After years of rocking in the 1980s with the Del Fuegos, singer/songwriter Dan Zanes created his own band, the Dan Zanes Trio, in 1994. The group got started when Zanes was hanging out with producer Mitchell Froom in lower Manhattan; after adding drummer Jerry Marotta, they began playing their minimalist, sparse blues and folk-rock to small crowds in small clubs like CBGB's Gallery. Produced by Froom, the trio's debut LP Cool Down Time -- a raw rock effort influenced by '60s-era R&B -- appeared in 1995.