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The Midnight Express was started in the early 70's by John Barron & Tony Cooper. They were later joined by Larry Schildtknecht. They played the St. Joe / KC area. The band was "reborn" in the 90's with Larry as manager & sound engineer, Tony on vocals, John on lead guitar, Jim DuBar on bass, & Bob Curtin on drums.
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As with most bands, member changes were inevitable. Some of those included: Steve Phillips - bass, Pat Brown - guitar, Buzz Ozenberger - lead guitar, John Osborne - drums, Andy Ray - bass, Chris Courtin - bass, and Rick Brand - drums.
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May of 1999 saw Larry Schildtknecht as our Manager and Sound engineer, Rick Brand on drums, Buzz Ozenberger on lead guitar,Steve Phillips on bass, and Mike Martin on guitar and keyboards. January 2000 was a turning point for the band, Tony Cooper, our long time lead singer retired, and was replaced by Dave Byers. Later that year, Tim "G-Man" Gibler stepped in on vocals.
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In October of 2000, Mike left to persue other interests, and we became a 3-piece band (bass, drums, guitar) with Tim on vocals. In May of 2001 we made another change, moving Steve to guitar/keyboards and bringing in Rick Allen on bass. And in October of 2001 we welcomed Craig Burks on drums. Rick Allen left the band in 2002 and in 2003 Cory Spicer joined on bass.
Craig Burks retired in 2004 due to health reasons and to spend more time with his family. He was replaced by John Stufflebean from St. Joseph, MO. John is an exciting drummer and singer and fits in very well with us.
Cory Spicer left for a job out of state late in 2007, Jeff Hofmeister joined us on bass.
We are hoping for bigger and better things as we continue to move forward. A CD with some originals and some cover tunes is in the works, and we are expanding our set list all the time. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our fans and friends for coming to see us, and we hope to see you again soon! We are always playing somewhere!
