and college jazz bands. At home and occasionally with bands, she built a drum kit and played when possible. She studied music theory in college before moving to Europe, where she played on a few albums.

Drumming was on and off again for several years until Deb was encouraged by one of her students to join a weekly open jam where she enjoyed getting her groove back. She is delighted to play with Backyard Breeze when she’s not teaching college, camping in her newly renovated 1964 camper or hiking with her dog, Panda.

Deb says, “I love to see the joy on people’s faces when they connect with the music, the band and each other.

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Video Gallery

Song List

BLUES

Baby Please Don’t Go

Baby What You Want Me to Do

Big Boss Man

Bright Lights Big City

Caldonia

Feels Like Rain

Key to the Highway

Messin’ With the Kid

One Way Out

Since I Fell for You

Smokestack Lightnin’

Thrill is Gone

You Let Me Down

ORIGINALS

Against the Night

All for You

Buffalo Blues

Don’t Spill The Beans

I Like to Dance

I’m Trouble

Jamaica Blues

Makes No Sense

Oro de Colombia

Pass or Play

Some People

We Thought You Were Dead

Grateful Dead

Bertha

Casey Jones

Deep Elem

Fire on the Mountain

Friend of the Devil

I Know You Rider

Me and My Uncle

Ripple

Rock & Pop

Ain’t No Sunshine

Babylon

Blue Suede Shoes

California Dreamin’

Can’t always Get what you Want

Cathy’s Clown

Dear Mr. Fantasy Amie

Don’t Let Me Down

Down Sally

Everybody’s Talkin’

Five O’clock World

Fooled Around and Fell in Love

For What It’s Worth

For Your Love

Get Back

Gimme a Little Sign

Harvest Moon

Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Heart Full of Soul Feeling Alright

Honky Tonk Women

I Feel Fine

I Saw Her Standing There

I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water

I Wish it Would Rain

I’m no Angel

I’m on Fire

Into the Mystic

Just the Two of Us

Lean On Me

Live With Me

Magnolia Lay

Mary Jane's Last Dance

Memphis

Moondance

People Are Strange

Roadhouse Blues

Simple Man

Sloop John B

Stand By Me

Tupelo Honey

Under the Boardwalk

Use Me

Ventura Highway

Waiting on a Friend

Walk Right Back

Wild Horses You Never Can Tell

Your Mama Don’t Dance

COUNTRY

Already Gone

Amie

Bartender’s Blues

Best of My Love

Flowers On The Wall

Folsom Prison Blues

Good Time Charlie

Guitars, Cadillacs

Help Me Make it Through the Night

I Can’t Help It if I’m Still in Love With You

King of the Road

Long Black Veil

Mama Tried

Peaceful Easy Feelin’

Six Days on the Road

Take it Easy

Tennessee Whiskey

Tequila Sunrise

The end is not in Sight

Third Rate Romance

Truck Drivin’ Man

Tulsa Time

Your Cheatin’ Heart

Americana & country

Already Gone

Amie

Angel From Montgomery

Bartender’s Blues

Best of My Love

Bird in the House

Copperhead Road

Country

Crazy Love

Dark Hollow

Desperadoes

Evangelina

Flowers On The Wall

Folsom Prison Blues

Good Time Charlie

Guitars, Cadillacs

Help Me Make it Through the Night

Henry

Homeward Bound

I Can’t Help It if I’m Still in Love With You

I Shall Be Released

In the Jailhouse

Killin’ the Blues

King of the Road

Long Black Veil

Mama Tried

My Window Faces the South

Navajo Rug

Night Rider’s Lament

Now Mr. Bojangles

Old Number 7

Panama Red

Paradise

Peaceful Easy Feelin’

Rose of Cimarron

Six Days on the Road

Sounds of Silence

Spanish Pipedream

Take it Easy

Tennessee Whiskey

Tequila Sunrise

The Boxer

The Shape I’m In

The Weight

Third Rate Romance

Truck Drivin’ Man

Tulsa Time

Up on Cripple Creek

Waitin’ for a Train

Whiskey

Will the Circle be Unbroken

Willin’

Your Cheatin’ Heart

Take it Easy

Sample Recordings

1

Thrill Is Gone 4:29

0:00/4:29
2

Ain't No Sunshine 4:11

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3

Purple Rain 5:46

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4

One Way Out 4:20

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5

Feels Like Rain 5:34

0:00/5:34