Gary Dranow is a true artist, a musician, and a sportsman whose life story is a testament to the power of passion, perseverance, and the human spirit. His music reflects his life, and his unwavering dedication to his craft is a source of inspiration to fans and aspiring artists alike.

Influenced by the musical work of icons Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions are currently sending ripples through the Blues and Rock music scenes.The band currently plays regularly in and around their hometown of Park City, Utah.

Gary is a multifaceted artist with a lifelong passion for music, sports, and adventure. Born in March 1954 in West Los Angeles, his early years were marked by a profound drive to excel in all pursuits. He excelled in various sports, including equestrian competitions, motorbike racing, and skiing, earning multiple titles and sponsorships along the way.

At the same time, he was also a successful entrepreneur founding multiple businesses in the Apparel and tech industry. When he was 20 years old he founded his first company, Spoiled Brats of California, which was a girls 7 to 14 sportswear manufacturer, After growing the business to over a million dollars of annual sales he sold the business to Hang Ten Software. After that Gary took a year off to concentrate on his ski racing and race coaching career which he continued until 2010. During the summers between ski seasons, he worked for various apparel companies and managed their manufacturing and sales departments but with each winter until approximately 1977 he went back to his ski racing and coaching career. Then in 1978 he started his next apparel company, The Cutting Edge, a Junior Sportswear company, Once again he grew the company to several millions of dollars in annual sales and sold the company in 1985. Once again taking time off to concentrate on both his tennis and skiing careers. Then in 1989 he took a job in the mortgage industry. After learning the ropes and excelling as a Loan Officer for American City Mortgage he struck out on his own and founded his third company, First Manhattan Funding. For the next five years, after becoming a mortgage broker, he grew the company with offices in California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. As his company grew, he became interested in automating the whole mortgage origination process from servicing borrowers to the processing phase of the operation to funding and finally client retention. He successfully built a mortgage origination software system that had each step of the process automated. He went on to sell his company but kept his mortgage automation software and formed his last company Cyborg Information Technologies and sold the software to many mortgage brokers small and large, his software was completely scalable so it became one of the premier operating system for enough companies that he was able to retire at 50 and spend his time ski racing, ski race coaching and playing music after a break from 1998 to 2008.

Gary’s love for music remained an integral part of his life. For a decade, he poured his heart and soul into the creation of Destiny Road an autobiographical and deeply personal musical journey that chronicles his struggles, triumphs, and everything in between. The album was written in the 90s and the band intended to release it in the summer of 1998. It was recorded on Jefferson Airplane’s old 2″ 16 Track machine.

While Gary still lived in Southern California, he had formed a band in the early 90’s called Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions. He played venues all over Southern California from San Diego to Santa Barbara, His band consisted of Jerry Manfredi on Bass and musical director, Tommy Mars on Keyboards, Jethro Defries on drums and occasionally Paula Sorche as a backup vocalist.

Gary had been composing songs since he was a teenager but in the mid 90’s he struck a rich vein of musical creativity. This was at the height of his dealing with his bi-polar 1 disorder and mania. In 1996 he and with the help of Jerry Manfredi wrote and produced the songs that are now his upcoming album Destiny Road. Jerry Manfredi had a 16-track recording machine that was owned by Jefferson Airplane and the legend of this machine is they actually had it on their airplane. Once Gary and Jerry were happy with the fourteen songs arrangements Dranow and crew went into Jerry’s two room recording studio and in a matter of a year finished laying down the tracks for the songs. Then, in 1998, Dranow abruptly moved to Park City, Utah leaving his music and six rolls of Ampex tapes behind with Jerry.

Fast forward to 2021. Gary reestablished The Manic Emotions with Sherm Tate on Bass, the incredible Bob Smith on Drums and now the multi-talented Toby Draper on Keys and Guitar, He started gigging again as soon as the venues opened up from the Pandemic. As the story goes, Jerry Manfredi, seemingly out of the blue, shipped Gary the 70-pound box of 16 track tapes that Jerry had stored for over twenty years. Somehow and it is not clear Dranow found an engineer in Provo Utah and they struck up a relationship around these tapes. Shortly after meeting, Tim Wilson located a studio in Lakewood California that specialized in recovering analogue tracks from old reel-to-reel tapes, this was Deep Signal Studios. Dranow shipped the tapes back to California. Nick at Deep Signal “Baked” the tapes and pulled all the Stem tracks off into digital .wav format and after a month Dranow got back all his work from two decades earlier. Tim got to work mixing and mastering each song and in late 2021 the Destiny Road Album was ready for release.

Sherm Tate Bio

As a young musician, Sherm found himself playing bass guitar for the band Manna, and with musicians that have decorated careers:  Merrill Clark, Bruce Fowler, Alan Weight, Tim May (the real guitar player on M. J. Fox guitar solo in Back to the Future) plus he has had various recording dates, and casuals, some with major performing artists.  In his move to Texas, he found himself changing his style to accommodate more amplified string bass, attempting to emulate major bass artists and coming close in some ways.  Back in SLC area, he played bass guitar for a dance band along with the upright gigs.  For the past 25 years, he has been associated with a few groups of working musicians.  He did a four-year engagement with a church music team including some of the finest musicians in the local gospel music genre.  Sherm called it the University of Gospel Music.  The challenge here was no written music.  One is required to develop an impeccable ear for lines and harmonies, and to do so quickly.  After his four-year graduation, he has focused on upright jazz bass and finding some success as a soloing jazz bass player.   Additionally, Sherm has a composing bug in him.  Along with bass, he plays guitar and violin, and is getting better at piano, having performed professionally on all four.  With Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions, playing bass guitar and singing is a challenge.  It gives the opportunity to study Jimi Hendrix, and to understand the enigma, Gary Dranow.