Risk Everything Inst.

BRIAN KEITH BURTONELLI
Aka SMOKEY
Burtonelli was born in St. Louis, Missouri and began singing in church at a very early age. Multi-talented, he started playing the drums at age 9 but after a year or two of driving his family crazy, they all gladly chipped in to buy him his first guitar. By the time he finished high school he had acquired the skill of several instruments including piano and bass. (He is completely self -taught.) After graduating, Burtonelli went straight on the road gathering and perfecting his performance skills. Ever growing, his attention soon grew to composing and arranging. That's when he decided to move to Los Angeles to further his career. Over the next several years, after working every job available he was soon able to break into the scene as a studio and live sessionist. Touring with some of America's top artist soon landed him his first international gig. While performing in Nagoya, Japan with The Adrina Steel Motown Revue he soon became known as "Smokey" because of his smooth renditions of Smokey Robinson songs.


Since then he has toured many cities and countries entertaining people of all cultures and races. Working the "Hard Rock Café" circuit in Asia brought Smokey to Malaysia where in Kuala Lumpur the music industry, although growing, was in need of something new and daring to boost the local market and to create a stir on the scene. And that's just what Smokey did! After performing in K.L. for two months with his group "Chill Factor" he was approached by BMG Records to compose and produce an album for one of their top recording artist "4U2C". This album would be one of the first of its kind in Malaysia. Mixing Bahasa Malayu chants and melodies with R&B/ Funk. Smokey was so impressed with the fusion that he decided to take it a step further. At that time he formed his own production company in K.L. "Common Culture Sdn.Bhd" and spent the next two years traveling all of Asia absorbing every sound he could into his bloodstream. Upon returning to Kuala Lumpur Smokey was once again approached by a record company. This time he was contracted by N.A.R.Records to develop, write, and produce for one of their new artists "Deja Moss". The album was released and enjoyed tremendous success. In 2001, Common Culture was contracted to score the soundtrack for on of Malaysia's first international movie "The Deadly Disciples" in which Smokey makes a cameo appearance. Soon after that he decided it was time to do something more personal. Smokey started writing and recording songs for his own debut CD entitled "Stand Tall" which was a fusion of American Funk and R&B with Caribbean folk melodies and chants. Most of the tracks talk about having a good time and coming together as one race.... The Human Race! And of course there are the love songs. All the pre-production was done in Malaysia at Common Culture Production Studio and dropped at the infamous Synchrosound Studios. On completion he set off to tour and market the independent album around Southeast Asia starting with Planet Hollywood in Kuala Lumpur. 2002 proved to be a great year for Smokey as he heated up the circuit from Taipei to Bangkok. Now in 2003, he is back in the
states working with producer great Stephen R. Duhart and JJB Music working on a heart felt dedication to the seven space shuttle astronauts who lost their life for all of man kind.
The new single out in September from JJB Music and Smokey will be called "Risk Everthing"