RetroUniverse

HAPPY 2011

2010-12-31T22:55:00.001+11:00

G'day to everyone in Adelaide - Happy New Year.
This post brought to you by someone preoccupied watching Ben Folds and the WASO in concert on DVD.

Peace, happiness, and love to all.

It Was 70 Years Ago Today

2010-10-09T02:27:00.003+11:00

The management (and staff) of one here at Retro Universe raise a celebratory glass onion to the great John Lennon. Still shining on like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

A Matter Of Time

2010-07-25T14:46:00.003+10:00

Greetings and salutations to those of you who may recall this particular Seagull from another time called the past, and another place called Retro Universe. Though I may have been grounded in recent times, rest assured I remain committed to continuing the journey I commenced via this blog some 2.5 years ago. When the rest of the world allows time, and I summon up the energy, I shall take to the nostalgic airwaves once more and pilot this blog into reaches of the Retro Universe not yet explored.

Stay tuned....because if you leave me you know I'll only come too ;)

Journey - The Arrival

2010-03-13T18:59:00.007+11:00

The next stage of Journey’s odyssey would see the band at the peak of their commercial powers. As a matter of course, whenever an artist makes that transition from a cult act, in this case prog-rock purists, to commercial rock giants, a certain portion of their fan base will be alienated. In addition, stuffy, elitist rock critics will come out of the woodwork to level charges of being a sell-out. Long time prog-rock giants Genesis, and Yes, would resist the lure of the ‘mainstream’ a little longer than Journey, but both would encounter a similar backlash from detractors, eager to voice their collective disapproval at the perceived bastardisation of an art form. Fortunately, any such undercurrent of criticism likely remains largely unnoticed by those riding the prevailing wave of success. In Journey’s case, any pangs of artistic guilt were doubtless assuaged by the American public’s almost universal embracement of their music - none more so than their 1981 album ‘Escape’.

Former Queen engineer Mike Stone came on board to co-produce the album with Kevin Elson, and the brief was clear - radio friendly, melodic rock of the highest order. Jonathan Cain’s recruitment paid dividends from the get go, the form Baby collaborating with Steve Perry to pen the sleek power ballad ‘Who’s Crying Now’. The track, layered with Cain’s crisp keyboard fills, Schon’s shining guitar solo, Valory’s bubbling bass riff, and Perry’s impassioned vocal pleas, was destined for every FM playlist in North America. By August of ‘81, ‘Who’s Crying Now’ had cracked the U.S. Hot 100, and within two months had stopped any thought of tears by peaking at #4 (OZ#65/UK#46). It was the first major strike into what would prove a rich vein of rock gold for Journey. Any lack of faith in Journey’s ability to go the distance was quashed by the release of their follow up single, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, released late in ‘81. An almost gospel style undercurrent added to the tracks uplifting rock anthem creed, resplendent with shimmering layer upon layer of inspired vocals and instrumentation. When you hear ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ there’s nowhere to hide to avoid its surging energy, and if you’d been a regular FM listener or viewer of MTV in late ‘81/early ‘82 (in the U.S. at least), it’s doubtful you could have avoided the tracks airwave blitz. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ soared to #9 Stateside (OZ#100/UK#62) and more over established a lasting appeal that just went on and on and on, permeating beyond the music charts, and into the hearts and minds of a generation. The track has cropped up repeatedly in motion pictures and television over the ensuing decades, but for mine its most notable pop-culture reference came via an episode in season four of ‘Family Guy’ (that show is freakin’ sweet). Peter, Quagmire, Joe, and Cleveland belt out a passionate rendition of the song, with Cleveland (voiced by Mike Henry) outshining Steve Perry’s original vocal gymnastics by stretching the elastic of his vocal chords two octaves higher on the prolonged ‘whooaaaooooaaaaaa’ at the end of the chorus. Proof of its longevity can also be found in recent digital download figures, across the globe, which still place it firmly amongst the most popular commercial rock tracks of the last thirty years. No doubt, the song writing team of Steve Perry, Jonathan Cain, and Neal Schon are still enjoying the regular royalty cheques.

If the first two singles, ‘Who’s Crying Now’, and ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, had been the sole highlights from the ‘Escape’ album, it could still have been considered a runaway success, but the commercial highpoint was yet to come. By late ‘81, the ‘Escape’ album was running free atop the U.S. charts (UK#32), and the marketing machine had kicked into top gear. Journey took on an almost ubiquitous standing in popular American culture, anything from live concert MTV specials, through opening for the Rolling Stones on their North American tour, to television commercials, but perhaps the highlight (or lowlight depending on your perspective) came when the band sold the rights to their music and (heavily pixellated) likenesses for use in two video games (including the title ‘Journey Escape’ for the Atari 2600 - ah, the Atari 2600, those were the days). Blatant commercialism aside, Journey returned to the music charts in January 1982 with the made for radio power ballad ‘Open Arms’. The track’s opening moments feature Jonathan Cain’s delicate keyboard work blended seamlessly with Steve Perry’s earnest vocals - I mean, this track was custom built to tug at the heart strings (or possibly induce nausea if you’re not so inclined to give over to “sentimental rubbish” as former Babys’ front man John Waite apparently considered it). The typical rise to the chorus crescendo is carried out flawlessly, and evidently ‘Open Arms’ tugged on many a heart string, peaking at #2 on the U.S. Hot 100 in the early months of ‘82 (OZ#43). The nostalgia laden ‘Still They Ride’ repeated the power-ballad dose, but fell short of repeating the chart performance of its predecessors (US#19). The band did explore some harder edged rock territory on the ‘Escape’ album, including the title track, and the pulsating ‘Dead or Alive’ (which had a bit of AC/DC about it). Overall though, ‘Escape’ epitomised the sound of the American A.O.R. or melodic rock style, and with sales eventually topping nine million, Journey had staked a firm claim as genuine commercial rock Hall of Famers.

The band’s members were also finding time to look beyond the confines of the group dynamic. Guitarist Neal Schon struck up a partnership with keyboard guru Jan Hammer (he of the ‘Miami Vice’ theme) on two albums, ‘Untold Passion’ (11/81), and ‘Here To Stay’ (2/83). Meanwhile, Steve Perry hooked up with the future Mr. Footloose Kenny Loggins, on his US#17 hit ‘Don’t Fight It’ late in 1982.

Journey’s decade long odyssey had taken them from obscure prog-rock tributaries to a torrential river of commercial returns and popular (if not always critical) acclaim. The band returned to Fantasy Studios in late ‘82, once more with the Elson/Stone production team, to face the challenge of recording a follow up to the mega-successful ‘Escape’ album. Any doubts about Journey’s ability to live up to the hype were blown away in an instant by the opening salvo of the new album’s lead track (and first single), ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’. Cain’s piercing keyboard hook stings your aural sense into an immediate response, and before you can catch your breath, a second wave led by Neal Schon’s hypnotic guitar riff, and matched with a pulsating rhythm track, comes crashing over the top. If the entire track had comprised just those instrumental elements, I would be satisfied, but 25 seconds in vocalist Steve Perry enters proceedings and elevates ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’ from the merely superb to a status of sublime (pity the accompanying video didn’t match those heights of creative genius). The chorus hook is surely one of the most infectious to have ever been offered up to the pop-rock gods. By mid ‘83, ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’ had crashed through the borders of the U.S. top ten (#8), but inexplicably teetered on the brink of obscurity here in Australia (OZ#93).

The ‘Frontiers’ album climbed quickly up the U.S. charts, peaking at #2, and for the first time Journey cracked the British frontier and set up an outpost at #6 (OZ#80). The Jonathan Cain penned ballad ‘Faithfully’ (US#12) echoed the quality of ‘Open Arms’, but lacked that indefinably quality to send it over the top. Overall, Cain took on a more prominent presence on ‘Frontiers’, both in terms of song writing and the instrumental balance. ‘After The Fall’ (US#23) was formulaic pop-rock at its most blatant, but was a decent enough offering, whilst the album’s fourth single, ‘Send Her My Love’ (US#23) once more showcased Steve Perry’s brilliance in belting out emotion charged lyrics. Personally, I would have held back one of the power ballads in favour of releasing the robust rock of ‘Chain Reaction’.

After a relentless two year train of touring, promotional appearances, writing, and recording, by late ‘83 Journey were doubtless in need of a sabbatical, so they decided to go their separate ways, for a time. Neal Schon thought it might be fun to join a hard rock acronym, so he hooked up with Sammy Hagar (see previous post), bassist Kenny Aaronson, and drummer Michael Shrieve to form HSAS, and record the album ‘Through The Fire’ (US#42), which boasted a soft metal version of ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ (US#94). Steve Perry had yet to explore his vocal talents as a solo artist, and in April of ‘84 released his debut album ‘Street Talk’. The lead single was the heartfelt soft-rock ballad ‘Oh Sherrie’, written for Perry’s then girlfriend Sherrie Swafford (who was featured canoodling with Perry in the primo promo clip). In commercial terms, ‘Oh Sherrie’ picked up where Journey’s recent success had left off, peaking at #3 on the U.S. Hot 100, but Perry went where no journey had taken him before to a high of #5 on the Australian charts mid year. Produced by Perry himself, the ‘Street Talk’ (US#12/OZ#70) album offered plenty in the way of sentimental power ballads, much in the vein of the Journey’s modus operandi. The quality of ‘Oh Sherrie’ shone through as being a cut above the rest of the album, but the follow up singles, ‘She’s Mine’ (US#21), ‘Strung Out’ (US#40)’, were palatable enough in that predictably formulaic, soft-rock kind of way. The fourth single, ‘Foolish Heart’ (US#18/OZ#52), deserves a tick, if for no other reason than the crystalline keyboard track by co-writer Randy Goodrum. As ‘Foolish Heart’ was climbing the charts in early ‘85, Steve Perry lent his sublime vocal talents to the U.S.A. For Africa project on ‘We Are The World’.

Whilst Journey didn’t reconvene as a unit during ‘84 and ‘85, they did maintain a presence on the charts, via a couple of tracks that had been pushed off the final track listing for the ‘Frontiers’ album. ‘Ask The Lonely’ was included on the soundtrack the box office bomb ‘Two Of A Kind’, but it was the finely crafted ‘Only The Young’ that returned Journey to the U.S. top ten in early ‘85 (#9). The track featured on the soundtrack to the motion picture ‘Vision Quest’, which of course also featured Madonna’s soppy ballad ‘Crazy For You’.

After more than two years apart, Journey decided to reform in early ‘86 to record a new album - though for Perry it wasn’t a clear cut decision, as he had already begun work on his second solo album. Perry opted to place the tentatively titled ‘Against The Wall’ project on indefinite leave, but the overwhelming success of ‘Street Life’ lent Perry an added confidence, and presence back at Journey headquarters. Perry took a lead role in proceedings, and among the fallout was the firing of long time Journey rhythm section Ross Valory (bass), and Steve Smith (drums). The band carried on essentially as the trio of Perry, Neal Schon, and Jonathan Cain, though Randy Jackson (bass - The Jacksons), and Larrie Londin (drums - professional journeyman) were recruited to augment the line-up. ‘Raised On Radio’ was released in May of ‘86, on the back of the lead out single ‘Be Good To Yourself’. Journey fans would have breathed a sigh of relief at the realisation that Perry and co. had lost none of their verve, as ‘Be Good To Yourself’ (US#9) was every bit as invigorating as the likes of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. Having already mastered an established winning formula, there was no reason for Journey to head off into radical new territory with ‘Raised On Radio’, and by and large the album remained on solid, and well-trodden commercial ground. The searing guitar riffs, killer keyboard hooks, melodic melodrama, and Perry’s vocal dexterity are all on offer in abundance on tracks like the silky smooth ‘Girl Can’t Help It’ (US#17), the ardent pleas of ‘Suzanne’ (US#17), and the late night feel of ‘I’ll Be Alright Without You’ (US#14). ‘Raised On Radio’ (US#4/UK#22) may not have recaptured the level of pandemonium surrounding ‘Escape’, but with four top twenty singles, and multi-platinum sales, Journey had proven they’d lost none of their commercial edge during their sojourn.

The core trio hit the tour road, along with Jackson, and Mike Baird (drums), but it soon became clear that Steve Perry wasn’t willing to go the distance on this one, and by early ‘87 he had pulled the tour bus over to the side of the road and hopped off. That spelled the end of the tour, and with no lead singer, Journey had effectively reached the end of the line - though no official announcement was made that they had split for good. Steve Perry took an indefinite leave of absence from the music industry to focus on his health, and personal issues. Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain opted to continue their collaboration via the band Bad English, put together by Cain’s former crèche-mates John Waite, and Ricky Phillips, of The Babys (see future post on Babys/Bad English). Drummer Deen Castronovo completed the spelling of Bad English in 1988, and the ‘super-group’ of sorts went on to considerable commercial success with their own brand of melodic soft-rock. Meanwhile, Columbia Records saw no reason why the Journey coffers should close, and released a best selling compilation album in 1988 (US#10 - the very album that introduced me to the band’s brilliance, as it’s no doubt achieved for millions since). A three disc box set, titled ‘Time 3’ or ‘Time Cubed’ (US#90), followed in 1992, chronicling the band’s evolution over a fifteen year period. Meanwhile, three key members from Journey’s formative years, Gregg Rolie, Ross Valory, and Steve Smith, teamed up with vocalist Kevin Chalfant, and guitarist Josh Ramos, to form the rock outfit The Storm - they scored a #26 on the U.S. charts in 1991 with the power ballad ‘I’ve Got A Lot To Learn About Love’, but by 1993 The Storm had broken…up. After his stint with Bad English, Neal Schon decided to adopt a more disciplined approach to his musical grammar, and hooked up with brothers Johnny (vocals), and Joey Gioeli (guitar), Todd Jensen (bass), and Dean Castronovo to form the hard rock outfit Hardline in 1992.

In 1994, Steve Perry emerged from his long period of seclusion with the album ‘For The Love Of Strange Medicine’. The lead out single, ‘You Better Wait’, proved that Perry had lost none of his vocal vitality, and its expertly sculpted rock melody was enough to push it to a high of #29 on the U.S. Hot 100. I’ve not heard the rest of the album, which achieved a peak of #15, but it’s likely that, in commercial terms at least, its struggle to attract the same level of attention as Perry’s ‘Street Life’ was symptomatic of a shift in the musical landscape post-grunge. Meanwhile, Perry’s former bandmates had been considering reigniting Journey’s flame, but it took until the firing of long time manager Walter ‘Herbie’ Herbert, for Perry to agree to terms. In 1995, the band’s ‘classic’ line-up of Steve Perry, Neal Schone, Jonathan Cain, Steve Smith, and Ross Valory reunited to work on an album of new material. The resultant ‘Trial By Fire’ (which featured striking cover art) hit stores in October of ‘96, and debuted at #3 on the American charts just two weeks later. Doubtless, there were throngs of long time Journey fans who still had an insatiable thirst for the band’s pop-rock blend, but after a decade of estrangement, the quintet came up short in recapturing the exquisitely crafted quality of their best work. The lead out single, ‘When You Love A Woman’, was the stand out exception, and its heartfelt qualities charmed enough listeners to push it to a high of US#12. A proposed support tour was placed on indefinite hold following a hip injury to Steve Perry, and the subsequent delays led to a falling out between the singer and his bandmates. By 1998, Steve Smith had opted out of the whole debacle, and the remaining members reportedly put an ultimatum to Perry about resolving his health issues. Perry refused to yield to their demands, and in May of ‘98, he announced he was splitting with the band permanently. Aside from some sporadic production, and soundtrack work, Steve Perry has largely withdrawn from the music industry, with ongoing health issues a concern. Though in 2005 he met with his former band on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, to unveil a star in Journey’s honour.

Schon, Cain, and Vallory were then faced with the unenviable task of finding a replacement for Perry’s vocal vigour. Quality high tenor rock vocalists are a rare commodity, but the trio found what they were looking for in the form of former Tall Stories singer Steve Augeri. Over the ensuing year, the revamped Journey line-up (with Bad English drummer Deen Castronovo drafted to replace Smith) finally completed their tour commitments, and then set about recording material for a new album.

Perry was a hard act to follow, but Augeri delivered a commendable performance on the 2001 release ‘Arrival’ (US#56). The key Journey characteristics were present, with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain once more serving up a palette of pop-rock polish. The arrangements were solid, the melodies half-way memorable, the lyrics heartfelt, but ‘Arrival’ was never going to capture the hearts and minds of millions as ‘Escape’ had done twenty years previous. Over the ensuing decade, Journey have soldiered on in union with many of the so called ‘dinosaur rock’ acts of the 70s and 80s. Augeri stuck around for the band’s thirtieth anniversary tour in 2005, and the subsequent album release, ‘Generations’ (US#170 - on which the whole band took a turn at the microphone), but he was replaced in 2006 by Arnel Pineda. Journey proved that they could still muster mass appeal with the release of their 2008 album, ‘Revelation’, which debuted at #5 on the U.S. charts, and their ensuing summer tour (which also featured Heart and Cheap Trick) proved to be one of the highest grossing of the year. The creative combo of Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain may have passed their commercial heyday, but as the driving forces in Journey, they have continued to prove they are still a force to be reckoned with behind the wheel. The Journey goes on and on and on….

Journey - The Embarkation

2010-02-28T19:27:00.010+11:00

Recently, I stumbled upon the opening moments to the Jim Carrey comedy ‘Yes Man’. The film overall, like my stumble, was a largely forgettable affair, but what struck a chord with me was the choice of Journey’s surging rock anthem ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’ as the musical accompaniment to the opening titles (and as the lead character’s - Jim Carrey - ringtone). It prompted me to think just how frequently Journey’s music crops up on motion picture soundtracks, and how enduring their hyper-commercial brand of album oriented rock (A.O.R.) has proved to be - at least within North American territories (and associated contemporary cultural/artistic endeavours). That particular train of thought transported me to a station of contemplation that greeted me with this question - why had the highly popular Journey juggernaut been consigned to the periphery of commercial appeal here in Australia? Journey notched up no fewer than 17 top 40 hits in the U.S. between 1979 and 1987, with six of those singles scoring a top ten spot. The rock quintet also racked up a dozen platinum certified albums, with worldwide sales in the tens of millions. But by stark contrast, as a collective, the band never cracked the Australian top forty, with either single or album releases. 1982’s ‘Open Arms’ represented the peak destination for Journey, hitting the #43 mile marker on the Australian charts, but other hook laden classics languished in the lower reaches of the top 100 - ‘Who’s Crying Now’ (OZ#65) in 1981, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ (OZ#100) in 1982, and the aforementioned ‘Separate Ways (World’s Apart)’ (OZ#93) proved to be a world apart from Australian turntables in 1983. The only Journey album to make a foray into Australian chart terrain was the appropriately titled 1983 release, ‘Frontiers’ (OZ#80). So, what factors could possibly have explained such a disparity of appeal.

I’ve previously alluded to the significant dichotomy of stylistic trends that have occurred over the years, particularly between the U.K. and U.S. scenes. But the Australian music buying public had already proven themselves to have a marked affinity with the A.O.R. offerings that arrived on mass from the States during the latter part of the 70s, and throughout the 80s. The likes of Survivor, Asia (see previous posts), Styx, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Loverboy, and Toto (see future posts), had all enjoyed moderate to high levels of commercial success down under. So could it have been lead singer Steve Perry who hit a wrong note with Australians? Perry’s vocal styling was aligned pretty closely to those of his FM rock contemporaries, Lou Gramm (Foreigner), Bobby Kimball (Toto), and Dave Bickler (Survivor), largely debunking that theory. And the fact that Perry’s own rock ballad ‘Oh Sherrie’ powered to #5 on Australian charts during the second half of ‘84 puts paid to any residual doubts about his vocal appeal. There was no shortage of label support here either, with CBS (Columbia) a major player both in marketing and distribution muscle - though whether there was an in house decision not to push Journey’s cause in Australia is unknown to me. Perhaps the disparity of commercial popularity could be explained by the fact that the Australian market was crowded with a myriad of differing styles and trends, with only so much available bandwidth for the A.O.R. style, and Journey just happened to be one of the acts to be squeezed off the air, in terms of radio airplay. I have to admit to not being that aware of most of Journey’s early 80s material at the time of its release - with the possible exception of ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’. It wasn’t until their ‘Greatest Hits’ package had been on the shelves for some time that I eventually picked up a copy, and realised, to my chagrin, just what I had been missing out on. For those who like to indulge in conspiracy theories, rumours have abounded since that a renegade faction of Australian based REO Speedwagon fans conspired against their Journey rivals - but to be fair that rumour is without any anecdotal foundation, and has only ever been expressed via this blog - in fact via this particular paragraph. In all honesty, I am so much at a loss to explain Journey’s lack of commercial yield in Australia, that I felt compelled to throw up a piece of nonsensical conjecture purely as a lark. Still for those people with an irrational interest in REO Speedwagon conspiracy theories, it may well register a hit or two for my blog via search engines.

So it remains quite the anomaly, that one of the heavy hitters of the A.O.R. movement, Journey, remained but a glimpse in the corner of Australia’s musical vision. And it’s an anomaly that seems to be without obvious cause or catalyst - but then again that is very often the case with anomalies. So, that just leaves me the task of exploring the story behind Journey’s decade long, um, journey.

During 1973, a group of already seasoned musicians came together in San Francisco to form a new ‘supergroup’ - at least of the minor leagues variety. Former Santana road manager Walter Herbert enlisted two ex-Santana members too form the core of the new outfit - guitarist Neal Schon, and Santana co-founder Gregg Rolie (keyboards/ vocals). Rolie had been a key member of Santana, having handled vocals on several of their biggest hits, including ‘Evil Ways’, and ‘Black Magic Woman’. Schon had joined Santana in 1971 at the ripe old age of 17, but by 1972 both he and Rolie had parted ways with Carlos’ crew. For a brief time Rolie left music off the menu altogether, and opted to open a restaurant with his father in Seattle, whilst Schon continued to hone his craft in local Bay Area bands. Another Bay Area band at the time, Frumious Bandersnatch (inspired name), was managed by Walter Herbert, and boasted the talents of ex-Steve Miller Band bassist Ross Valory, and guitarist George Tickner. Following their demise, Herbert suggested Valory and Tickner join forces with Schon and Rolie. Initially operating as The Golden Gate Bridge, the new fellowship were yet to decide on a firm moniker, and an impromptu naming contest was held by San Francisco radio station KSAN-FM. But it was a suggestion by one of the band’s roadies, John Villaneuva, that led to Journey finally being decided upon - an appropriate tag given the journeyman like nature of its members.

One minor detail had yet to be addressed, and that was to enlist the services of a fulltime drummer. Journey’s first shows, which included their debut gig at San Francisco’s Winterland on New Year’s Eve 1973, featured stop-gap sticks man Prairie Prince (of The Tubes - see previous post). In early ‘74, the band found their new goalkeeper in the form of British journeyman Aynsley Dunbar. Dunbar has already racked up substantial frequent flyer points with the likes of John Mayall, Jeff Beck, Mothers of Invention, Lou Reed, and David Bowie. With almost a years gigging, and substantial pedigree of personnel, Journey were offered a recording deal with Columbia late in ‘74. Journey’s early stylistic positioning lay somewhere between the provinces of prog-rock, and jazz infused rock, which aligned them with the likes of contemporaries Genesis, Yes, Ambrosia, and Jethro Tull. Their eponymous debut album, released in April ‘75, offered up just seven tracks, mostly instrumental treks, but with an average track length of over five minutes. The band was clearly positioned within the prog-rock, jazz fusion genres, and their relatively narrow bandwidth of commercial appeal was reflected in sales (US#138). Still, Journey had their niche and had established a reputation as a consummate live act, with a penchant for seemingly ceaseless solos, but it was the band’s relentless live schedule that contributed to the departure of guitarist George Tickner later in the year.

The remaining members of Journey opted to continue their mission as a quartet, and in April ‘76 released their sophomore album, ‘Look Into The Future’ (US#100). The meandering, jazz inflected prog-rock style was a little more focussed, but still lacked the sharp commercial punch to register a hit on the charts. A problem area identified by the band themselves was the lack of a powerful lead vocalist, though the group’s other members all made concerted attempts to strengthen their vocal credentials in support of Gregg Rolie. Next up was the album ‘Next’ (US#85), issued in February of ‘77. The album offered some clearer signals that Journey were looking for a shift toward a more commercial direction, evidenced on the overtly hard rocking ‘Hustler’. Both band, and manager Walter Herbert, arrived at a crossroads, and came to the conclusion that a fulltime lead vocalist was needed, both to serve as a focal point for the band’s sound, and also to free up Rolie to focus on keyboard duties. In June of ‘77, Robert Fleischmann was added to the mix, but the new recipe failed to gel, and within a couple of months Journey were on the look out for another singer. Over the preceding few months ex-Alien Project vocalist Steve Perry had been making overtures towards both band and management, offering his vocal services. On the strength of a demo tape, and the recommendation of a Columbia executive, Herbert contacted Perry and offered him the job as Journey’s new front man. Perry’s debut gig with the band was on the last of a three night run at the Old Waldorf (salad) in San Francisco. The recruitment of Steve Perry would prove to be the catalyst needed to transform Journey into a commercially viable vehicle with five star performance.

The band also enlisted the services of Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, with a view to overhauling their in-studio sound. During late ‘77, work was completed on Journey’s fourth album, ‘Infinity’, a set that would represent a marked shift in style, and fortune, for the band. No longer promenading purveyors of prog-rock, Journey had been reborn as savvy exponents of sleek, radio friendly pop-rock, with Steve Perry the conduit through which the band would channel their newly fashioned craft. With the release of the ‘Infinity’ album in January of ‘78, Journey finally laid to rest their jazz-fused, prog-rock heritage, and emerged with an overtly melodic, commercial pop-rock formula. Tracks like ‘Wheel In The Sky’, and ‘Lights’, finally offered up an appealing enough invitation for programmers to add Journey to FM playlists. In addition to his stridently dynamic tenor vocal talents, Steve Perry also proved to be a key song writing ally for both Neal Schon and Gregg Rolie. ‘Infinity’ offered up a wall to wall mix of tight, melodic, and polished pop-rock, replete with pristine vocal harmonies, and infectious guitar/synth hooks. By year’s end, ‘Infinity’ had achieved in excess of a million units sold, Journey’s first platinum certified album, and knocked on the door of the U.S. top 20 (#21). With the moderate success of the single releases, ‘Wheel In The Sky’ (US#57), and ‘Lights’ (US#68), it appeared Journey had finally discovered a pathway to popular appeal.

But not everyone was happy with the band’s strides toward star status. Drummer Aynsley Dunbar left the band late in ‘78, in the midst of a marathon support tour, though some sources cite conflict between Dunbar and new vocalist Perry as being a major contributing factor. Whatever the exact reason(s), the split was acrimonious to say the least, and as is the nature of these things, mutual litigation was initiated in subsequent years. Dunbar, who later played with Jefferson Starship and Whitesnake, was replaced by ex-Journey drum technician Steve Smith. Smith did more than just tend to the tom-toms, and had studied formally at the Berklee School of Music, in addition to stints behind the skins with Focus, Ronnie Montrose, and Jean-Luc Ponty. Smith proved to be a complimentary element to the band’s new chemistry, and came on board just as Journey were about to hit the fast lane to fame and fortune.

The alchemic process continued on 1979’s ‘Evolution’, the title an apt reflection for the musical metamorphosis Journey had undertaken. With the April ‘79 release of ‘Evolution’, Journey reaffirmed their commitment to the polished pop-rock prescription, with Roy Thomas Baker once more helming production. The band’s live tour venues were also now reflecting their newly crafted arena-rock sound, with the band now a firmly entrenched headliner across the States. Journey were also firmly entrenched as a staple on FM radio playlists, and following the promising performance of the lead out track, the Boston-esque ‘Just The Same Way’ (US#58), the band scored their first foray into top twenty territory with the Perry penned smouldering rocker ‘Lovin’, Touchin’ Squeezin’ (US#16). With a sell-out tour and saturation airplay as a backdrop, the ‘Evolution’ album produced a bountiful harvest of multi-platinum sales throughout 1979 (US#20/UK#100), and elevated Journey to a new level of prominence on the North American music-scape.

Following the release of the compilation set, ‘In The Beginning’ (a selection of material from their first three albums), Journey continued their march to the top with the March 1980 release of ‘Departure’. The album had been recorded during late ‘79, with the production team of Geoff Workman and Kevin Elson working with the quintet on further refining their already razor sharp commercial sound. The Perry/Schon songwriting partnership really came to the fore across the album’s twelve tracks. ‘Departure’ kicked off with the hyper-kinetic ‘Any Way You Want It’, a song that announced the surging energy of the album from the get go. ‘Any Way You Want It’ was yet another booster rocket of a hit (US#23) that would help propel Journey into the pop-rock stratosphere. The follow-up single, the sultry and seductive ‘Walks Like A Lady’ (US#32), proved that this sleek rock machine still had more than one gear to select. The album balanced high energy racers like ‘Where Were You’ against obligatory A.O.R. power ballad offerings like ‘Good Morning’, and throughout Journey offering up a bounty of hypnotic hooks, coated in a shimmering pop-rock sheen. ‘Departure’ duly delivered its cargo of radio friendly rock to #8 on the U.S. charts, and the band embarked on their biggest tour commitment to date, by the end of which founding member Gregg Rolie had announced his own departure.

Rolie’s reason for giving up his seat onboard the Journey train was cited as being primarily tour related exhaustion. It was also evident that Rolie’s role within the band had also diminished in terms of song writing and vocal contributions. The band’s mammoth 1980/81 tour also resulted in the release of the live set ‘Captured’, the double album’s peak of #9 on the U.S. charts indicative of the surging popularity of Journey at home. Though Rolie didn’t stick around to record the one studio track included on the live set, ‘The Party’s Over (Hopelessly In Love)’ (US#34 - with Stevie ‘Key’s Roseman filling the keyboardist void), he made a key recommendation to the rest of his band concerning who his potential replacement might be. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain was the man identified by Rolie as being the perfect fit for Journey. Cain was already a proven pop-savvy performer of the highest order, having established his pedigree with the recently dissolved outfit The Babys (see future post). His addition to the Journey crew, as both player and songwriter, would prove the decisive step in elevating the band to the pinnacle of the U.S. pop tree.

Pilot Of The Airwaves Revives The Radio Star

2010-02-21T22:41:00.005+11:00

The management here at Retro Universe are proud to announce the arrival of The Ultimate 80s Radio Show, hosted by Ultimate Bart, which kicked of to much fanfare and suitable salutations on Wednesday 17th February. DJ Ultimate Bart shall be reliving some of the highs (and lows) of the magnificence that was the 1980s via hit after hit after hit streamed live to your laptop, desktop, or whatever top you see fit to use. He shall also be regaling you with some tidbits from Retro Universes own cavernous vault of music trivia and scintillating anecdotes.

You may avail yourself of this most excellent entertainment via the link on the left hand side of this page, and be sure to check out Ultimate Barts personal blog here: ultimatebart.blogspot.com

So drink deeply from the rich waters of 80s music brilliance!!

Where's the Light Switch?

2010-02-03T00:21:00.008+11:00

Today's post is a spur of the moment affair, which is the kind of affair I don't usually indulge in. My posts are more often given over to pain staking research and planning, and the resultant material verbose and some might say meandering in nature - to be kind to myself. But it occurred to me not five minutes ago that this is my blog, therefore I make the rules - and if I want to flaunt those rules by being impetuous then I'm damn well going to do so (after 500 posts I think I've earned it). The catalyst behind this mode of self-rebellion, was my listening to the George Harrison song 'Beware Of Darkness'. It's a song that has, over many years, offered me solace, and a compass of reason when the haze of self doubt, and the fog of depression blankets my mindscape. Everyone has at least one song that provides a sanctuary from whatever external, or internal, maelstrom is raging. 'Beware Of Darkness' is one such port in a storm for me.

The song is lifted from George Harrison's post-Beatles' opus, 'All Things Must Pass', which provided the vehicle via which Harrison emerged from the creative shadows of his former Fab-mates, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon. Many would later cite the #1 album, 'All Things Must Pass' as the high watermark for George Harrison the ex-Beatle. Commercially, that's no doubt the case, but later albums such as 'Dark Horse', '33 1/3', and 'Cloud Nine', all stand up strongly to the rigours of post-Beatles carping by critics. Besides, to many, including myself, George Harrison became a creative and spiritual entity (and inspiration) far beyond his role as Beatle George. At any rate, on a triple album's worth of material - that featured the brilliance of 'My Sweet Lord' (charges of plagiarism aside), 'What Is Life', and another personal favourite 'Isn't It A Pity' - it is 'Beware Of Darkness' that still shines brightest for me.

Hard At Play In A Perfect World

2010-01-26T20:10:00.009+11:00

Riding on the wave of a multi-platinum album, and a string of top ten singles throughout ’83/’84, it was hard to envisage that Huey Lewis & the News could ascend to greater heights, but the ensuing two year period would prove to be the commercial zenith for the band (though critical praise for their work would be less forthcoming).

Bones Howe had already helmed production on three U.S. chart toppers during the late 60s, ‘Windy’ by the Association, and two #1s for the Fifth Dimension, ‘Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In’ and ‘Wedding Bell Blues’. By the mid 80s, Howe had turned his skills to motions pictures, though in a capacity as music supervisor and sound designer. He heard about a proposed film project for Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment company, the basic plot of which involved a teenager travelling back in time to 1955 and meeting his own parents as teenagers in the process. The proposed film turned out to be ‘Back To The Future’, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and one of Howe’s directives as music supervisor was to come up with a selection of songs, some contemporary, and some circa 1955. When Howe came on board, the decision had already been made by the film’s creative team that Huey Lewis would be a good choice to provide a couple of songs for the film’s contemporary settings. Zemeckis and Spieberg both sat in with Lewis to view some of the film’s dailies, the rough cuts of the film shot to date, so as Lewis could get a feel for things. In a further ironic twist of the whole Ray Parker Jr. ‘Ghostbusters’ litigation, the producers were using ‘I Want A New Drug (Called Love)’ as an interim overlay to the rough cut sequences played back to Lewis. The song ‘In The Nick Of Time’ immediately sprang to Lewis’ mind as being perfect, but negotiations fell through on that one, and it ended up on being used on the soundtrack to the Richard Pryor comedy ‘Brewster’s Millions’ - so it was back to the future…err…drawing board.

Over the ensuing weeks, Lewis kept working on developing a song titled ‘Back In Time’ with several others from the News. Meanwhile, shooting continued on the film which brought further pressure to bear on Lewis to come up with something suitable. A scene had been written into the film where the character of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) auditions with his band in a Battle of the Bands style contest, with the winner to play the local high school dance. The inside joke was that his band would be playing a Huey Lewis song, and Huey himself was to play the part of a high school teacher who turns the band down. Lewis had only completed a basic melodic outline of the song (written with Johnny Colla and Chris Hayes), and so in the scene as shot, McFly and his band deliver a basic instrumental track only, with Lewis’ character cutting them off with the classic line, “Sorry guys, I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud”, just as McFly is about to sing. Lewis and Co. managed to deliver the finished version of ‘The Power Of Love’ in time for the film’s post production team, and Zemeckis decided to place it as musical accompaniment to Marty McFly’s frantic skateboard to school near the film’s opening. According to Bones Howe, some of the people involved in the creative process didn’t like ‘The Power Of Love’, and actually identified ‘Back In Time’ as the potential hit record. As it turned out, ‘Back In Time’, as fine a pop-rock song as it was, was relegated to the film’s closing credits, and it was ‘The Power Of Love’ that received star status on the film’s soundtrack.

How anyone could have doubted ‘The Power Of Love’ would be a hit I do not know, but shortly after its release, which was timed in with the premiere of ‘Back To The Future’, the song commenced its steady acceleration up the charts toward 88MPH, or #1, whichever came first. A promotional video was shot which featured Huey Lewis & the News performing the song, appropriately enough, at their favourite venue Uncle Charlies. Meanwhile, time travelling Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) pulls up outside in his DeLorean car, with optional temporal displacement extras. Huey Lewis & the News didn’t need money, nor fame, nor a credit card (a subtle reference to the band’s earlier name) to ride the train all the way to #1 with ‘The Power Of Love’. The song was fairly bursting at the seems with infectious hooks, and boasted a killer guitar solo from Chris Hayes that Marty McFly would have been proud of. By late August ‘85, ‘The Power Of Love’ sat atop the U.S. charts, supplanting ‘Shout’ by Tears For Fears, following suit in Australia a month later (UK#9), and shot Huey Lewis & the News to new and dizzying heights of commercial success (the song also garnered Academy Award and Grammy nominations).

It’s fair to say that expectations for the next Huey Lewis & The News album were high, but fans would have to wait nearly a year for its arrival (unless they could borrow Doc Brown’s DeLorean). In between writing and recording material for a new album, Huey Lewis found time to provide backing vocals on old mate Nick Lowe’s 1986 hit, ‘I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll). Though three years had elapsed between album releases, the exceptional mileage gained from the ‘Sports’ single releases, coupled with the interim global #1, ‘The Power Of Love’, gave the impression that Huey Lewis & the News hadn’t been out of the spotlight at all.

Huey Lewis & the News washed ashore again in August of ‘86, with the chart debut of their latest single, ‘Stuck With You’, the lead out single from their forthcoming album, ‘Fore!’. Rumour has it that the band had struggled to come up with material that they felt would satisfy expectations for their new album. Guitarist Chris Hayes told Rolling Stone magazine at the time, that he’d received a call one day from manager Bob Brown, with a request to come up with a hit tune to release as the first single. Hayes recounted that in between caring for his heavily pregnant wife, he popped into the studio for a few hours and came up with the music for ‘Stuck With You’, a bright and breezy slice of melodic pop-rock. The band’s most ardent credits judged the song as syrupy, populist tripe, but I’ve formed the impression over the years that some critics have a standing brief to deride an artists material, no matter the quality, if that artist experiences a prolonged run of success - in Australia it’s referred to as ‘the tall poppy syndrome’. ‘Stuck With You’ may have been radio friendly fodder, but it was a finely crafted song, delivered with exemplary production values - lifted from the same page of the Huey Lewis & the News songbook as ‘If This Is It’. The promo-clip followed the basic narrative of the lyrics, with Huey Lewis and presumably his wife, confronting the reality of their differences through a tragic event. That tragic event just happened to be the two of them being tossed overboard from their row boat, just about twenty metres off shore, and somehow being washed up as castaways on a desert island, supposedly hundreds of miles from civilisation. But suspension of disbelief aside, the saving grace is the band’s innate sense of humour throughout, from quite an amusing prologue, through to each of the News arriving on the island by some very unconventional modes of transport, and of course the song’s cheery, bouncy feel just wouldn’t sit right without a happy ending. Schmaltzy I know, but all good, clean fun. ‘Stuck With You’ eventually washed ashore at the prestigious #1 addreyess on the U.S. Hot 100 (OZ#2/UK#12).

The source album, ‘Fore!’, met with mixed reviews, some critics judging it as lacking some of the authentic ‘working band’ feel of its predecessor. That it may have been, but lacking in radio friendly hits it most certainly wasn’t. The follow up single, ‘Hip To Be Square’, was a high energy rocker with ambitions to be a working class anthem - of sorts. It’s entirely plausible that the song was a subtle thumbing of the nose by the band at critics, who all too readily were labelling them as staid, and middle of the road. I stand to be corrected, but I’d also venture to say that it’s the only U.S. top ten single (#3/OZ#17/UK#41) to feature backing vocals by an N.F.L. team. The San Francisco 49’ers were enlisted both in studio and to appear in the promotional video - which featured a macro-style filming technique that could have led to bouts of nausea for viewers.

Back in 1981, Huey Lewis’ publisher approached songwriter Bruce Hornsby with a view to Lewis & the News recording the Hornsby penned song ‘Let The Girls Rock’. Bruce Hornsby, and his brother John, turned the Lewis deal down, but Lewis and Bruce Hornsby struck up a friendship along the way. By 1986, Bruce Hornsby and his backing band, The Range, had hit the big time with their album ‘The Way It Is’ riding high on the U.S. charts, on the back of its US#1 title track. The Hornsby brothers, Bruce and John, had written more than enough material to fill their album, and one of the left over tracks was ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. The song essentially tells of one man’s shot at self redemption. With Huey Lewis & the News recording a slightly edgier version of the Hornsby original. ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ had just enough rungs to reach #1 on the U.S. charts during March of ‘87 (OZ#48), incidentally replacing Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ in the process, and became the band’s third American chart topper inside of eighteen months. With an almost constant presence on the airwaves, and a relentless touring schedule, it was a sure bet that the ‘Fore!’ album would reach #1 in the U.S. (OZ#3/UK#8), and it eventually went on to notch up triple platinum certification. The straight up guitar rock of ‘I Know What I Like’ (once more featuring backing vocals from the 49’ers) replaced ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ inside the U.S. top ten mid year (#9), but it was the fifth single release from ‘Fore!’ that rates as my personal pick of the pop-crop. ‘Doin’ It All For My Baby’ (US#6) was, lyrically, a lovey dovey serving of sentimentality, but it was packaged within an enchanting time capsule full of soulful 50s doo-wop charm. Adding to its appeal was a brilliant concept clip, that cast Huey and the lads as a bunch of Scooby Doo-esque characters who just happen to crash their van on a stormy night nearby a spooky old castle. Lewis has the misfortune of being crushed underneath the van whilst attempting a tire change, so the rest of the band decide to check out the mansion in the hope of getting a bite to eat, as you would under such traumatic circumstances. Lewis’ corpse is discovered by the local neighbourhood grave diggers (played by Colla and Hayes) who resolve to recover the body, no matter the means. Meanwhile, our intrepid rockers arrive at the castle and are greeted by a Lurch look-alike (Cipollina), but despite their shock, like all good Scooby Doo devotees, the lads overcome their sheer terror and go inside for a looksee. Lewis plays the role of the castle’s master, and resident Dr. Frankenstein (ably assisted by hunchback Hopper), who is earnestly trying to manufacture his very own bride. Early signs are promising for the good doctors latest escapade, whilst Lurch shows his own flare for the macabre by decapitating the News and placing their still living heads into jars. Test tube microphones and two headed guitarists abound in this high jinx comic caper, with the punch line being Huey Lewis’ corpse is revived as a virtual Frankenstein’s monster, the funny part being the bride’s repulsion when Lewis’ true form is revealed. Yes I know, your sides are splitting at the notion of such hilarity, but this was truly the golden age of music video, and whilst ‘Doin’ It All For My Baby’ may not have reached the heights of ‘Thriller’, it was an agreeable little jaunt. All up, the ‘Fore!’ album had yielded five U.S. top ten hits (six if you count ‘The Power Of Love’, which was included on some overseas pressings), and regardless of any critical derision, Huey Lewis & the News could rightly lay claim to being one of the most commercially popular acts on the planet.

In a perfect world their universal popularity would have continued, but 1988 spelled the beginning of the end for the band’s stellar run of commercial success. After another two year sojourn between album releases, Huey Lewis & the News resurfaced in July of ‘88 with the lead out single from their fifth album. ‘Perfect World’ (penned by ex-Clover member Alex Call) was another prime cut of classy pop-rock, that gave no indication that Huey Lewis & the News were going to stray from their winning formula. Replete with crisp, infectious guitar riffs, crystalline keyboard chords, and a ballsy brass backing (provided by regular News supplement, the Tower Of Power), ‘Perfect World’ marked a near perfect return to the charts (US#3/OZ#19/UK#48), and I recall the same day that I saw the promo video for the first time (which featured the band playing atop a huge mound of garbage), I was off to the record bar to purchase a limited edition yellow vinyl copy of the single no less. But what was this? Beneath the bouncy pop-rock façade, ‘Perfect World’ served up a bit of a sermon on social conscience that was to permeate throughout its source album, ‘Small World’. But where as ‘Perfect World’ had the pop sheen to get away with it, Huey Lewis & the News opted for a less travelled stylistic road to traverse the rest of the album’s journey. The change in direction included detours into jazz-rock and American roots music, but the band had pretty much painted themselves into a corner with their previous work, and their attempt to venture into new musical styles didn’t please everyone. The title track was released as the follow up single but smallish sales greeted ‘Small World’ (US#25) in late ‘88, and the slide continued with the third single, ‘Give Me The Keys (And I’ll Drive You Crazy)’ (US#47). For all the flak they copped from critics, the only thing I can hear that Huey Lewis & the News were guilty of with the ‘Small World’ album, was trying something a little bit different. As a stand alone work, ‘Small World’ has plenty to offer, from the zydeco zing of ‘Bobo Tempo’, to the reggae inflected ‘Better Be True’, but it wasn’t what the band’s adoring public had come to expect from them. Still, a high of #11 on the U.S. charts (UK#12/OZ#20) and platinum sales are nothing too be scoffed at.

As the 90s dawned, Huey Lewis & the News faced the same challenge as all of the 80s pop greats - could they adapt and survive in the ever evolving popular music environment. It took until April 1991 for that question to be answered in the form of the album ‘Hard At Play’. In the interim, the band had taken more than a couple days off from the road, and shifted label stables from Chrysalis to EMI. The lead out single, ‘Couple Days Off’, signalled a return to what Huey Lewis & the News, the ‘working band’, do best - good time, high energy rock and roll music. Bluesy guitar licks and a surging bass/drum line pushed ‘Couple Days Off’ to the door step of the U.S. top ten (#11/OZ#39). The resurgence in form continued with ‘It Hit Me Like A Hammer’ (US#21), which I purchased at the time on the short lived cassingle format. Co-written by Lewis and old Clover cohort Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, ‘It Hit Me Like A Hammer’ also showed the band hadn’t forgotten their roots in soul/R&B, and their harmonies sounded as pure as ever. ‘Hard At Play’ (US#27/UK#39/OZ#62) would doubtless have pleased long standing fans of Huey Lewis & the News, and had it been released several years earlier, it may well have spawned several top ten hits with songs like the beautifully crafted ‘We Should Be Making Love’, and the rollicking ‘Time Ain’t Money’. But as with most enduring artists, the sands of cultural evolution had finally overtaken Huey Lewis & the News, and the band were on the verge of being rendered an anachronism.

Well, if you’re gonna go out, why not go out in style - and on your own terms. In 1994, Huey Lewis took a leaf out of their own songbook, and went back in time to inspire their seventh album. ‘Four Chords & Several Years Ago’ (produced by Steward Levine and released on Elektra), was an unabashed homage to the music and artists that had inspired them as fledgling musicians twenty years previous. The lead out single, ‘(She’s) Some Kind Of Wonderful’ (US#44), was a polished take on the soul classic originally recorded in 1967 by Soul Brothers Six (and taken to US#3 by Grand Funk Railroad in 1975 - see future post). The second single, ‘But It’s Alright’, a cover of the 1966 US#22 hit for J.J. Jackson, marked the last foray to date by Huey Lewis & the News into U.S. Hot 100 territory (#54). The album ‘Four Chords & Several Years Ago’ (US#55) no doubt spoke volumes to regular listeners of the News, but by 1994 you would have been hard pressed to find a reference to Huey Lewis & the News in the classifieds of most music related publications.

Following the completion of a well received support tour for ‘Four Chords’, bassist Mario Cipollina parted ways with the group (replaced by John Pierce), their first change in personnel in fifteen years. The compilation ‘Time Flies’ was released in late ‘96, offering a ‘best of’ selection from the group’s Chrysalis years, along with four new tracks, including the single release ‘100 Years From Now’. The band kept an active, albeit low, profile during the late 90s, but resurfaced with an album of newly recorded material in 2001, titled ‘Plan B’ (US#165). The album was a selection of band favourites, both their own material, and covers, and it marked the final contribution from long time guitarist Chris Hayes. Though chart activity for the band was a thing of the past, Huey Lewis had experienced his own ‘Back To The Future’ moment in 2000 via his work on the Bruce Paltrow directed film ‘Duets’. Lewis played a lead role as the character Ricky Dean, a professional karaoke hustler, who reconnects with his estranged daughter, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Lewis and Paltrow performed ‘Cruisin’ (a 1979 US#4 hit for Smokey Robinson) as a duet, and the song returned Lewis to #1 on the Australian charts early in ‘01 (#1 U.S. Adult Contemporary chart).

Huey Lewis & the News have continued to play to sell out houses across the U.S. over the ensuing decade, and in December ‘04 released the live set, ‘Live At 25’. Lewis occasionally wanders into a recording studio, but by and large he and his band have returned to their bread and butter - as a ‘working band’ of some repute. Huey Lewis & the News may never have been the darlings of the music press, but their commercial returns (particularly during the 80s) were rivalled by few - the power of love is indeed a curious thing.

Picture The News

2010-01-19T16:41:00.006+11:00

This last New Years Eve, one of the network channels broadcast ‘Back To The Future’, and of course when I came across its opening moments whilst channel surfing, I was stuck fast (uh, yes I was at home watching television). I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen each of the titles in Robert Zemeckis’ timeless trilogy, but it’s probably only second in total to the original trilogy of ‘Star Wars’ films - which probably aligns me pretty closely to the ‘Family Guy’ staff writers, and geekdom in general. But what ‘Back To The Future’ offered over and above any of the ‘Star Wars’ films, was a kick-ass pop-rock song during its opening (and closing) credits. Whilst chatting with Doc Brown over the phone, Marty McFly is sent into a panic with the realisation that he’s late for school - again. Cue the tailgating skateboard sequence in time to ‘The Power Of Love’ by Huey Lewis & the News. The first moment I heard that surging keyboard riff way back in 1985 I was hooked, and it confirmed to me what I’d already suspected for several years - that Huey Lewis & the News were worthy front page material.

Though Huey Lewis & the News would reach the peak of their pop-rock powers during the 80s, the roots of the band lay way back in time, and the myriad of stylistic influences accrued along their long, arduous road to the top would help inform, even define their winning pop formula. Huey Lewis was in point of fact born Hugh Cregg III, in New York City in 1950, and with a name like that may well have been consigned to a career in merchant banking, had he not been drawn to playing music for a living. In actuality, Huey Lewis majored in engineering at Cornell University, and it was during his freshman year that he followed his father’s advice, and undertook a years sabbatical to clear his head. Lewis’ sabbatical took the form of a hitchhiking tour of Europe, during which time he taught himself to play the harmonica (whilst waiting for rides). Upon his return to the States, Lewis was committed to pursuing music as a career, but for the time being had to make a living firstly as the manager of a landscaping business, and secondly a yoghurt distribution company (that’s non-fat!).

By 1972, Lewis had found his feet musically, and landed on, or in, a country-rock outfit called Clover. The band had already been in existence five years prior to Lewis joining their ranks, and had recorded two low key albums for Fantasy Records as the quartet of John McFee (vocals/guitar), Alex Call (guitar/vocals), Johnny Ciambotti (bass), and Mitch Howie (drums). Howie was replaced by Mickey Shine, and the group opted to expand to a sextet with the addition of Lewis (harmonica/vocals), and a young keyboardist by the name of Sean Hopper. Over the next few years Clover established themselves as a popular act on the Californian club scene, but it was a gig at the Palomino in North Hollywood during 1976 that would change the band’s direction - radically. British pub-rock sensations Dr. Feelgood were in town for a label convention, along with Stiff Records co-founder (and manager) Jake Riviera, and singer/producer Nick Lowe (see previous posts). Both Riviera and Lowe heard a certain chemistry in Clover that they felt could be translated to the thriving pub rock scene in England.

Clover now set about establishing roots of their own on the London scene, and within a year had released their first new single (produced by Lowe), titled ‘Chicken Funk’. But though the band’s authentic, down home sound rang true to aficionados of the London roots-rock movement, the entire British music scene was undergoing a massive shift with the explosion of punk, and subsequent aftershocks of post-punk. Clover, or at least their keyboardist Sean Hopper, then worked as backup on Elvis Costello’s 1977 debut album, ‘My Aim Is True’ (also produced by the ubiquitous Nick Lowe). The band had also released two albums of new material that same year, ‘Love On The Wire’ (engineered by Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange) and ‘Unavailable’, though neither was available for chart success, and toured in support of Thin Lizzy and Graham Parker. Soon after, vocalist/guitarist John McFee took up a post with the Doobie Brothers (in place of Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter), spelling the end of Clover. Though major success had eluded them, news of Clover’s exploits had filtered back to the local Californian music scene, and it imbued Huey Lewis with a degree of pop-prestige upon his return. He began fronting a loosely affiliated group of musicians in regular Monday night jam sessions at Uncle Charlie’s in Corte Madera, California. Sean Hopper (keyboards) was a regular, as were friends Mario Cipollina (bass - and brother of Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina), Johnny Colla (guitar/sax), and Bill Gibson (drums). Colla, Cipollina, and Gibson had all played together in an outfit called Soundhole, who had at one time functioned as Van Morrison’s backing band Stateside.

On the side, Lewis accepted an offer of some free studio time, from Patty Gleason of the Different Fur studio. It was 1979, and the disco train was not only officially of runaway train status, but arguably off the rails as well. Lewis decided to take a punt and record a dance version of the theme from ‘Exodus’, dubbed tongue-in-cheek style, ‘Exo-Disco’. Shortly after, Lewis received a call from Nick Lowe to return to England and play harmonica on Lowe’s album ‘Labour Of Lust’ (Lewis also played on fellow roots rocker Dave Edmunds’ set, ‘Repeat When Necessary, during the same visit - that album featured the Huey Lewis penned song ‘Bad Is Bad’). Lewis thought Stiff Records label guru Jake Riviera might get a kick out of hearing his spoof disco-style recording of the ‘Exodus’ theme. Riviera thought it was just appalling enough to be a hit (and judging by some of the other disco-style material on offer who could argue), and duly negotiated a $6000 distribution deal with Phonogram Records to release the track, credited to American Express (of the non-credit corporation variety). Whilst ‘Exo-Disco’ sunk without a trace in the murky waters of Lake Tragic Disco, the money from the distribution deal allowed Lewis to record a serious three track demo tape upon his return to California. Producer Patty Gleason passed the tape on to Bob Brown, then manager of Pablo Cruise (see previous post). The label on the tape credited the music to Huey Lewis & American Express, Lewis having used the services of his regular cohorts at Uncle Charlies. Brown dismissed a cover of The Supremes’ ‘Stop! In The Name Of Love’, but heard potential in the other two original songs. He duly signed Huey Lewis & American Express to a management contract, without at the time being aware that American Express (the backing band) didn’t officially exist at the time - he wasn’t the first manager or record label to do that.

Lewis doubtless had little difficulty in convincing his ‘jamming’ buddies from Uncle Charlies to form an official band with him. Thus, Sean Hopper, Mario Cipollina, Johnny Colla, and Bill Gibson became for a very short time, American Express. With Colla balancing guitar and sax duties, it was decided to add a fulltime lead guitarist to the mix - enter 22 year old Chris Hayes. Lewis and his now official backing band were signed to a worldwide deal by Chrysalis Records who, not surprisingly, requested an alteration of their moniker (to avoid litigation). And so it was in early 1980 that Huey Lewis & the News came into print. Lewis and co. had already racked up a decade’s worth of gigging and recording experience, and found no trouble in translating their hard-driving rock chemistry to the recording studio for their eponymous debut album. Produced by Bill Schnee, and released in June of 1980, ‘Huey Lewis & the News’ boasted ten tracks in all, mostly originals. The album’s sound was largely infused with a good-time, straight up pop/rock sound, that no doubt drew inspiration in part from the British pub-rock scene, but also from the explosive power-pop scene of the time. Driving rock and roll numbers like ‘Some Of My Lies Are True (Sooner Or Later)’, and ‘Don’t Ever Tell Me That You Love Me’, had no pretence beyond their foot tapping impetus, and pristine vocal harmonies (an effective counterpoint to Lewis’ raspy lead vocals). Balance was achieved through more mellow R&B and even doo-wop channels, echoed in ‘Trouble In Paradise’ and ‘Now Here’s You’. There was nothing outstanding about the album, but it was a promising effort, and that promise was soon to be delivered.

News does indeed travel fast, and consequently Huey Lewis and his News quickly established themselves as one of the premier live acts on the U.S. West Coast, delivering high energy shows with the flavour of fun ever present (it would soon become clear this was a band that took their music seriously, but not themselves). By late ‘81, work had been completed on their self-produced sophomore album, ‘Picture This’, and the lead-out single ‘Do You Believe In Love’ hit the stores, and airwaves in early ‘82. The track had been penned by one time Clover engineer, turned über producer and songwriter Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange (AC/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner et al). ‘Do You Believe In Love’ featured just the kind of anthemic hooks and polished vocal harmonies to achieve mass radio appeal - it would have sat well in the Hall & Oates songbook. By February ‘82, ‘Do You Believe In Love’ had made inroads into the U.S. Hot 100, eventually topping out at #7 (OZ#18). I recall listening to the song over and over as part of its inclusion on the Australian release various artists compilation, ‘1982 Out Of The Blue’. The promo-video was a standard performance based affair (with overtones of nocturnal voyeurism) but became a favourite on the flourishing MTV network, and gave a strong hint as to the tongue-in-cheek flavour that would be a feature of the band’s future videos. Backed by a nationwide tour of the U.S., the success of ‘Do You Believe In Love’ helped propel the ‘Picture This’ album to a high of #13 on the U.S. album charts (OZ#75) by mid year. The album reflected a more cohesive and confident group of musicians, and offered up a smoother blend of straight up rock and roll, with more liberal portions of soul/R&B and doo-wop mixed in - the kind of record that no doubt was played from start to finish at many a party. The follow up singles, the R&B tinged ‘Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do’ (US#36), and the live concert favourite ‘Workin’ For A Livin’ (US#41), continued the steady rise of Huey Lewis & the News into the hearts and minds of middle America, but their next album would elevate them to the pop stratosphere.

Record label and production issues held up work on the band’s third album, and by the time of its September ‘83 release, Huey Lewis & the News had been relegated to the back pages of the U.S. music scene. It would take an album of considerable quality for them to hit the headlines again - fortunately ‘Sports’ proved to be just that. The core of the ‘Sports’ album’s spirit was also its heart and soul, literally. The lead out single, ‘Heart And Soul’, was released in late August, and within a few weeks was rocketing up the U.S. Hot 100 chart. What I loved most about the song at the time (and to this day) was the crunching guitar riff delivered by Chris Hayes. I played my vinyl copy of the track incessantly on my first stereo system, the speakers of which were so tinny sounding that above a certain volume that crunching guitar took on an appealingly distorted quality - which somehow has never sounded as good on subsequent high-end sound systems I’ve owned. ‘Heart And Soul’ had been penned by that prolific song writing partnership of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and was first recorded by Exile (see previous post) in 1981 (US#102). Huey Lewis & the News injected a good deal more grunt into their version, and the potent guitar driven rock delivered good news to the band’s door, when it peaked at #8 on the U.S. charts late in ‘83 (OZ#25 - the track eventually achieved a place on the U.K. charts, #61, in late ‘85 as the lead track of an EP released on the back of the hit ‘The Power Of Love’). ‘Heart And Soul’ was also backed by another clever promo-video, this time featuring Huey Lewis as ‘Mr. 9 To 5’ looking for love after hours. The video once more played on Lewis’ ruggedly cinematic good looks, and the News’ penchant for indulging their quirky side. Huey Lewis & the News quickly positioned themselves among the first artists to fully embrace the marketing muscle of the music video medium, but with a distinctly creative and innovative flare to the fore of their efforts.

One of the defining features of the ‘Sports’ album was its wall to wall quality of material, with a clear absence of any ‘fillers’ in the track listing. The follow up single, ‘I Want A New Drug (Called Love)’ (penned by Hayes and Lewis), further served to fuel the public’s addiction to Huey Lewis & the News in early ‘84, and quickly surged to #6 on the U.S. Hot 100 (OZ#27). The song was good old fashioned, hook laden rock and roll delivered with precision craftsmanship, and further boosted the band’s profile Stateside. The promo-video stuck to a winning formula of combining footage of the band doing what they do best on stage, and a lyric based narrative - when I saw this video at the time of its release, I recall thinking that Huey Lewis wasn’t exactly a young man (though in fairness, being 34 at the time didn’t exactly make him an old man either). ‘The Heart Of Rock & Roll’ (written by Colla and Lewis) was next cab off the single release rank, and followed the path of its predecessor to a high of #6 in the U.S. (OZ#58, #49 in the U.K. on later release in ‘86). The song was a lyrical and stylistic ode to what Huey Lewis & the News loved best, good old fashioned rock and roll, and a tip of the hat to its enduring place in American popular culture. Though the song further proved that the heart of rock and roll was indeed still beating, it provided fodder to some critics who were beginning to level charges of stagnant stylistic predictability against Huey Lewis & the News.

If there were a mould of stylistic predictability, it was somewhat broken by the next single release, the doo-wop inspired ‘If This Is It’, released in the U.S. mid ‘84. I’ll declare my lack of impartiality at this point by saying ‘If This Is It’ is my favourite Huey Lewis & the News song, and ranks high on my list of all time 80s classics. In spite of its lyrical theme of ‘boy laments over losing girl’, the song has an insatiable feel good quality to it. The band drank liberally from doo-wop heritage to serve up a faultless portion of pristine pop music, and ‘If This Is It’ soon registered as Huey Lewis & the News’ third consecutive U.S.#6. It also marked their first foray inside the British charts (#39), and peaked at #20 in Australia. The accompanying promo clip was filmed at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and featured the band in typically jaunty character. I still get a laugh out of the ‘Jaws’ tribute at the end - and it wouldn’t be long before Huey Lewis & the News would have a more direct affiliation with Steven Spielberg.

Four consecutive U.S. top tens proved enough to drive the ‘Sports’ album to top spot on the American album charts (OZ#22/UK#23), with a total of over 100 weeks racked up inside the top 100, achieving multiple platinum status in the process, and finishing 1984 as the second biggest selling album in the U.S., next to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. The fifth and final single lifted was the straight up pop-rock number, ‘Walking On The Thin Line’ (US#18/OZ#70). As the dust was settling over the commercial commotion that was ‘Sports’, Huey Lewis was invited to contribute vocals on U.S.A. For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ in early ‘85, a clear indication of his stratospheric profile at the time.

It’s worth noting that in August ‘84, Huey Lewis filed legal action against Ray Parker Jr. over alleged plagiarism of the hit ‘I Want A New Drug (Called Love)’ committed via Ray Parker Jr’s global #1 ‘Ghostbusters’ (see previous post). Although I can hear echoes of the same melody in ‘Ghostbusters’, in all honesty I don’t think the songs are that similar, but I’m no musicologist. Others must have thought differently though, as the case was settled out of court in favour of Lewis, with an undisclosed sum being awarded. Given the recent commercial success for his band, its doubtful that Lewis’ back balance needed much of a boost at the time, and there was a certain irony in the movie theme song ‘Ghostbusters’ being at the heart of proceedings, as Huey Lewis & the News would themselves soon have a movie theme sitting atop world charts.

Note from the Management: Apologies for the lack of original promo videos, but the availability of You Tube videos for embedding is becoming ever more problematic.

The Virtuosity Of Versatility

2010-01-16T19:08:00.008+11:00

Around April or May of ‘87, I had occasion to attend my very first over age gig - which just happened to be in a dank, smoke filled warehouse. The venue was essentially a very large room, with makeshift stage, and bars serving alcoholic beverages on opposing walls. As with most experiences of my youth, my recollections of the occasion are hazy, the miasma of my memories made all the more murky by my moderately inebriated state at the time. With little conviction, I recall the name of the venue was The Wharf, and since it was located down near the (then largely undeveloped) foreshore area of the city, that sounds reasonably convincing to me. With more certainty, in fact with absolute conviction, I can state that the gig was a double bill, with Crowded House as the headline act.

It was the first occasion of several that I was fortunate enough to see Neil and the lads in action, and this particular show would have coincided with the tail end of action for Crowded House’s debut album. I do recollect that Eddie Rayner was playing keyboards with them at the time, and that Neil performed a bare bones version of ‘Better Be Home Soon’, which would become a major hit from their sophomore set the following year. It’s likely that my primary motivation for going to the show was to see Crowded House in action, but that’s not to dismiss in any way the class and appeal of the support act that night - Weddings, Parties, Anything - undoubtedly one of the most underrated acts on the Australian music scene during the 80s and early 90s.

I’ve written before on this blog about the thriving Australian pub-rock scene of the late 70s and early 80s, that spawned a plethora of outstanding music artists. The Melbourne based outfit Weddings, Parties, Anything were one such act to emerge on the scene during that period. The band had its roots in the Victorian city of Geelong, with founding member Michael (Mick) Thomas (vocals/guitar/bass) forming a key component of local act The Never Never Band during 1978. It was during this period that another Geelong based group emerged, in the guise of The Goanna Band (later to evolve into Goanna). Thomas was partnered in The Never Never Band by Joe Nadoh (guitar), Wendy Harrison (bass), and Archie Cuthbertson (drums), and after much toiling on stage, the quartet managed to release an independent single during February of 1981, ‘It Doesn’t Mean Anything’. But a career as a singer/songwriter definitely did mean something to Mick Thomas, and following the dissolution of The Never Never Band, he continued to develop his craft as a songwriter, hued with long standing love of traditional folk. Thomas built his songs around a base of folk narrative structures, dressed with a canvas of melodic folk-rock, and by late 1983 he was ready to form a new band - Weddings, Parties, Anything (WPA) - through which to channel his material. The band name was derived from a lyric at the end of The Clash’s ‘Revolution Rock’, but WPA would borrow more than just nomenclatural inspiration from the post-punk scene.

Thomas and his new outfit set about establishing themselves on the highly competitive Melbourne pub circuit, with Wendy Joseph (piano accordion/violin), Paul Clarke (guitar), and David Adams (drums), completing the line-up. The band were immediately a cut apart from most of the competition, not only due to their effective blending of traditional folk instrumentation with surging electric guitar licks, but also for Thomas’ very conscious decision to deliver his vocals in his natural Australian accent - something that was (and is) a bit out of the norm on the Australian music scene (though obvious exceptions come to mind in the form of Paul Kelly, Goanna - with Shane Howard, and Midnight Oil - with Peter Garrett). Stylistically, WPA were difficult to compartmentalise, though as Ian McFarlane states in ‘The Encyclopaedia of Australian Rock and Pop’, comparisons were drawn with Irish outfit The Pogues. Whatever the specific formula, the chemistry worked and WPA soon built up a strong following of fans.

By early ‘85, Mark ‘Squeezebox Wally’ Wallace had joined in place of Wendy Joseph, and his inclusion in the ranks would further define the WPA sound (bringing the accordion more to the forefront of the instrumental mix). December ‘85 saw the issuing of the band’s eponymous debut EP, released via the Suffering Tram label. Early live favourites such as ‘Summons In The Morning’ were committed to vinyl for the first time. Over the ensuing couple of years, WPA underwent a seismic shift in staff, with Thomas and Wallace remaining core components throughout. Janine Hall (bass, ex-Young Charlatans), and Marcus Schintler (drums) came on board, but it was the recruitment of guitarist/vocalist Dave Steel that proved a shot in the arm for the band’s fortunes. Steel was a veteran of the Melbourne pub circuit, having cut his teeth in outfits such as Relaxed Mechanics, and Fire Below, the latter being the most successful of these ventures. After Fire Below was extinguished in early ‘86, Steel took up the post with Weddings, Parties, Anything, with a cache of compositions to supplement Thomas’ songbook.

The now quintet set to work with producer Alan Thorne on recording their debut album, originally intended as an independent release. But the suits at the WEA label saw a greater potential in WPA’s material - perhaps it was the likeness of acronym that appealed - and as a result, the band’s debut set, ‘Scorn Of The Women’ (OZ#52), benefited from nationwide marketing and distribution muscle in April of ‘87. WPA’s unabashed blending of cutting edge post-punk style rock with folk/bush balladry (and all stops in between), immediately endeared them to both critics and fans alike. In Thomas and Steel, the band had two accomplished songsmiths to draw upon, and the album yielded three singles, the rock edged Celtic styling of ‘Away Away’ (OZ#92), ‘Shotgun Wedding’ (penned by Steel), and ‘Hungry Years’ during the course of ‘87. Relentless touring, and much deserved airplay, combined to garner Wedding, Parties, Anything the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) award for ‘Best New Talent’ - strange how most of these ‘new talents’ have been toiling away for years. A support slot for Irish folk-rock heavyweights The Pogues led into the band entering the recording studio once more, with the focus on recording a follow up album that would surpass the quality of their first.

‘Roaring Days’ (OZ#46 - the title taken from a Henry Lawson poem), released in April of ‘88, further strengthened WPA’s burgeoning reputation on the Australian scene as a class act - and marked the debut project for new bassist Peter Lawler. The album boasted the single ‘Say The Word’, and once more astutely combined contemporary folk-rock (imbued with a timeless quality, and more than a subtle hint of traditional Celtic roots), with thought provoking, and overtly left wing lyrics (again not unlike contemporaries Goanna and Midnight Oil). It was an album that reinforced the band’s reputation as not only accomplished players, but fine story tellers, as illustrated in tracks like ‘Industrial Town’. But just weeks into a support tour, which included their first foray into U.S. territory, WPA were dealt a blow with the departure of Dave Steel, who had decided to shift his base of operations to Sydney, and embark on a tilt at a solo career. Other mitigating factors in Steel’s split have been cited as exhaustion, and a level of personal frustration at taking a backseat to Mick Thomas in terms of material used for album releases.

Late in ‘88, Dave Steel released his debut solo single, ‘The Hardest Part’, which I just happened to purchase at the time (though to that point I admit I hadn’t bought anything by WPA). ‘The Hardest Part’ was a gentle, wistful take on the notion of a Christmas Carol, though from a uniquely Australian stance. Lyrics like “It’s midnight, Christ it’s thirty degrees (Celsius) outside” spoke volumes to me, and it was as finely crafted a bush ballad as you could hope to hear. Sadly, it was apparent that few did hear ‘The Hardest Part’, though I played the vinyl 45 relentlessly over the summer of ‘88/’89. I had to make do with that old vinyl copy until I came across a digital version on the wonderful blog That Striped Sunlight Sound (see link). Steel worked with acclaimed producer Graham ‘Buzz’ Bidstrup (of Angels fame) on his debut album ‘Bitter Sweet’. Released in September of ‘89, the album further solidified Dave Steel’s standing as a singer/songwriter of some distinction, and drew favourable comparison to the likes of Paul Kelly. 1991 saw the release of Steel’s sophomore album, ‘Angels Never Cry’, again helmed by Bidstrup, but offering up a panoramic soundscape of Steel’s talents as a singer/songwriter - anything from horn-driver boogie to country rock was on the menu - delivered with an all-star support cast of players. The more stripped back ‘The Last Radio’ hit the airwaves in August of ‘92, but flew largely under the radar of a grunge obsessed public. For a time Dave Steel took up a post with pop-rock outfit The Madisons, before forming his own band in 1993 - The Roadside Prophets. Neither album, ‘Cross My Palm’, nor EP, ‘Broken English’, proved profitable for the Prophets, and by 1994, Steel had returned to solo work. A long time in the Steel works, the album ‘Old Salt Blues’ washed ashore in record stores in mid ‘96, and in between times Steel had continued to tour with The Deadly Band - the backing outfit for Archie Roach and Ruby Turner. Over the course of the subsequent decade, he has maintained a presence on the Australian folk-rock and blues scene.

Without the strength of Steel in their structure, some may have doubted the band’s ability to remain afloat, but in guitarist Richard Burgmann (ex-Sunnyboys, Saints) an able replacement was found for Steel’s musical presence, and chief songsmith Mick Thomas was still at the helm to continue WPA’s tradition of powerful story telling through song. The band had by this time established an overarching sense of identity bound within a defiant and proud sense of Australianness - not an over the top expression of patriotism, but an exploration of people, places, events, and history, laced with colloquialisms and Australian folklore. WPA kept up their incessant touring schedule throughout 1988 and 1989, and also managed to release the quirkily titled EP, ‘Goat Dancing On The Tables’, prior to the release of their third full length set, ‘The Big Don’t Argue’ (OZ#63 - the album’s title borrowing heavily from football parlance). Produced by Jim Dickinson, ‘The Big Don’t Argue’ hit stores in October of ‘89, backed by a WEA marketing campaign which promoted it as an album boasting “11 songs about love, loneliness, and cannibalism”. Thomas took centre stage and poured his artistic heart into the likes of the traditional Australian folksong ‘Streets Of Forbes’ (just up the road from the Parkes’ radio telescope), ‘The Ballad Of Peggy And Col’, and ‘The Wind And The Rain’. WPA gained a support slot with pop-rock giants U2, and scored their second ARIA award, this time through ‘The Big Don’t Argue’ taking out ‘Best Indigenous Record’.

A parting of the ways then took place between record label WEA, and band WPA, with the latter going on to record their next release as an independent concern. The 1990 EP, ‘The Weddings Play Sports (And Falcons)’ (OZ#95), delivered what the title promised, in so much as it consisted of five cover versions of tracks by the Sports (see previous posts), with a version of ‘So Young’ (by Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons -see previous post) tacked on. The tide of success seemed to ebb for WPA thereafter, and during 1991, Mick Thomas put the band on a brief hiatus, so as to concentrate his energies on penning material for a new album. Ex-Huxton Creepers guitarist Paul Thomas replaced Burgmann for the recording of the 1992 album release, ‘Difficult Loves’, a labour of love that must have indeed proved difficult, being almost two years in the making. WPA signed with indie label rooArt, and ‘Difficult Loves’ (OZ#26) proved worth the wait. The album followed on from the timely release of its lead out single, ‘Father’s Day’, which hit the Australian charts during May of ‘92 (OZ#35). ‘Father’s Day’ was a shining example of emotive, and evocative folk-rock, and doubtless resonated strongly for many who succumbed to its strongly bittersweet lyrical theme. Clouds’ songstress Trish Young joined Thomas on vocals for the follow up single, ‘Step In Step Out’ (OZ#60), and by late ‘92 ‘Difficult Loves’ had notched up near gold sales - a damn fine effort considering the musical climate of the time. Not surprisingly, ‘Father’s Day’ gained WPA their third ARIA award, for ‘Best Single’. The influence of Weddings, Parties, Anything could also be heard at the time in up and coming Australian bands such as Frente!, and Things Of Stone And Wood, both of whom ironically garnered stronger commercial returns.

Over the ensuing year, WPA’s line-up remained stable, and yielded the follow up set, ‘King Tide’ (OZ#20) in October of ‘93. Long time friend Billy Bragg made a guest appearance on the track, ‘Island Of Humour’, though that track proved to be somewhat of a humorous island in an otherwise thematically dark affair. The associated singles, ‘Monday’s Experts’, and ‘The Rain In My Heart’ clearly reflected a more commercially accessible sound for WPA, though in no way a compromise of the band’s core stylistic integrity. The cover art featured Mick Thomas sitting atop the roof of a house, overlooking a flooded landscape, and in most respects ‘King Tide’ really did represent the high watermark for Weddings, Parties, Anything. By early 95, WPA had undergone further changes to its personnel, and surprisingly found themselves without a label stable. To satisfy the demands of its fans for new material, WPA took the unusual step of releasing their sixth album, ‘Donkey Serenade’, via mail order (this was pre-universal internet days), the largely stop-gap set comprising a mix of Thomas originals with cover material. By this time, WPA’s line-up had evolved to feature Mick Thomas, Paul Thomas, Mark Wallace, Jen Anderson (mandolin/vocals), Stephen O’Prey (bass), and Michael Barclay (drums). Mushroom backed the release of 1996’s ‘Riveresque’ (released for a time with a bonus album, ‘Garage Sale’), and this time around WPA focussed on consolidating their resurgent following at home. The album boasted a vibrancy of sound astutely juxtaposed against fervently emotive lyrical fare, illustrated best in tracks like ‘Luckiest Man’, and ‘For A Short Time’.

Sadly, for a short time defined the resurgence of Weddings, Parties, Anything, and following a boisterous 1998 farewell tour (which yielded the double album ‘They Were Better Live’) the band were effectively placed on indefinite hiatus. Mick Thomas took the decision to concentrate his creative energies on several solo projects that had been bubbling away in the background, including a musical titled ‘Over In The West’. He went on to combine further work as a playwright, with a new band enterprise called The Sure Thing. Over the ensuing decade, Mick Thomas has further enhanced his reputation as a unique and uncompromising artistic presence, and a cornerstone of the Australian folk-rock music scene, having released several critically lauded albums, including ‘The Horse’s Prayer’ and 2009’s ‘Spin! Spin! Spin!’, via his own label Croxton Records, and regularly producing material for other artists (including The Gadflys and The Waifs). Thankfully, on a number of occasions over recent years, Thomas has revived Weddings, Parties, Anything for a number of short tours and special concert events (though there are no plans for an album of new material in the works), reminding audiences of the existence of an Australian cultural treasure.

All Is Quiet Breaks The Silence

2010-01-01T00:01:00.003+11:00

In 2010, U2 will doubtless continue their reign as one of the pre-eminent rock bands on the world stage, but 27 years ago, the Dublin based quartet of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. were yet to ascend to the throne of superstardom. U2’s 1983 album, ‘War’ (UK#1/US#12/OZ#9), elevated the band to near vertigo heights. Aside from the rousing politi-rock anthem, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, the Steve Lillywhite produced set boasted U2’s breakthrough hit single, ‘New Year’s Day’. Released in January of ‘83, the track was a significant signpost on U2’s road to the top of the Joshua Tree, or any kind of tree really. The band’s rapidly evolving signature sound, highlighted by The Edge’s fervently strident guitar work, and Bono’s hauntingly emotive vocal plea, propelled ‘New Year’s Day’ to #10 in Britain, #9 in Australia, rattled and hummed across European chart territory, and alerted the U.S. to the Irish pop-rock fury that was soon to be unleashed.

If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, may 2010 offer many a beautiful day to you and yours.

Footnote: Retro Universe will be reactivated in the coming weeks, though in a reduced capacity to previous years. I teeter on the edge of anticipation as to where this curious journey into pop history will take us.

Back To The Egg Revisited

2009-10-07T13:59:00.012+11:00

After nearly eighteen months, and nigh on 500 posts, I’ve made the difficult decision to draw the curtain down on Retro Universe. A few months ago I nearly did likewise, but gained sufficient second wind to propel my enthusiasm to this point. However, my heart isn’t in it anymore, and though there are somewhere in the vicinity of 300-400 more artists that I’d like to write about, for now at least, I don’t feel I can do the blog, the artists, or myself justice in writing about them. I’d like to express a word of thanks to regular readers, and casual passers by, of Retro Universe. The biggest motivating factor in my putting so much time and effort into this blog has been the knowledge that like minded enthusiasts of quality music from a bygone era, have found, at least in part, my literary meanderings to be somewhat interesting, informative, and mildly entertaining. But - as they say in the classics, never say never. So like a money spinning Hollywood sequel, one day in the future the curtain may be raised once more for a Retro Universe encore. Until then, I thought I’d sign off in style.

As with so many things in life, for this swansong post I thought I’d travel full circle, or back to the egg if you will, and revisit something I made reference to in my very first post. I posted the front cover to the 1979 Wings album ‘Back To The Egg’, and unashamedly declared it to be one of my all time favourite albums. I stand by that declaration, and shall take this opportunity to expand with unabashed enthusiasm my reasons for taking such a stance.

Back in the early 80s, I took my first tentative steps into the world of being a Beatle-head. It began with some second hand copies of original Beatle albums, including ‘Abbey Road’, and the gatefold edition of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. By 1983, my interest in the Beatles, both as a group and as solo artists, was gaining momentum, swiftly. I was chuffed to receive a cassette copy of Paul McCartney’s album ‘Pipes Of Peace’ for Christmas ‘83, and over the ensuing couple of years it was McCartney’s back catalogue that received the lions share of my attention (though in time Lennon, Harrison and even Starr would receive likewise). I began hunting down any and all album titles by McCartney as a solo artist, and with his post-Beatles’ group Wings. One of my earlier purchases was a vinyl copy of ‘Back To The Egg’, procured at one of those small time suburban record bars, now fewer and farther between than ever before (thanks to mega-chain stores). Eventually I owned three vinyl copies of the album, which featured a different centre label on each side (one for ‘over easy’, the other for ‘sunny side up’). As I wore out one copy, I’d buy another, and I picked up a cassette copy just in case. This was during the formative chapters of the CD format, and who knew when or even if a back catalogue title would be released on the pristine digital mode. Several years later I finally did obtain ‘Back To The Egg’ on CD, and within a few months I’d purchased a second ‘back-up’ copy (this was well before the days of being able to burn a quick copy on your PC). In truth, one reason I purchased a second copy on CD was that the first copy had been the Parlophone release, and several months later I came upon the Columbia Records release (well, by that time repackaged under the Capitol banner). Exactly the same album, and track listing , but different CD label, and slightly altered layout and design on the back cover. Yes I know, my Beatles-tendencies were reaching, let’s say, unhealthily obsessive levels at that stage. In subsequent years I’ve kerbed my buying habits to a more casual level (and my bank balance thanks me). There was a reason for the ‘Back To The Egg’ album being released on two separate labels (one U.K., the other U.S. based), and it wasn’t an altogether unusual practice, but I’ll expand on that a little in the next paragraph or two. ‘Back To The Egg’ was also released on ‘video-disc’ format (which I guess equated to the relatively new video cassette format - it was also broadcast on television at the time), which for a year or two back in the late 70s/early 80s, became a bit of a fad with those artists who could afford to produce music videos for all the tracks on an album. Electric Light Orchestra did likewise for their 1979 album ‘Discovery’, which I have on DVD, but to my knowledge ‘Back To The Egg’ hasn’t been released in video-DVD format. I have a copy of ‘Rockestra Theme’, and snippets of ‘Winter Rose’ and ‘Love Awake’, which were included as a bonus on the ‘Wingspan’ DVD, and the video for ‘Baby’s Request’ (and ‘Goodnight Tonight’) was included on the DVD ‘McCartney Years’, but aside from some video tape copies of ‘Getting Closer’ and ‘Old Siam, Sir’, it’s a yawning gap in my Beatles’ related catalogue (if anyone who reads this has knowledge of a legit and available copy of the video version of ‘Back To The Egg’, please, please (let) me know).

Firstly, a little background to the ‘Back To The Egg’ tale. Arguably at their commercial and creative peak, 1978 saw the recording and release of Wings’ ‘London Town’ (UK#4/OZ#3/US#2) set, which oscillated between the mellowness of the title track, and the rollicking rock and roll of ‘I’ve Had Enough’, the latter title being incidentally what affiliate members Jimmy McCulloch and Joe English declared during that period. The album was released under the Wings banner, which had been clipped to the core trio of Paul and Linda McCartney, and long serving lieutenant Denny Laine. During promotions for the singles ‘With A Little Luck’, and ‘I’ve Had Enough’, former Elton John drummer Steve Holly hooked up with the band, and in the months following, respected session guitarist Laurence Juber completed the newest incarnation of the Wings’ squadron (the seventh in all, if you count the trio periods). With a new roster of players in place, and a newly released greatest hits album riding high in the charts, McCartney took his new recruits and retired to his own Spirit Of Ranachan studios, located on his farm in Scotland, determined to record an album that would resist the onslaught of the post-punk/new wave scene. Both Holly and Juber promised to add a sharpness that had arguably been lacking in the band’s chemistry of late, and McCartney no doubt felt he had both a talented, and potentially stable, crew under his command.

Meanwhile, the release of the ‘Wings Greatest’ package brought to a conclusion McCartney’s contract with the U.S. label Capitol Records (he was still betrothed to EMI/Parlophone elsewhere). Needless to say, an ex-Beatle who was now fronting one of the biggest selling acts on the planet in their own right, that is Wings, could command his own ticket price, and there were plenty of record labels courting him for that much prized signature on the dotted line. Columbia Records (CBS) eventually offered up the biggest dowry, and a deal was struck that was acknowledged as one of the richest paying in pop music history to that time. Details were never fully disclosed, but the full package of deferments, incentive clauses, buybacks, payouts, release windows, tour support et al, was rumoured to be in the vicinity of US$20M - not bad circa 1979. Reputedly one of the sweeteners that clinched the deal for Columbia, was signing over Frank Music to McCartney, home to the publishing rights of many high profile musicals, including ‘Guys And Dolls’ - for the catalogue hungry McCartney, it was too much to resist. To top things off, McCartney would also earn an almost unparalleled 20% royalty rate for every album sold. About the only upside for Columbia was they assumed control of his McCartney’s back catalogue - but only whilst he remained with them.

Doubtless, there were some nail biting label execs nervously awaiting the reception for Wings’ new single, ‘Goodnight Tonight’, released in March of ‘79. Initially, they must have breathed a collective sigh of relief, as the catchy, pseudo-retro, disco-tinged track was added to playlists immediately, and soon made a strong debut on the charts. The song had begun life in 1978 as an instrumental backing track. Pressured by Columbia for an advance single for the forthcoming album, McCartney reworked ‘Goodnight Tonight’ with the new Wings line-up, and produced one of the finest songs of his post-Beatles work. ‘Goodnight Tonight’ was pristine, and polished to damn near pop perfection. Stylistically it was eclectic, yet mercurially cohesive, seamlessly weaving strands of contemporary pop-rock, with splashes of flamenco guitar. It was captivating in its balance of pseudo old-world charm and romance, against spirited disco inflected pop. McCartney also served up one of the most infectious bass lines ever recorded - only marginally short of Bernard Edwards on Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ (see previous post). The single’s profile was boosted immeasurably by the no expense spared promotional video, produced by McCartney’s own MPL company, and shot at the scrupulously preserved Hammersmith Palais Ballroom, in London. McCartney and his Wings donned elegant 1920s style formal attire, complete with slick backed hair (except for Linda). Paul stepped up to the old style microphone to deliver his vocals in best Rudy Vallee style. During the more contemporary, disco-inflected breaks in the song, the video cut away to the band in contemporary garb, wailing away on bongoes and maracas and such. ‘Goodnight Tonight’ eventually did say goodnight to the charts, but not before cutting up the dance floor at #5 on both the U.S. and U.K. charts (OZ#6). The B-side to ‘Goodnight Tonight’ is worth taking a moment to mention. ‘Daytime Nighttime Suffering’ was later cited by both Paul and Linda as one of their favourite Wings’ songs, but it took until the CD release of ‘Back To The Egg’ for the song to make it to digital format. McCartney himself was prone on occasion to making generous promises (that for one reason or another weren’t always kept). It seems that the ex-Beatle experienced a momentary sensation of writer’s block when trying to come up with a B-side for the proposed single. He offered the other members of the band the opportunity to come up with a song over the weekend, that if deemed by him to be good enough, would be included on the single release, thus almost assuring its writer a generous slab of the royalties. By Monday though, it appeared that McCartney had recovered his fiscal senses, and song writing muse, and he declared that ‘Daytime Nighttime Suffering’ would suffice, putting an end to two days of daytime, nighttime suffering for Wings’ associates Laine, Juber, and Holly.

Whatever the financial restitution accrued from sales of ‘Goodnight Tonight’, it wasn’t enough to appease the suits at Columbia, who already saw the writing on the wall, and it was underwritten in red. Their hopes now rested on the reception offered Wings first album with the label.

I have a copy of a 1986 interview with Paul McCartney, in which he recalls encountering an ‘Aussie’ fellow on a train. McCartney told (in best imitation Australian accent) how this man informed him that his favourite Wings album was ‘Back To The Egg’. In the same interview McCartney went on to explain that the album was intended as a concept piece, but ended up being more of a ‘bombcept’ effort. A tad harsh from the man himself I have to say, but he did qualify that by saying that individually there were some good songs. Not to contradict Mr. McCartney, but in my humble view the album, though defined by its disparate elements, gels to form a thoroughly engaging and listenable whole - not unlike The Beatles’ ‘White’ album. As that album had done for The Beatles (not that they needed it), ‘Back To The Egg’ showcased McCartney’s diversity and consummate skill as both writer and performer, across a gamut of musical styles.

Production on ‘Back To The Egg’ had commenced back in June of ‘78, in Paul’s own studios in Scotland, laying down the basic guide tracks. The plan had been to complete the bulk of production at Abbey Road’s famed Studio No.2, but it appeared that Cliff Richard had gotten in first, and booked the studio indefinitely (presumably to record his ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile’ album). Never one to accept second best, McCartney ordered the construction of an exact replica of Studio No.2 be built in the basement of his MPL office building in Soho Square. When the studio was finished it featured only a mural in place of a real clock on the wall - McCartney wanted a real clock - so one was duly installed. He must have become comfortable with the layout in his newly dubbed Replica Studio, as the bulk of ‘Back To The Egg’ was recorded there over the ensuing months. Apparently, McCartney so liked the atmosphere there, that he briefly pondered the idea of converting it into a little café/club for punters, not unlike the old Cavern days. The balance of work for ‘Back To The Egg’ was completed at Lympne Castle in Kent, and EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in London - under the production auspices of McCartney, with former Apple engineer turned producer Chris Thomas (worked with Pink Floyd, Elton John, Roxy Music), and aided by engineer Phil McDonald (of the curly wig and brandy barrel - per the album sleeve notes).

With much hype and fanfare, ‘Back To The Egg’ was hatched during June of 1979. Much to the chagrin of Columbia execs, McCartney had refused to include the recent hit single ‘Goodnight Tonight’ on the album, leaving them solely reliant on the new single releases, ‘Old Siam, Sir’ (UK#35), and ‘Getting Closer’ (US#20/UK#60/OZ#57) to generate interest, and sales. McCartney himself was quietly confident that ‘Back To The Egg’ would reaffirm Wings’ standing as one of the pre-eminent pop-rock acts on the planet, and that their back to basics approach would gel well with the new wave scene. It didn’t quite turn out that way. The album was almost universally lambasted by critics, but hey, what do they know. Sales, at least in the context of a regular artist, were more than respectable (UK#6/US#8/OZ#3), but still fell short of the desperately high hopes of the label suits. The single ‘Arrow Through Me’ (US#29) became Wings’ final foray into the singles charts (if you discount the live Glasgow recording of ‘Coming Up’ - which I know technically I shouldn’t since it was performed by the band, but since it charted in mid 1980, I consider it a post-Wings release. But hey look, if you‘re willing to argue the point, I’ll gladly entertain the notion that it was indeed the last single to chart under the Wings banner, albeit Paul McCartney & Wings). But I seriously digress in parentheses, as has been my want to do on occasion. I recall ‘Arrow Through Me’ featuring over the end credits to the romantic comedy ‘Oh Heavenly Dog’, starring Chevy Chase and Jane Seymour, which though a charming enough film, wouldn’t rate highly in my memory banks otherwise.

What the critics labelled as uninspired, sporadic, fragmented, and directionless, I would label as sheer brilliance, and Wings’ finest hour on record (or 42 minutes at any rate). So just what treasures are revealed in that 42 minute soundscape? The opening crackle of ‘Reception’ announces that here is a concept record - OK, we’ve established that. The track is an intriguing montage of sound bytes, woven together by a funky bass line. The fade-out leads directly to a slap-in-the-face crack of guitar, that announces the pulsating pop-rock of ‘Getting Closer’. Now that the pyrotechnic welcome is out of the way, the gentle acoustic guitar of ‘We’re Open Tonight’ invites you inside for the show proper, lulling you into a reclined state of consciousness, only to be jolted back into life by the manic frenzy of ‘Spin It On’ (I’m not sure of the songs B.P.M. rating, but Steve Holly must have been redlining behind the drum kit). Such a ferocious pace is unreasonable to sustain, so next up listeners are invited to kick back with some bluesy, down home country-rock, courtesy of ‘Again And Again’ (Denny Laine’s moment in the spotlight). That leads into one of my personal highlights, the brilliant ‘Old Siam, Sir’, laced with captivating lyrical characters, quirky oriental style synth, and layers of intricately meshed guitar work, including one of the most memorable riffs McCartney has ever penned (reportedly the track originated as an instrumental called ‘Super Big Heatwave’ - the eventual title has infinitely more cache). Side-A (we are talking pre-CD here) is rounded out by the silky smooth and sultry R&B of ‘Arrow Through Me’.

And now that you’ve had a chance to regain your breath whilst flipping the album over to Side-B, its time to have your socks knocked off by the raucous powerhouse of the opening salvo, ‘Rockestra Theme’. The largely instrumental track (aside from the cry of ‘I have not had any dinner’), was one of two recorded during a specially convened session at the Abbey Road Studios, on October 3, 1978. Invited to contribute was a virtual royal roster of rock’s finest. Among the elite all-star line-up were: John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Pete Townshend, Kenney Jones (who took Keith Moon’s place), Gary Brooker, Ronnie Lane, Ray Cooper, Tony Ashton, Dave Gilmour, Hank B. Marvin, and the classic Wings horn section (and regular Wings members Denny Laine, Linda McCartney, Steve Holly, and Laurence Juber). Hats off to the production and technical crew on hand for getting that lot to meld so magnificently together - McCartney no doubt has to take some of the kudos. The über-super group played one rehearsal, then five takes were captured in all, and it was worth the effort (‘Rockestra Theme’ won the Grammy Award for ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance’). With the superstar ensemble off to the pub to enjoy a pint in celebration of their collective greatness, time to return to some rock roots, with the stripped down, punk-esque honesty of ‘To You’. This leads into the album’s conceptual heart, with the atmospheric medleys ‘After The Ball/Million Miles’, and ‘Winter Rose/Love Awake’ (featuring the Black Dyke Mills Band - “who were returned virtually intact” according to the liner notes), the ambient interlude serving to calm proceedings through its mellow charms. The sublime spoken word ‘The Broadcast’ acts as a curious intermission from regular programming, and features excerpts from ‘The Sport Of Kings’ by Ian Hay, and ‘The Little Man’ by John Galsworthy - the hypnotic piano backing deserves to be much more than a seemingly throwaway accompaniment (it’s as affecting as ‘Believe Me Now’ from E.L.O.’s ‘Out Of The Blue’ set). The energy levels are then ramped up to fever pitch by the surging ‘So Glad To See You Here’, the second track recorded by the expanded über-super group Wings roster. The album is then stylishly closed out with the seductive nightcap ‘Baby’s Request’.

Even for an ex-Beatle, the harsh criticism and less than anticipated sales for ‘Back To The Egg’ (that was expected to be a blockbuster success) must have proved a bitter pill to swallow. With no immediate plans to tour, McCartney retreated to his farm in Scotland, and began working on some songs, that would eventually be realised via his first post-Wings album, ‘McCartney II’ (1980). One of the tracks he recorded was the syrupy, though admittedly catchy, holiday treat ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ (UK#6/OZ#61), released under the Paul McCartney banner in time for Christmas 1979 (though in the cobbled together promo video, Wings alumni are clearly present at the festivities held at The Fountain Pub in Ashhurst, Horsham). By mid November ‘79, McCartney had reassembled Wings to take flight on a nineteen date tour of the U.K., mainly taking in smaller venues, and leading up to the Christmas break (it included the Apollo Theatre gig in Glasgow, at which the live single version of ‘Coming Up’ was captured). The tour was in essence a warm-up for a proposed world tour, scheduled to kick-off in Japan in during January, 1980. Wings had one last flurry of fervent live gigging with a series of dates at the Hammersmith Odeon, from December 26 to December 29, 1979, billed as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea (and UNICEF). Joining McCartney and Wings on the bill were Pretenders, Queen, Elvis Costello, Rockpile, Robert Plant, The Who, The Clash, Matumbi, The Specials, and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Each show climaxed with an ever evolving über-super group of musicians performing ‘Rockestra Theme’.

On a high (so to speak) from the series of high profile, post Christmas gigs, McCartney had every reason to feel optimistic about the new year, and the new decade. He left London on January 12, and following a brief stop over in New York (where rumour has it he made another vain attempt to meet up with John Lennon), he arrived at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980. A customs agent made a v-line to McCartney’s carry bag, and viola - half a pound of premium grade pot. The ensuing events are well documented, and were captured by local press for all to see. Much rumour and innuendo abounds regarding McCartney’s arrest and subsequent incarceration, but that’s for more qualified scribes than I to speculate about in more voluminous surroundings. After a nine day stint in the slammer, McCartney was released and summarily deported from Japan. Wings’ tour plans were in tatters - and for all intents and purposes so was the band. McCartney and his crew continued in fits and splutters over the course of 1980, recording sporadically in-studio, but with the release (and success) of the ‘McCartney II’ album, it was apparent that Wings were permanently grounded. During 1981, McCartney steered the proposed Wings album into a solo project, and dedication to his fallen former bandmate, John Lennon (1982’s ‘Tug Of War’ album). One by one, McCartney’s ‘wingmen’, signed off from the band, with the ever loyal Laine the last to leave in April of ‘81, with an announcement that Wings had formally split coming at the same time.

It’s worth noting, that at the time of Wings’ disbandment, the group had racked up global record sales over and above that of The Beatles (to that point anyway), and rated as one of the biggest selling artists of the 1970s. Paul McCartney had certainly proven his point.

And on that note, I shall wish you all peace and happiness, and bid you a ‘Goodnight Tonight’ from Retro Universe.

Tears For Fears Reap A New Harvest Of Gold

2009-10-05T20:19:00.010+11:00

If eight months seemed an exorbitantly long period of time to record ‘Songs From The Big Chair’, it took a marathon four years for its follow up to finally surface, during which time people could have been forgiven for thinking Tears For Fears had left the building. One factor behind the lengthy wait, was the personal angst experienced by Curt Smith over the breakdown of his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. Both Orzabal and Smith must have also felt an inordinate amount of pressure to produce something at least vaguely comparable in quality to their previous set, but a delay of four years between album releases posed somewhat of a career risk. Curt Smith took more of a backseat in the writing, creative direction, and even performance departments, leaving Orzabal to take up the reins as the creative and stylistic mastermind behind proceedings. Keyboardist Ian Stanley also largely withdrew from the scene after creative differences came to a head, and the initial recording sessions were all but scrapped (he went on to much success as a producer with A-Ha, Howard Jones). That same breakdown in proceedings resulted in the departure of producer Chris Hughes, with Orzabal resolving to take control of the production side of things, in partnership with engineer David Bascombe. Touring keyboardist Nicky Holland had also taken on the role as Orzabal’s principal song writing cohort, and co-wrote five of the album’s eventual eight tracks. Orzabal penned another two tracks by himself, but the album’s lead out single was the only track co-written by Orzabal and Smith (and ironically featured contributions from both Stanley and Hughes).

‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’ was an unabashed pastiche of psychedelic era Beatles, effectively contemporizing the intricate and quirky arrangements that defined the ‘Sgt. Pepper’, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ era genius of the Fab Four. The song is nothing if not grandiose in scale, and ambitious in style, hypnotic in its intricate arrangements, twists and turns of melody, and playfully arcane lyrical games. It’s a stand out track, as much for its daring, as for the fact that, stylistically, its positioned at odds with the balance of its source album. No expense was spared on the accompanying promo video, which pushed the boundaries of computer generated effects to their 1989 limits (and won two MTV Music Video Awards). That opening shot of the face carved into a mountain wall always reminds of ‘The Never Ending Story’. ‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’ reaped a considerable harvest on the charts (US#2/UK#5/ OZ#14), and reminded the world that Tears For Fears were still an artistic force to be reckoned with.

The eagerly awaited album, ‘The Seeds Of Love’, was finally planted in stores during September of ‘89, and took root at #1 on the British charts first week in (US#8/OZ#23). Released on the Fontana label (through Polygram), the record label execs knew there was much riding on the reception for the album, which by then had racked up a reported production debt of over a million quid. No doubt the success of the lead out single, and the high chart debut for the album, alleviated some of the concerns, but longevity of shelf life would also be needed to recoup the staggering costs. Tears For Fears served up just eight tracks on ‘The Seeds Of Love’, but quality will always win out over quantity, and there was supreme quality in abundance throughout the album. Orzabal and co. had elevated pop sophistication to a new high, incorporating an epic scope of styles and influences into the mix. The songs offered expansive and blatantly accessible hooks, but retained an emotive resonance throughout. Elements of late night, city streets jazz-rock simmered below the surface of ‘Standing On The Corner Of The Third World’ (which featured the talents of virtuoso trumpeter Jon Hassell), ‘Swords And Knives’ oscillated between dripping restraint, and funk-edged soul, whilst the epic (8 minute plus) ‘Badman’s Song’ delved deep into jazz and soul streams to feed fountains of funk-laced rock.

In terms of a track with heart and soul, the album’s second single possessed a purity of both. ‘Woman In Chains’ confirmed, if any still doubted, that Tears For Fears had progressed well beyond the boundaries of a mere pop band. Orzabal and Smith kept their promise to invite R&B vocalist Oleta Adams to contribute to the album, and ‘Woman In Chains’ was her moment to shine brightest. The spiritually rich song was drenched in slow burning atmosphere, with a soothing one minute instrumental intro, acting as a precursor to Orzabal and Adams trading impassioned lead vocal lines. The song builds a slow and steady momentum, tinged with soulful, even gospel like vocals, and works to an emotive crescendo as one Phil Collins unleashes on the drums. Oleta Adams’ contribution can’t be understated, and her sultry, poignant vocal style added a welcoming hue to the Tears For Fears pop palette. I know I wax lyrical about certain songs at times, but ‘Woman In Chains’ really is one of those rare examples of a flawless piece of music. Lyrically, Orzabal explained that the theme behind ‘Woman In Chains’ related to issues of feminism, and the complexities of individual and social dynamics between the genders. The accompanying promo video was an especially effective one, focussing on the troubled, but ultimately loving relationship between a man (who is a struggling boxer) and woman (an exotic dancer), and featured much evocative symbolism throughout. Regardless of its inherent splendour, ‘Woman In Chains’ wasn’t able to achieve the freedom it deserved on the charts, and peaked highest in Britain (#26, US#36/OZ#44), late in ‘89.

Meanwhile, in an effort to further redress the haemorrhaging balance sheets, Tears For Fears hit the road for yet another colossal tour, this time sponsored by Philips (ah corporate sponsorship, you gotta love it). The tour was captured in the video release, ‘Going To California’, filmed at the band’s May 1990 gig in Santa Barbara (Oleta Adams also toured with the band). Virgin also released a 64 page book by way of companion to the ‘Seeds Of Love’ tour, with much on offer to dedicated Tears For Fears’ fans. As the band was traversing the globe on their latest revenue raising jaunt, the third single was released from ‘The Seeds Of Love’. ‘Advice For The Young At Heart’, co-written by Orzabal and Holland, was another shimmering ray of soul-infused pop sunshine. It was also the only track from the album on which Curt Smith handled all the lead vocal duties. The song always feels quite caressing to me, almost soothing in its honesty, not just musically, but lyrically. As middle age looms ever closer to me (some might argue it’s already arrived), the notion of time being wasted on youth seems more resonant than ever. “Advice for the young at heart, soon we will be older, when we gonna make it work”, surely must ring true for anyone over thirty. How about dispensing with the stuff that doesn’t matter, and doing something about the stuff that does - or at least that’s the message I take from it. The line “Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear” was a quote borrowed from John Lennon. The fact that such a powerful life memo is delivered in such an exquisite pop morsel, is all the better. It’s worth noting that one Robbie McIntosh (Pretenders, Paul McCartney) dropped by to deliver a stellar performance on lead guitar. The promo video (filmed in Florida) is a sweet, and understated affair, embodying the song’s underlying themes - but not in a preachy way, more a how about giving it a moment’s reflective thought. For all its great qualities, it seemed few were listening to ‘Advice For The Young At Heart’, as it only reached enough of an audience to peak at #36 on the British charts early in 1990 (US#89). The fourth single, ‘Famous Last Words’, proved strangely portentous, but less than lucrative on the charts.

‘The Seeds Of Love’ was positioned a world away from ‘The Hurting’, and though the transformation in Tears For Fears had taken seven years to complete, it was expressed within the space of just eighteen album tracks. But it was apparent that through their reincarnation, Orzabal had evolved down a distinctly different musical path to Smith, and in hindsight Curt Smith’s backseat role to that of Roland Orzabal’s creative driver could only be sustained for so long. By 1991, the pair had reached an irreconcilable point, and parted ways in acrimonious fashion, resorting to taking covert snipes at each other. Orzabal’s reputed perfectionist approach to production, combined with Smith’s desire to slow the pace of things, were both cited as other extenuating factors in the partnership breakdown. Curt Smith relocated to New York and recorded the disastrous 1993 solo album, ‘Soul On Board’, a project he’s been distancing himself from ever since. During the balance of the 90s he continued to pen music with writer/producer Charles Pettus, and for a brief stint recorded and toured under the name Mayfield.

Meanwhile, Roland Orzabal had retained the Tears For Fears band brand, and in March 1992 the compilation ‘Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 1981/1992)’ was released (UK#2/OZ#51/ US#53). It had been preceded by the single, and only new track included, ‘Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)’ (UK#17). I’ve always found the track a bit jarring, and it definitely projected a bit of a manic, edgy feel. With Smith now off the scene, ‘Laid So Low’ represented the first chapter of the new ‘solo’ version of Tears For Fears. Orzabal wasn’t the only one man band of that era - Iva Davies with Icehouse, Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera, and Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners come to mind (I know there were additional players recruited, but essentially the creative drive was down to one person). I made a point of purchasing the accompanying video collection (and later DVD) for the ‘Tears Roll Down’ compilation.

Orzabal had also found time to refine his production skills, helming Oleta Adams’ debut album, ‘Circle Of One’, which took her to a richly deserved #1 on the British charts. By 1993, Orzabal had prepared an album of new material to be released under the Tears For Fears moniker. The lead out single, ‘Break It Down Again’, penned by Orzabal and new song writing partner Alan Griffiths, was a funky little up-tempo pop-rock piece that proved appealing enough to crack #20 on the British charts, and #25 Stateside (#1 ‘modern rock hit’), and featured songstress Gail Ann Dorsey on backing vocals. Shortly after, the album ‘Elemental’ hit stores, and almost immediately hit #5 in Britain (though arguably on an initial wave of anticipation, given yet another four year pause between full studio albums). The U.S. proved more circumspect in their reception (#45), reserving judgement until a major hit single emerged - which sadly - didn’t. Orzabal took a back to roots approach across many of the tracks, and dispensed with some of the elaborate arrangements that had characterised ‘The Seeds Of Love’. The title track packed a funky, dance inducing punch to open the set, whilst the atmospheric and soulful ‘Cold’ allayed any fears that Orzabal had forgotten how to write and record quality material. But once more, when released as the follow up single, ‘Cold’ (UK#72) was frozen out of any significant chart action.

Long time, and ever patient, fans of Tears For Fears only had to endure a two year wait for the next album, 1995’s ‘Raoul And The Kings Of Spain’ (UK#41/US#79), with Orzabal retaining the song writing and production team of Alan Griffiths and Tim Palmer (though shifting to the Epic/Sony label, which delayed the album release almost a year). The album was dedicated to Orzabal’s father, and more widely to his Spanish heritage. There was a strongly introspective aspect to the songs, which in and of itself wasn’t unusual for the Tears For Fears songbook, and Orzabal infused the album in parts with Latin music influences. I haven’t heard the album in full, but Tom Demalon at All Music Guide referred to the album as “treading water” and “lacking new ideas”, but on the upside it contained some “genuinely pretty music”. One of the few tracks I’ve heard in full is the beautifully crafted ballad ‘Secrets’, which sadly is something the album and associated singles remained to the public at large (Oleta Adams also reunited with Orzabal on the track ‘Me And My Big Ideas’). The very Simple Minds’ sounding title track achieved a respectable #31 on the British charts, but the rather bland guitar-pop of ‘God’s Mistake’ (UK#61) represented Tears For Fears’ last foray into the singles charts for almost a decade. During late ‘95/early ‘96, Orzabal had taken Tears For Fears on the road in support of the ‘Raoul’ album, with Latin America a key focus, though curiously the U.K. only witnessed one show.

The next few years were mostly sans tears and fears, at least in the band sense. Orzabal (and producer Chris Hughes) gave their seal of approval to the 1996 release ‘Saturnine, Martial & Lunatic’, a collection of B-sides and rarities from the band’s Mercury years. In 1999, Hughes oversaw the remastering of Tears For Fears’ first three albums, adding new lustre to some already glistening gems of 80s pop-rock. Orzabal kept himself occupied with production work for Icelandic singer/songwriter Emiliana Torrini, and took time to release his first official ‘solo’ album, ‘Tomcats Screaming Outside’, in April of 2001. A year previous, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith took the first tentative steps in reconciling their badly fractured friendship. Over the next couple of years, the pair began writing together (along with Smith’s song writing partner Charles Pettus). Following yet another delay due to record label politics, the album ‘Everybody Loves A Happy Ending’ hit stores in the U.S. in late 2004 (#46), with Orzabal and Smith hitting the road in support, once more under the united Tears For Fears banner. Oleta Adams made a guest appearance on stage at the band’s Kansas City show, performing ‘Woman In Chains’. The album received a U.K. release a few months later (#45), and the associated single, ‘Closest Thing To Heaven’, elevated Tears For Fears into the top forty for the first time in a decade. The uplifting track borrowed heavily from the band’s former hit ‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’, but if anyone was qualified to pull off an impressive imitation, Tears For Fears were. The accompanying promo video was nothing short of breathtaking, and featured actress Brittany Murphy riding in a hot air balloon. If Tears For Fears had dipped into the Beatles paintbox for inspiration on their previous work, they smothered the stylistic canvas liberally with colourful, Beatlesque influences on the album ‘Everybody Loves A Happy Ending’, no more so than with the opening title track, which positively bursts at the seams with catchy hooks, and clever, quirky detours into pop-rock fantasy. On the band’s official website, Roland Orzabal stated that ‘Everybody Loves A Happy Ending’ should have been the album that followed ‘The Seeds Of Love’, but better late than never, and eventually fans of the band got the happy ending they desired, with the bonus of a promising new beginning to boot.

Almost 25 years on from their first expression of deep, affecting individuality through song, Tears For Fears remain unapologetically on their own trajectory of musical expression. Enigmatic in their paradoxical balancing of the simple and complex, their music continues to be woven intricately into a tapestry of sheer pop wizardry.

Tears For Fears Rule The World

2009-10-04T18:09:00.006+11:00

With ‘Mothers Talk’ having wet the appetite, Tears For Fears decided to up the ante and ‘Shout’ for their next single. The song had been penned by Roland Orzabal and keyboardist Ian Stanley, with Orzabal initially penning the anthemic, mantra-like chorus using a small synthesizer and drum machine (Stanley helped construct the verse structure). He felt the song was more suited to being an album track, but producer Chris Hughes heard a hit single. What began as a relatively simple song structure evolved into complex instrumentation and vocal arrangements, and took the best part of four months to complete (out of the eight months of total recording time afforded the new album). The finished product was worth agonizing over, and when released in the U.K. during November of ‘84, ‘Shout’ made itself heard almost immediately on the charts. The song was more than just a catchy, infectious chorus chant. It announced the arrival of a more mature Tears For Fears soundscape, complex in its arrangements, rich in its textures, and polished in its performance. But for all its technical refinement, ‘Shout’ packed an emotionally resonant punch, and effectively conveyed the dramatic clout that Tears For Fears had become known for - but on a wider, broader, deeper scale, enveloping listeners with its relentless, impassioned march. The track was dripping with searing power chords, explosive drum fills, and Roland Orzabal served up an epic guitar solo (which required nothing less than standing on a cliff top to deliver). Lyrically, some mistook ‘Shout’s theme as continuing the primal scream doctrine of connecting with your pain, then letting it out verbally, but as Orzabal told Billboard Magazine, the song was more concerned with the individual making their opinions known, more specifically about bigger picture social and political issues (basically encouraging people to protest if they felt the need). Orzabal handled the lead vocals (with Curt Smith joining him on chorus), and it was becoming the norm for the pair to trade lead vocal duties. The promo video for ‘Shout’ was directed by Nigel Dick (fresh from directing the video for Band Aid). It was a relatively straight forward affair, shot on two locales - an area called Durdle Door near Dorset, on the south-west coast of England, and an in-studio session featuring the full band, with a cast of family and friends in support to belt out the chorus. ‘Shout’ made its voice heard loud and clear at #4 on the British charts early in ‘85, peaked at #1 in Australia (during March), and eventually bellowed its way into the top ten in more than 25 countries worldwide. However, Tears For Fears would have to wait another six months before ‘Shout’ would make itself heard Stateside (well it had all that water to cross - actually given the speed of sound it should have only taken a few hours).

Coinciding with the release of their sophomore album, ‘Songs From The Big Chair’, Tears For Fears unleashed the third single to feature on the album, the majestic pop-rock gem ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. In the closing chapters of recording the album, Tears For Fears realised they needed one more song to round out the track listing. They had three candidates, one of which was a half-finished song which Roland Orzabal had been tinkering with. At the time Orzabal was a bit dismissive of the song, thinking it too lightweight a pop piece for the Tears For Fears songbook, but producer Chris Hughes heard potential in the song, and encouraged Orzabal to flesh out the lyrics, and polish the guitar line. Ian Stanley chipped in, and three days later Tears For Fears had recorded their first U.S. #1 - ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. Both band and record label chose the track as the first single release for the American market, and their decision was proven to be justified, as ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ invaded the U.S. Hot 100 during March of ‘85, and cruised to a two week stint ruling the charts during June. The song’s overtly commercial nature drove it to the top of radio playlists the world over, and to #2 in both Britain and Australia. The opening guitar chord serves as a fresh awakening from an especially heavy slumber - it just energises the senses instantly, and screams freedom. If ‘Mad World’ had an oppressive, gloomy, suffocating atmosphere, ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ was its breezy, dreamy, sunny-side up antithesis. Curt Smith stepped up to the lead vocals microphone for this one, whilst Orzabal, Stanley and Elias served up lush layers of instrumental support. Despite a serious lyrical message (of world domination and the military machine), musically the song breaks free of any pretentiousness, relying solely on its engaging pop-rock charms. The promo video reflected the songs feel of warmth and breeziness, with much open road adventure for Curt Smith in a nifty little green Austin-Healey 3000 sports car, winding his way around Southern Californian highways and byways. ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ not only ruled the charts, but earned Tears For Fears a Brit Award for ‘Best Single’.

The runaway success of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ Stateside, opened the gateway for Tears For Fears to take a deep breath and unleash ‘Shout’ on the U.S. market. With their profile at an all time high, ‘Shout’ was a sure fire commercial hit, and by August of ‘85 Tears For Fears had ascended to the summit of the U.S. Hot 100 for the second time within two months (this time for a three week stint). By this time, the source album, ‘Songs From The Big Chair’, was riding high on charts across the world (UK#2/OZ#5), including a five week sabbatical at the top of the U.S. charts. Produced by Chris Hughes, the album confirmed the arrival of Tears For Fears as a more mature, accomplished band. Whilst the band took a step back from some of the more lyrically confronting themes associated with primal therapy, the album’s title did take some inspiration from related material. It referenced an NBC-TV miniseries called ‘Sybil’, about a girl with multiple personalities. The girls analyst had a very large chair, which she sat in during regression therapy - a place of safety and comfort. Tears For Fears may have explored and confronted their own demons on ‘The Hurting’, but ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ banished said demons to the netherworld, and served as a thematic reawakening of the psyche to its own potential for freedom and emotional clarity. As Stanton Swihart wrote in his All Music Guide review of the album - it “marks the progression towards emotional healing” - a kind of emotional and musical catharsis. Curt Smith noticeably assumed a lesser role in the writing stakes, with Ian Stanley partnering up with Orzabal on most of the album’s ten tracks. The arrangements were technically savvy, and production values flawless, with the result being a more refined, textured feel. The previous ruling order of structured synth-pop gave way largely to a more organic (though no less precise) layering of influences, from soul, R&B, guitar pop - all bursting at the seams with catchy hooks and melodic titbits. Orzabal and Smith were both quoted at the time as saying they approached some of the songs in a deliberately commercial way, working meticulously to craft them to a point of absolute pop accessibility. All the more reason to marvel at the magnificence of the result, which in no way comes across as a sell out to commercial aspirations.

The ensuing single encapsulated the notion of marrying perfectly crafted song structure with commercial appeal. The shimmering pop jewel ‘Head Over Heels’ knocked me off my feet from the very first time I heard it. The crisp piano intro melts into intricately woven guitar, drawing you into a world of pristine pop patina, populated with finely crafted layers of glistening guitars (with splashes of jangle-pop), velvety vocal harmonies, sparkling synths, and meticulously melded rhythm tracks, all cascading down in waves. The song’s ornate and lavish production values didn’t weigh down on its innately ebullient pop splendour. ‘Head Over Heels’ was in no need of a four leaf clover to aid it on its trajectory to #3 on the U.S. charts (UK#12/OZ#21). The song’s history pre-dated work on ‘Songs From The Big Chair’, as it was originally part of a segue with the song ‘Broken’, a B-side to ‘Pale Shelter’. The reworked and re-recorded single was backed by one of the most eye catching promo videos of the era - Tears For Fears had quickly become the darlings of the MTV set. The song’s essentially romantic theme was played out with Roland Orzabal in the role of a love lorn lad lusting after a librarian. Curt Smith played a cleaner, whilst Ian Stanley and Manny Elias finally received more prominent roles in the cast. It’s a feel good, and slightly quirky affair, in keeping with the feel of the song itself, and reflective of Tears For Fears metamorphosis from po-faced synth-pop practitioners to more accessible music artists. There was even a hint of the absurd about the promo video, which reiterated the band’s willingness to cast off the self-conscious shackles of the past. Further enhancing their newly declared openness, Tears For Fears released the video ‘Scenes From The Big Chair’, a 75 minute collection of interviews, music videos, live performances, and behind the scenes footage of the band.

The album ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ yielded one more single, with the languid, soulful ‘I Believe’ (UK#23), a more stripped down affair with promo video to suit. On the back of such monumental commercial and critical acclaim, ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ went on to sell in excess of eight million copies (won multiple platinum accreditations), and established itself as one of the major mileage markers on the 80s pop-rock highway. At the height of hysteria surrounding the album, Tears For Fears were scheduled to perform at the Philadelphia leg of the Live Aid concerts, but a last minute withdrawal caused some consternation from organisers. Officially the reason given related to some of the band’s backing musicians having quit due to an expiration of their contract. Those backing musos in question were guitarist Andrew Saunders, and saxophonist Will Gregory (keyboardist Nicky Holland also toured with them during this period). I recall the band copping some flack from the media at the time, but in an effort to save face, Tears For Fears offered up proceeds from selected venues on their mammoth world tour. During that same year long tour, Orzabal and Smith came across the vocal talents of Oleta Adams, who was performing in a Kansas City hotel bar at the time. They extended an invitation for Adams to contribute to their next album, an invitation which in time would reap rewards for both the band and Adams. At the conclusion of the ‘Big Chair’ world tour, drummer Manny Elias left the group (he went on to work with Peter Gabriel, Julian Lennon), and for a period Tears For Fears was put on hiatus.

During 1986, Roland Orzabal and Ian Stanley collaborated on a side project dubbed Mancrab. The duo released just the one single, ‘Fish For Life’, which also featured on the soundtrack to the motion picture ‘The Karate Kid, Part II’. Perhaps Bob Geldof once again reminded the band of their Live Aid no show, as in May of ‘86, Tears For Fears released a slightly modified version of their #1 ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, retagged as ‘Everybody Wants To Run The World’. The single was released to support Geldof’s new initiative Sport Aid’s Race Against Time, a worldwide running event held to raise money for Ethiopian famine relief, and proved the song had considerable endurance, peaking at #5 on the British charts.

The Hurting Of Tears For Fears

2009-10-03T00:03:00.012+10:00

The origin of band names has become a topic of much interest, even conjecture, throughout popular music history. A virtual mini-mythology has evolved around the source and meaning of band names, no doubt serving to fuel the mystique and intrigue surrounding those artists. On occasion a band’s name can clearly reflect their place of origin, the name of one of its members, or the style of music they play. At other times, their moniker is more ambiguous, or in certain cases can be just plain inexplicable and weird. The 80s yielded its share of interesting band brands, with the likes of Duran Duran (taken from the name of the villain in the film ‘Barbarella’), Crowded House (inspired by the band’s cramped living quarters), R.E.M. (the acronym for the term ‘rapid eye movement’), T’pau (named after a Vulcan princess from the TV series ‘Star Trek’), Wang Chung’s name evolved out of Huang Chung (translated from the Chinese term for ‘perfect pitch’), whilst a twosome of troubled teen musicians from Bath adopted their moniker from a term associated with a radical form of psychotherapy.

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith first meet one another during their early teens, in their home township of Bath, England. Both had some uncomfortably common ground, having grown up as middle sons in broken homes, but their love of music (and a shared sense of humour) helped to forge a more positive aspect to their bond as friends. Orzabal began dabbling in writing and playing music during high school, and formed his own heavy metal style school band (covering the likes of Led Zeppelin and Slade). Orzabal called around to Smith’s house one day and walked in on him singing along to Blue Oyster Cult. Curt’s version of the Cult wasn’t half bad, so Orzabal invited him to join the band. Over the next few years, Orzabal remained committed to the music muse, and during the late 70s he formed a folk style duo (heavy metal to folk - he was obviously exploring his options). By contrast, Smith had gone on to try college, but his behaviour had grown ever more troublesome, and he turned to vandalism and petty theft (which included stealing cameras from his school) as outlets for his teen angst.

Both lads were intellectual in nature, but Orzabal channelled his thirst for knowledge into reading copious amounts of books. Around age seventeen, one of the books that caught Orzabal’s attention was ‘Primal Scream’, by American psycho-therapist Arthur Janov. Basically the book espoused an approach to treating adult neuroses via a direct confrontation of traumatic early life experiences, including parental abandonment, and expressing the long repressed pain associated with those feelings of loss - or something like that. Janov had ascended to a new level of notoriety a decade earlier, through his association with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (something about being keen to drill holes in their heads). At any rate, Janov’s approach resonated strongly with Orzabal at the time, and provided him with some answers he’d been looking for. Orzabal thought his friend Curt Smith might also benefit from the read, so he leant him ‘Primal Scream’ - the duo’s combined appreciation for some of the book’s themes would inform directly, and indirectly, their early work as a recording outfit. But there were still one or two boxes to tick on the path toward that point of their career.

During 1980, Orzabal (guitar/keyboards) and Smith (vocals/bass) joined a mod-revival come ska/new wave band called Graduate, alongside John Baker (guitar/vocals), Steve Buck (keyboards/flute), and Andy Marsden (drums). The band took their name from the 1969 film ‘The Graduate’, and they opened their shows with a cover of ‘Mrs. Robinson’. Graduate signed with the small time label Precision Records, and released the singles ‘Elvis Should Play Ska’ and ‘Ambition’, and released a ska-pop style album ‘Acting My Age’. Before year’s end, both Orzabal and Smith had decided they wanted a stronger say in the direction of their music, and thus Graduate ceased to be. During the first half of ‘81, Curt Smith hooked up with a new band called Neon, alongside Neil Taylor (guitar), Manny Elias (drums), Rob Fisher (keyboards), and Pete Byrne (vocals). Neon were essentially a straight up pop-rock outfit, and by mid ‘81 Roland Orzabal had come on board to replace Taylor. The band recorded several tracks in-studio during mid‘81, and released the single ‘Communication Without Sound’, but the remaining members were destined for a brighter future beyond Neon. Fisher and Byrne went on to form Naked Eyes (see previous post), whilst Orzabal and Smith opted to form a new band, in which they would become the core creative forces, and the nucleus of the group (Elias would later join their new enterprise).

The duo adopted the name History of Headaches, and began writing material that was influenced (musically) by some of the darker strains of synth-fuelled post-punk, along with avant-garde tinged art-rock. But the aspirin bill grew to astronomical proportions, and so the duo dispensed with the History of Headaches tag, in favour of adopting the name Tears For Fears. The name came directly from a chapter heading from Janov’s controversial ‘Primal Scream’ book, which would in some respects inform Tears for Fears’ early work, both thematically (lyrically), and stylistically. Orzabal and Smith hooked up with synth-guru and producer David Lord (worked with Peter Gabriel), and recorded several demo tracks, with a stronger emphasis on synthesizers and drum machines. The demos earned Tears For Fears a contract with Mercury (Phonogram) Records, and their debut single, the David Lord produced ‘Suffer The Children’, was released in September ‘81 (and eventually charted as a re-recorded re-release in Britain at the height of the band’s fame in 1985 - UK#52). Keyboardist Ian Stanley, and ex-Neon drummer Manny Elias then came on board as effectively full-time members of Tears For Fears, though Orzabal and Smith would essentially remain the public face of the band. Producer David Lord went on to other projects, and Mike Howlett (Sniff ‘n’ the Tears, A Flock Of Seagulls, Fischer Z - see previous posts) helmed production on the second single, ‘Pale Shelter (You Don’t Give Me Love)’, co-written by Orzabal and Smith (with the title inspired by a Henry Moore drawing). The single missed the British charts post its March ‘82 release, but work had already begun in earnest on Tears For Fears’ debut album.

Ex-Adam & the Ants drummer, turned producer par-excellence Chris ‘Merrick' Hughes, became a key addition to the equation in formulating Tears For Fears’ debut set. Beside Ross Cullum, Stanley oversaw production on the ten track album, during late ‘82 and into ‘83. The next single to emerge from the sessions was the haunting track ‘Mad World’, released in September of ‘82. The song was originally intended as a B-side to ‘Pale Shelter’, but thankfully found its way to a headline single release. The song’s gloomy, atmospheric synth sound was perfectly crafted to appeal to the new-wave, post-punk masses. Some labelled it a tad too morose, even claustrophobic sounding, but I’ve always found it to be rescued from its own weightiness by the adept dashes of quirkiness laced throughout. Lyrically, ‘Mad World’ took much from Orzabal and Smith’s affinity with Janov’s work, indeed much of the track’s source album would be imbued such. ‘Mad World’ delivered Tears For Fears some financial peace of mind at #3 on the British charts (OZ#12), but the U.S. was less enamoured with the darker side of British pop at that time. The promo-video for ‘Mad World’ was the band’s first, with Curt Smith looking suitably moody staring through a window, whilst Orzabal performed a series of peculiar dance moves outside. ‘Mad World’ has remained one of my favourite Tears For Fears tracks, as much for its lyrics as anything - sometimes disturbing, yet compelling in the spikes of emotionally-repressed imagery it evokes - “I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad, the dreams in which I‘m dying are the best I’ve ever had”. Not surprising then that ‘Mad World’ later found its way onto the soundtrack to the 2001 cult classic ‘Donnie Darko’, and via the Michael Andrews/Gary Jules cover, eventually to a UK#1 spot in 2003.

The single ‘Change’ hit stores in Britain during February of ‘83, by way of lead in to Tears For Fears’ debut album, ‘The Hurting’, released a month later. ‘Change’ was more rhythmically upbeat than ‘Mad World’, though it’s tone was still more overcast than blue skies. It was undeniably classy 80s style synth-pop, and featured a compelling hook that attracted enough listeners to propel it to a peak of #4 on the British charts (OZ#29 - when released in the U.S. later in ‘83, ‘Change’ also became Tears For Fears’ first foray into the Stateside charts - #73). The much anticipated album, ‘The Hurting’, was a highly palatable pop rendering of angst and alienation. References to psychotherapy and emotional exploration were littered throughout, and Orzabal dipped deep into the wells of self awareness and self expression. Some critics labelled Tears For Fears’ sullenly intellectual posturing as pretentious (moi?), even whiny, but for most a genuine craftsmanship shone through the thematic gloominess, and vague hints of indifferent superiority. Conceptual analysis aside, ‘The Hurting’ proved an impressive debut, both commercially and critically, for a pair of musicians who were both still only 21. On its second week of release, ‘The Hurting’ felt no pain at #1 on the British charts (OZ#15/US#73), and on the back of its success, the hauntingly sweeping ‘Pale Shelter’ (a re-recorded version) was re-released in April of ‘83, and second time around found shelter at #5 on the British charts. The promotional video featured some quite confronting imagery (I’ve never been a fan of crocodiles, giant domestic irons, or swarms of paper planes). Despite portraying an intensely serious persona throughout much of their work, Tears For Fears also appealed to the teen-set, aided in part by Orzabal and Smith’s pin-up looks, and the band garnered the Smash Hits ‘Most Promising New Act’ gong for 1983.

Tears For Fears hit the road in support of ‘The Hurting’ throughout the latter half of ‘83, and during that period the quartet (Orzabal, Smith, Stanley, Elias) wrote the song ‘The Way You Are’. Following the conclusion of tour duties, they returned to the studio with Chris Hughes to record the song, which was subsequently released in November as somewhat of a stop-gap measure. Musically, ‘The Way You Are’ wasn’t a patch on the band’s previous releases, and featured a heavy reliance on in-studio trickery in place of organic production. ‘The Way You Are’ washed to a high of #24 on the British charts, mostly due to the lingering wake of popularity from ‘The Hurting’. Both Orzabal and Smith made no secret of their disdain for the track in later years, and ‘The Way You Are’ wasn’t considered for inclusion on the band’s planned second album. What the song did achieve was to provide the resolve for Orzabal and Smith to change the direction of Tears For Fears, to avoid recording a re-constituted version of ‘The Hurting’.

A few months of soul searching and song writing ensued, and by early ‘84 Tears For Fears assembled in-studio once more, this time with producer Jeremy Green. The chemistry with Green didn’t gel well, and soon the band turned back to Chris Hughes for guidance. The track that had required re-working was ‘Mothers Talk’, and it was released in the U.K. in August of ‘84, by way of lead out to Tears For Fears’ sophomore album. Orzabal handled the lead vocal duties on the call to arms styled ‘Mothers Talk’, which showcased a decidedly more radio-friendly feel to it (Orzabal and Smith traded vocal lines), and it was clear that both band and producer were becoming more confident, and refined in their work. Over time, three separate promo videos were shot for the song, which peaked at #14 on the U.K. charts. The promo video for the later remixed U.S. release (March of ‘86 - #27), referenced one of the song’s inspirations, the anti-nuclear book ‘When The Wind Blows’ by Raymond Briggs. The U.K. version features on the DVD collection I have, and Orzabal continues his oddly styled dance moves atop a hillside, in between drowning in piles of newspaper headlines - my psychoanalytic skills fall short of working out the significance of the kite flying and dominos.

‘Mothers Talk’ was essentially a taster for an album which Tears For Fears had already been working on for nigh on a year. Both Orzabal and Smith had taken a deliberate approach to make their music more commercially appealing, and with their next single, Tears For Fears would achieve that goal, and then some.

A Voyeur's View Of Bette Davis Eyes

2009-10-02T15:08:00.008+10:00

Back in the mid 70s, lyricist Donna Weiss co-wrote a song with 60s songstress Jackie DeShannon (‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’ and ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart’). DeShannon recorded the song for her 1975 album, ‘New Arrangement’, and the track in its original form boasted a distinctly honky-tonk come folk-polka feel to it. The song in question was ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, and it could have remained virtually unknown, at least in its first incarnation. Weiss later revealed that the song title did indeed take inspiration, at least in part, from screen siren Bette Davis (in particular her Academy Award winning role in ‘Jezebel’), but apparently there was an additional inspiration behind the lyrics, which Weiss didn’t reveal. DeShannon and Weiss penned the music, and around 1980 DeShannon’s version found its way to producer George Tobin. Tobin suggested Kim Carnes record it for inclusion on her ‘Romance Dance’ album, but she turned it down flat. A year later, Carnes was working with a new producer (Val Garay) on her next album, when ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ surfaced once more (this time courtesy of Weiss). Keyboardist Bill Cuomo heard potential in the song, and went to work rearranging and restyling ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ for a contemporary pop-rock audience. Cuomo blanketed the song’s basic structure in an atmospheric coating of cutting-edge synth riffs, and both Garay and Carnes knew instinctively they had a major hit on their hands (Weiss too was reportedly pleased with the update). Kim Carnes’ soulful, husky vocals just added to the haunting mystique of ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ (it was the era of husky vocalists after all - think Bonnie Tyler, Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks), and indeed emulated in part Jackie DeShannon’s own throaty vocal style. The suitably stylish promo video was directed by Russell Mulcahy (Duran Duran, Elton John, Supertramp).

‘Bette Davis Eyes’ first gazed upon the U.S. Hot 100 during March of ‘81, and seven weeks later had ascended to the summit. For five weeks it looked down on the opposition until one week in June a bunch of anonymous session musicians became Stars On 45. But the following week Carnes reclaimed top spot, and ‘Better Davis Eyes’ didn’t blink for another four weeks. I should have said held its breath until Air Supply arrived with ‘The One That You Love’, but you can take your pick (interestingly Kim Carnes kept Smokey Robinson’s single ‘Being With You’ from reaching top spot during her reign at #1). Now in 1981 it was quite unusual for a song to sit at the top of both the U.S. and Australian charts at the same time, due mostly to the disparity in release dates between the two countries. But such was the longevity of ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ atop the U.S. charts, that its five week stint at the top of the Australian charts coincided with the song’s resurgence on the U.S. Hot 100. Not surprisingly the U.K. only offered up #10 to ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ - there was actually only one song that achieved the status of a trans-Atlantic #1 during 1981 - ‘The Tide Is High’ by Blondie (which actually hit #1 in the U.K. in late ‘80). ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ went on to become the second biggest selling single in the U.S. for the 1980s, behind Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 smash ‘Physical’, and ranks to this day inside the top 25 biggest selling U.S. #1’s of all time. When the song took out the Grammy Awards for ‘Single of the Year’ and ‘Record of the Year’, actress Bette Davis sent roses to Carnes, and to song writers DeShannon and Weiss. Davis had also written to each thanking them for making her name part of modern popular culture.

Like the song’s namesake, ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ would prove a tough act to follow for Kim Carnes. Whatever the choice for a follow up single, it was all but assured of being obscured by the shadow of its predecessor. The new-wavish ‘Draw Of The Cards’ (US#28/UK#49/OZ#64) failed to draw much attention (the keyboard riff reminds me of Toto’s ‘Africa’), relatively speaking, whilst the late night feel of the third single, ‘Mistaken Identity’ (US#60), remained anonymous. Though the follow up 45s didn’t adorn many juke boxes, Carnes’ album ‘Mistaken Identity’ did establish a very identifiable presence atop the U.S. charts (OZ#2/UK#26), thanks in the main to ‘Bette Davis Eyes’. A second Weiss/DeShannon song was covered on the set, ‘Hit And Run’, and Carnes delivers a faultless rendition of Frankie Miller’s ‘When I’m Away From You’, but the album’s melting pot structure didn’t congeal into main course that could match its stand out entree.

If there is a downside to scoring a monster hit single and album, it would have to be the dreaded follow-up syndrome. When the challenge ‘beat that’ is posed, rarely is the challenge met, at least in respect of record sales. In August of ‘82, Kim Carnes released the lead single (and title track) from her new album, ‘Voyeur’ (OZ#21/US#49). The song was an accurate trailer for the feature length album to follow (produced by Val Garay). ‘Voyeur’ was laced from start to finish with sleek, atmospheric synthesizers, and a killer chorus hook. I first fell in love with the song via its inclusion on the 1982 compilation album ‘Up In Lights’, but though worthy of getting a good look at the top 10, ‘Voyeur’ only managed to sneak a peak inside the top thirty (US#29/OZ#30/UK#68). The follow up single ‘Does It Make You Remember’ (US#36) was classically formulaic 80s A.O.R., and would have sat comfortably in the songbooks of REO Speedwagon, Heart, or any number of high profile North American acts, as would the album track ‘Merc Man’. It’s not that the album or singles sold poorly as such, but the ‘beat that’ challenge had gotten the better of Kim Carnes for now. Though, the track ‘Voyeur’ did earn her another Grammy nomination, for ‘Best Pop Female’.

1983 kicked off in a flash for Carnes, as she contributed the song ‘I’ll Be Here Where The Heart Is’, which was included on the #1 soundtrack album ‘Flashdance’. The track was also fitted into the track listing for Carnes’ next solo album, 1983’s ‘Café Racers’ (US#97). The Keith Olsen produced set seemed formulated to regain some of the perceived loss in commercial ground suffered by ‘Voyeur’. I’m not sure if the cover art aided in this though, featuring Ms. Carnes seductively draped across some kind of moped. But the package therein was an unashamed attempt to marry cutting edge new wave with adult contemporary fare. To that end, Carnes invited an eclectic playing roster of support musicians to contribute, including John Waite (see future posts), and several members of Toto (maybe they liked what they heard with ‘Draw Of The Cards’). The lead out single, ‘Invisible Hands’ (US#40), crammed bombastic drums, numerous synth riffs, vocal chants, and all manner of archetypal 80s style instruments into an appealing slice of commercial pop-rock, and more of the same formula was served up on the follow up single ‘You Make My Heart Beat Faster (And That’s All That Matters)’ (US#54) in early ‘84. There was nothing wrong with either track, but then again they were patently formulaic, and it may have been a case of trying too hard to win commercial appeal. It wasn’t all bad news though, as ‘Invisible Hands’ did garner Carnes another Grammy nomination (Best Female Pop Rock Performance), and the album’s third single, the more mellow ‘I Pretend’ (US#74), returned Carnes to the top 10 on the Adult Contemporary charts (#9).

The period from late ‘84 into early ‘85 proved a productive one for Kim Carnes. Old friend Kenny Rogers invited her to sing on the title track for his new album, ‘What About Me?’. The track was actually set up to be a trio, with two male and one female vocalist. Kenny originally wanted to perform it with Lionel Richie and Barbra Streisand (I guess the A-list popular music names at the time), but when they both bailed, Olivia Newton-John and Jeffrey Osborne were approached. Scheduling conflicts for both left old Kenny in a bind, so he made a call to Kim Carnes, whilst James Ingram eventually substituted for Osborne. It mattered not in the end, as they were all fine vocalists, and ‘What About Me?’ delivered the trio a US#15 hit in late ‘84 (#1 Adult Contemporary). As ‘What About Me?’ was on its chart descent, Kim Carnes entered the U.S. Hot 100 not once but twice more over December ‘84/January ‘85. ‘Make No Mistake, He’s Mine’ (written by Carnes) was a much heralded duet with Barbra Streisand (lifted from Streisand’s ‘Emotion’ album), the very lady Carnes had sequentially replaced on ‘What About Me?’. ‘Make No Mistake, He’s Mine’ didn’t quite live up to the customary hype associated with Streisand’s music at that time, and sputtered out at US#51. In a case of swings and roundabouts Kenny Rogers later recorded his own version of the song. Carnes also scored a solo entry into the charts at the same time with the single, ‘Invitation To Dance’, featured on the soundtrack to the film ‘That’s Dancing!’, which accepted an invitation to US#68. During January of 1985, Kim Carnes became the first artist in history to chart simultaneously inside the U.S. Hot 100, as part of a trio, a duet, and as a solo performer. Had the superstar U.S.A. For Africa project been organised a little earlier, Carnes would have added a fourth category to that record, as she contributed vocals to the US#1 hit ‘We Are The World’ just two months later (she sang the line “when we stand together as one”, alongside fellow gruffle throat Huey Lewis and a rather boisterous Cyndi Lauper).

Following the relative disappointments of ‘Voyeur’ and ‘Café Racers’, Kim Carnes assumed the responsibility of co-producing her next set, alongside long time keyboardist and creative collaborator Bill Cuomo. Carnes handled principle song writing duties, in partnership with Cuomo, Ellingson, and another regular colleague Duane Hithchings. Carnes penned the album’s opening track, and lead out single, ‘Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)’. The track’s quirky opening salvo, invites the listener playfully into a sumptuous elixir of melodic synth-rock. ‘Crazy In The Night’ found sanity at #15 on the U.S. charts over the summer of ‘85, and a few months later performed creditably on the Australian charts (OZ#21). The source album took its title, at least the part in parentheses, from the hit single, but ‘Barking At Airplanes’ only delivered a moderate bite on the charts (US#48/OZ#40). As always, Kim Carnes attracted no shortage of playing talent, with the likes of Steve Miller Band drummer Gary Mallaber, virtuoso guitarist Ry Cooder, bassist Leland Sklar, the Motels’ Martha Davis, vocalist James Ingram, and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham. The mix worked well, as ‘Barking At Airplanes’ was Carnes’ best received album since ‘Mistaken Identity’. Carnes herself acknowledged at the time that she was unlikely to ever duplicate the commercial success of her ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ era, but it was more about recording music of quality. The follow up single, ‘Abadabadango’ was a playful puree of slick melodic pop, and deserved better than the home it was afforded at #67 on the U.S. charts.

Carnes’ swansong album for EMI-America was released in May of ‘86, but ‘Light House’ proved less than a shining beacon on the charts (US#116). The lead out single, ‘Divided Hearts’, had more than a faint echo of ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ in parts, and the chorus wouldn’t sound out of place on a like-era Jackson Browne song, but regardless of its qualities, the track couldn’t recapture the magic for Carnes on the charts (US#79). The follow up single, ‘Dancin’ At The Lighthouse’, was an appetising dollop of southern rock tinged pop, but it seemed the dancing had stopped and the lights were out (maybe someone forgot to pay the power bill). In 1987, Carnes recorded the duet ‘My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own’ with Jeffrey Osborne, featured on the soundtrack to the film ‘Spaceballs’ (I see your Schwartz is as big as mine).

Carnes’ departure from EMI-America (to MCA) also marked a departure from mainstream pop-rock, and a return to her earlier music roots of folk and country. Both strains influenced her 1988 album, ‘A View From The House’, which bypassed the mainstream pop charts altogether, and instead found a homestead at #39 on the U.S. country charts. Carnes did return to her pop glory days for some inspiration, in the form of lyricist Donna Weiss, who co-wrote four of the album’s ten tracks. Many of Carnes’ music ensemble were on board again, including stalwarts Bill Cuomo, Craig Kampf, and Leland Sklar. Guest players included Bruce Hornsby (home from the range), Lyle Lovett, and the mercurial Vince Gill. Despite the down home feel, the single ‘Crazy In Love’ (#13 Adult Contemporary) proved there was still some pop to be had on a Kim Carnes album. 1991’s ‘Checkin’ Out The Ghosts’ proved more of an apparition than a solid hit, though once more it was through no shortage of writing or playing talent. The album track ‘Gypsy Honeymoon’ (re-recorded) did at least provide the title for the 1993 Kim Carnes ‘best of’ compilation released on EMI.

Over the next decade, Kim Carnes pretty much vanished into ether as a recording artist, and instead moved to Nashville to focus on her talents as a songwriter. And they were talents worth focussing on, as Carnes became one of the most revered songsmiths on the country music scene, penning hits for country stars such as Deana Carter, Tim McGraw, and Tanya Tucker. In 1993, Carnes co-wrote (with Donna Weiss) the country #1 ‘The Heart Won’t Lie’. The song was originally intended as a duet between Reba McEntire and Kenny Rogers, but a woodfire oven broke at the chicken roasters, so Vince Gill was called into the breach.

More than a decade after her last studio album, Kim Carnes returned in 2004 (at age 59), to release ‘Chasin’ Wild Trains’, a set that revealed, as both writer and recording artist, that Carnes had lost none of her playful spirit and sense of adventure, whilst remaining firmly grounded in the music she knows and loves.

A Former New Minstrel Sails Into Pop

2009-09-29T17:17:00.005+10:00

Within the mediums of creative expression, it’s not uncommon for cross pollination to occur between the various streams of artistic endeavour. Music has a way of permeating film, and vice versa - throw in literature, poetry, design, pasta sculptures, and a whole myriad of other channels of inspired articulation into the creative broth, and you have a limitless scope of ideas. Over the last fifty years of popular music history, many songs have been written about, or referred to, a famous celebrity or historical identity, either indirectly through lyrical reference, or directly in the song title itself. Gorillaz made their own day in 2001 with the hit ‘Clint Eastwood’, Bob Dylan scored a knock out with his 1975 tribute to boxer Rubin Carter, ‘Hurricane’, George Harrison reminisced about his fallen comrade John Lennon in 1981’s ‘All Those Years Ago’, Bananarama must have been talking Italian to me when they sang ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting’ in 1984, U2 took a giant leap toward achieving their dream of being the biggest band in the world, with their 1984 smash ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’, a tribute to Martin Luther King, Weezer enjoyed some happy days with their 1995 rocker ‘Buddy Holly’, and Steve Porcaro pined after his then girlfriend, actress Rosanna Arquette, in Toto’s 1982 top five hit ‘Rosanna’. And speaking of actresses featuring in song titles, Kim Carnes scored the biggest hit of her career, and one of the biggest hits of the 1980s, with 1981’s ‘Bette Davis Eyes’.

When Kim Carnes’ eyes first opened on the world, the actress who would lend her name to Carnes’ biggest hit had already assumed the mantle of screen icon. By 1945, Bette Davis had appeared in more than 30 films, including Oscar winning performances in 1935’s ‘Dangerous’, and 1938’s ‘Jezebel’. To give some perspective on just how big a star Davis was, she ranked second only to Katherine Hepburn in the American Film Institute’s list of greatest American screen actresses of the 20th century. L.A. born Kim Carnes also had an interest in acting, but it would take a backseat to her talents as a singer and songwriter. She reputedly penned (or crayoned) her first song at age three, and throughout her school years developed her craft as a singer, writer, and pianist. Upon graduating from high school, Kim Carnes leapt into a career in the music business, and balanced performing at local L.A. clubs, with session work recording demos for song publishers. During the mid 60s, she was a regular performer at small L.A. club venues (mainly belting out ballads), and it was less a case of smoke getting in her eyes, but rather her vocal chords, that contributed to Carnes developing her distinctive raspy, throaty voice.

By 1967, Carnes had hooked up with veteran folk outfit The New Christy Minstrels, whose line-up at the time also featured David Ellingson (Carnes’ future song writing partner and husband), and a young Kenny Rogers. But life as a wandering minstrel wasn’t for Kim, and she left to form a new folk duo with Ellingson, called surprisingly enough, Kim & Dave (I would have thought Carnes and Ellingson would have been catchier). The club work continued, but the couple’s primary source of income during the latter part of the 60s was via their song writing partnership (including penning and performing music for commercials). In 1967, Carnes also made her silver screen debut in the folk-themed musical, ‘C’mon, Let’s Live A Little’ (alongside songstress Jackie DeShannon), and penned the song ‘Sing Out For Jesus’, performed by R&B legend Big Mama Thornton in the riotous road movie ‘Vanishing Point’ (1971). The film’s soundtrack had been released on the Amos Records label (owned by Jimmy Bowen - co-writer of the 1957 US#1 ‘Party Doll’), and also featured Kim & Dave’s rendition of their song, ‘Nobody Knows’, which led to Carnes signing with Amos as a recording artist in her own right. In 1971, she released her debut album, ‘Rest On Me’, which did a lot of resting but not much else. For a born songwriter like Carnes, the album (produced by Bowen) also proved frustrating as it only featured two of her own songs.

Soon thereafter, Carnes left Amos and signed on the dotted line with A&M Records. By 1975, her self-titled album surfaced, with more than half the tracks penned by Carnes herself, and in partnership with Ellingson. Produced by Mentor Williams, the album boasted a distinctly middle of the road, country tinged flavour, and yielded Carnes’ first flirtation with the charts, via the single ‘You’re A Part Of Me’ (US#32 Adult Contemporary) - the album also featured the likes of David Foster (piano), Jim Keltner (drums), and Leland Sklar (bass) on its playing roster. Legendary producer Jerry Wexler (Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan), co-helmed Carnes’ third album, 1976’s ‘Sailin’, recorded in part at Wexler’s Muscle Shoals studio facility, and boasting the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Again the album was roughly a fifty/fifty split between original and cover material, with the ballad ‘Love Comes From Unexpected Places’ winning the ‘Best Song’ gong at the 1977 American Song Festival. The song attracted the notice of ‘Babs’ aka Barbra Streisand, who recorded it for her 1977 album ‘Streisand Superman’. The Carnes/Ellingson song writing duo was soon cropping up on the track listings for artists such as Anne Murray, Rita Coolidge, and Frank Sinatra.

In mid 1978, Kim Carnes made her first foray into the U.S. Hot 100 with a song that she had recorded two years earlier. ‘You’re A Part Of Me’ had been re-recorded by Gene Cotton (who had a dart at chart success in the late 70s) as a duet with Carnes. Released on Cotton’s home label Ariola, ‘You’re A Part Of Me’ peaked at US#36. Around the same time, Jim Mazza signed Kim Carnes as the first artist to the newly established EMI-America label (a subsidiary of Capitol/EMI). Carnes also had the honour of being the first artist to chart for the new label, with her early 1979 single, the country hued ‘It Hurts So Bad’ (US#56), lifted from the album ‘St. Vincent’s Court’. All but one of the album’s tracks had been penned by Carnes (with Ellingson), and Carnes also co-produced the set, which moved a tad toward more pop-rock oriented territory. The album also boasted a strong contribution from keyboardist Bill Cuomo, who would play a key role in Carnes’ biggest hit.

The dawn of a new decade would prove positive for Kim Carnes, and 1980 was kickstarted by a reunion with an old ‘minstrel’ from the 60s. Former New Christy Minstrels’ bandmate Kenny Rogers, decided to record an entire album of Carnes/Ellingson compositions, titled ‘Gideon’. It was an enormous vote of confidence that an artist of Rogers’ stature was willing to take a gamble on a, still, relatively unknown song writing partnership - but then Kenny always was the ‘gambler’. Rogers asked Carnes to duet with him on the beautiful ballad ‘Don’t Fall In Love With A Dreamer’, and the combination proved a winning hand on the charts (US#4/OZ#38). As ‘Don’t Fall In Love With A Dreamer’ was sitting pretty in the top ten, Carnes released her own new album, ‘Romance Dance’. The success of her duet with Rogers no doubt played a role in boosting exposure, and airplay, for her next single, ‘More Love’, a radio friendly rendition of the classic 1967 US#23 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Carnes version (which boasted Darlene Love on backing vocals, not to mention a striking synth-intro) climbed to a high of US#10 (OZ#46) during mid 1980, and helped to push its source album ‘Romance Dance’ into the charts (US#57/OZ#89). The follow up single, ‘Cry Like A Baby’ (US#44), rounded out an impressive start to the decade for Kim Carnes, but a case of mistaken identity would soon propel her to a new echelon of eminence.

A Pair Of Kingly Treasures - Jewel Two

2009-09-27T19:32:00.008+10:00

The Canadian music scene of the late 70s and early 80s reflected the broadening evolution of popular music worldwide. The stylistic tightrope was walked between punk, disco, straight up rock, and a myriad of permutations in between. Edgy post-punk acts such as The Viletones, The Young Canadians, and Rough Trade, battled for attention with more traditional rockers like Sweeney Todd, Red Rider, and Payola$ (see previous Rock & Hyde post). As the new wave/power pop scenes emerged out of the post punk amorphous, bands like Rational Youth, Strange Advance, Deserters, Men Without Hats, and Martha & The Muffins (see previous posts for latter two), vied to not only challenge for dominance in Canada, but to make a splash in the big pond across the southern border. Not unlike the Australasian musical milieu, Canadian music fans were privy to an incredibly diverse range of styles during the ‘New Wave’ period. One act who managed to not only ascend to near heads of state status at home, but stood briefly within the realm of popularity in the U.S., were the high octane pop-rock quartet, The Kings.

During 1977, David Diamond (vocals/bass - not to be confused with keyboard virtuoso David Diamond of the L.A. band Berlin - see previous post), hooked up with ‘Mister’ Zero (guitar), Sonny Keyes (keyboards), and Max Styles (drums), to form a hard rocking band known as WhistleKing. The band originally based themselves in Vancouver (British Columbia), and Oakville (Ontario). Over the next couple of years, WhistleKing built up a reputation for being one of the hardest rocking live acts on the Canadian scene, and over time the band’s principle song-writers, Zero and Diamond, built up a cache of original numbers, which the band was steadily working into their live set. It wasn’t uncommon for the band’s songs to involve complex arrangements that extended beyond the bounds of snappy, three minute rock-bytes, but with the infiltration of the stripped down, slap in the face energy of punk/post-punk on the Canadian scene, WhistleKing recognised they needed to integrate some more brashness and brevity into their music. But punk these guys were not. Thankfully for WhistleKing, and some would argue for many, punks fury was tempered into a more melodically personable beast lumped under the heading of ‘New Wave’. ‘New Wave’ allowed the integration of a myriad of cutting edge, and more established styles under a more ‘hip’ and accessible umbrella. It was ok to possess a rawness of energy, but a certain amount of polished finesse was preferred.

In 1979, WhistleKing had gravitated to, arguably, the hub of the Canadian music set at that time, Toronto. They entered, and won, the Home-Grown talent contest (beating out over 600 competitors), with a song titled ‘Turn My Face’ (written by Diamond). Initially, the band’s victory earned them little more than a free lunch (I thought there was no such thing), but it also attracted the attention of several interested parties on the production and management side of things. Aside from a shift in music style, the band adopted a snappier moniker, shortening WhistleKing to simply, The Kings. I’m not aware of too many regents who are addressed by their actual names, so the foursome decreed that they shall be known by their stage names (as already mentioned - Dave Diamond, Sonny Keyes, Mister Zero, Max Styles), all very cool, all very ‘New Wave’. Relentless gigging further affirmed The Kings reputation as being one of the tightest, adrenaline pumping acts in Canada, and it was some of the band’s newer, shorter songs that were generating the biggest stir. By 1980, The Kings had accrued enough wealth within the royal vaults to book some recording time at the Nimbus 9 studio in Toronto. They worked steadily away on recording, what they hoped would be, enough material to constitute their debut album - at that stage, it was to be an independent release. The Kings’ debut album may well have arrived as an indie set, and may just as quickly disappeared, were it not for a timely visit to the Nimbus 9 studios by a record producer of some repute - Bob Ezrin.

Toronto born Ezrin was taking a well earned sabbatical at home, following his production work on an album titled ‘The Wall’, by a little known outfit called Pink Floyd. Well, let’s be honest - Bob Ezrin was one of the most respected, and high profile producers in popular music (KISS, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel). He’d also worked at Nimbus 9 in years gone previous, and it was by way of his association with one of the studios’ producers, Jack Richardson, that Bob Ezrin happened upon the recording sessions for The Kings. Ezrin was somebody, The Kings were nobodies, but it mattered not when Ezrin heard the tapes. Though the recording recipe was a little askew, Ezrin heard some key ingredients that he felt had real potential. With tapes in hand, benefactor Bob headed to L.A. and a meeting with Ken Buttice (A&R) of Elektra Records. Even if The Kings’ music hadn’t been great, it’s likely Ezrin wouldn’t have had the door slammed in his face. As it turned out, The Kings were offering just the right high energy, commercial pop-rock sound that record labels were clamouring for in 1980. Elektra duly signed The Kings to a deal, and the band set about rehearsing (and even re-writing) for the all important re-recording sessions - this time with Bob Ezrin at the helm.

Ezrin and The Kings re-recorded the material at Nimbus 9 (sounds like a planet), and six weeks later the band’s first album was in the can. Ezrin completed the final mix in L.A., and soon after the album, ‘The Kings Are Here’ (US#74), was regally released. Initially, Elektra released the track ‘Switchin’ To Glide’ as the first single, and though the pristine pop-rock track attracted some attention, and minor chart activity in the U.S., the band felt it had more potential in its originally intended form. That form took the shape of the second part of a two track medley with the album’s opening track, the equally buoyant ‘This Beat Goes On’, which effectively segues into ‘Switchin’ To Glide’. The Kings decided to exercise their creative sovereignty, and for once the record label saw sense. ‘This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide’ was released as a double-A during the second half of 1980. All up, The Kings invaded the U.S. Hot 100 kingdom for a total of 23 weeks throughout 1980, assuming a peak throne of #43. The double-A, or power-pop segue, was laced with snappy power chords, sublime harmonies, and quirky, head-turning fills throughout. It epitomised the very essence of ‘New Wave’ power pop.

The follow up single, ‘Don’t Let Me Know’, evolved out of the song that had won The Kings (then WhistleKing) the Home-Grown contest (‘Turn My Face’). Despite being a fine, hook-laden slice of power-pop, ‘Don’t Let Me Know’ was seemingly a victim of record label politics, and sadly languished at US#109 for just one week before fading from view. The singles were indicative of the high production quality, and wall-to-wall parade of high octane, pristine power-pop that shone throughout the album ‘The Kings Are Here’ - without fear of hyperbole, it was a non-stop pop-rock party-fest. Within the fabric of the early 80s music scene, The Kings had sewn themselves neatly along the seam between power pop and guitar driven rock, and had managed to bottle a high octane concoction of mischievous, infectious, rambunctious rock, served up in tracks like the aptly titled ‘Partyitis’, and the pulsating ‘Run Shoes Running’. The Kings were named ‘Most Promising Group’ of 1980 by Cashbox Magazine, and made a memorable appearance on Dick Clark’s ‘American Bandstand’ late in 1980. The band’s profile was at an all time high, and they were soon opening on tour for rock royalty such as the Beach Boys, and Eric Clapton. It was an auspicious debut, and there was everything to suggest that better was to come.

Sadly, the dreaded second album syndrome befell The Kings on their 1981 sophomore effort, ‘Amazon Beach’ (US#170), referred to subsequently as The Kings’ Waterloo. For a full account of the carnage that took place in and around ‘Amazon Beach’, check out the link to the band’s official website (at the bottom of this post), but in brief the key factors behind the apparent debacle can be surmised as follows. Firstly, Ezrin and The Kings shifted castles, or recording studios, from the now defunct (but cosy and central) Nimbus 9, to Phase One Studio, the latter being located somewhere in the wastelands of an industrial estate. Further adding to the loss of in-studio harmony, was an increasing breakdown in synergy between Ezrin and the band. The Kings would rehearse their new songs to, what they felt, were finely tuned, record-ready pieces, but ever the perfectionist, Bob Ezrin saw defects even when the band felt there weren’t any. Ezrin’s focus of attention was also divided between The Kings’ campaign, and working out of court, with both Murray McLaughlin, and on preparations for a new KISS album (‘Music From “The Elder”’). When Ezrin was off on another crusade, producer Charles Harrison Kipps was employed as a stopgap measure, but the move really only served to further disrupt any sense of cohesion. The tactical errors kept coming, as a mobile mixing station was used in place of sending the master tapes to L.A. for completion. Along the way, The Kings had made a number of comprises in song structure and arrangements, mainly in deference to Ezrin, with the result being the loss of some killer hooks, and melodic momentum. The suits at Elektra were suitably unimpressed, and voiced their concerns. The Kings stuck by the product they had arrived at under Ezrin’s guidance, but in truth it was out of loyalty to Ezrin, not a belief in the bastardised version of their original creative vision. It would prove a near fatal choice of allegiance for The Kings.

The album was released, featuring just eight completed tracks, and a front cover that, though playing on the title ‘Amazon Beach’ (with comic drawn Amazonian women), must have slipped past the gaze of the graphic design editor, because The Kings’ own name is partially obscured by the art work. The album’s only single, ‘All The Way’, went all the way to exactly nowhere, followed swiftly by an album that was mercilessly (but predictably) panned by critics. Sparks of the band’s first album flashed here and there, but by and large ‘Amazon Beach’ lacked the crispness and verve of its predecessor - it must have been a let down, not only for the band, but for the thousands of fans who would have keenly anticipated a successor to the throne every bit as pulsating as the first.

Despite the calamity of The Kings’ Waterloo experience, Elektra actually offered them a shot at redemption via a third album, but bad management advice saw the band decline and return label-less to Canada in 1982. However, the band’s Canadian manager, Gary Pring, instilled some momentum back into The Kings’ campaign, and negotiated a new record deal with the Canadian arm of Capitol Records. This time around, Diamond, Zero, Keyes, and Styles, produced the sessions themselves - if anyone was going to be to blame for another disaster it might as well be the band themselves. The Kings’ next release arrived just prior to Christmas ‘82, in the form of a four track EP titled ‘R.S.V.P.’. The highlighted track was the seasonal ‘This Christmas’, which was well received in Canada, and has subsequently been a regular on yuletide playlists. Around this period, The Kings experienced the first shift in the royal roster, with the departure of drummer Max Styles, replaced by a rotating roster of players, starting with Marty Cordrey, and eventually achieving stability behind the skins via Atilla Turi (from the late 90s).

By the mid 80s, The Kings had well and truly forsaken crown and sceptre as a recording act, though as a live band, they remained a popular drawcard. There was nothing half-hearted about their live performances, and the bands raucous spirit was captured, and eventually released, via ‘Party Live in ‘85’ (recorded in the band’s heyday, and released in the late 90s). The Kings remained a going concern as a live act throughout the 80s, but it appeared by the close of decade, that this particular musical monarchy had seen their best days. But in the late 80s, a decidedly delicious morsel of pop-rock regalia was rediscovered by U.S. regional radio. The sparkling ‘This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide’ seemed perched to pop the cork on a revival in The Kings’ fortunes. The song(s) were added to radio playlists across the Illinois area, but sadly, word of the resurgent interest didn’t filter across to the L.A. headquarters of Elektra Records, who had long since deleted both single and album from distribution.

As the 90s dawned, the once burgeoning empire of The Kings had been reduced to a part-time live band, as the remaining members took day jobs to pay the bills. Diamond and Zero kept penning songs together on the side, and eventually plans evolved toward recording an album of new material. Following the appearance of the song ‘Parting Of The Ways’ on the Bullseye Records 1991 various artists compilation, ‘Unsigned, Sealed and Delivered’, English-born producer John Punter (Slade, Roxy Music) was enlisted to assist the lads through the (now) daunting task of recording a new Kings’ album. The eighteen month studio odyssey was laborious, but a labour of love nevertheless. By 1993, ‘Unstoppable’ was released on the band’s own Dizzy Records label, and the band collectively held their breath in anticipation of the reception. The band still had a loyal legion of fans in Canada, and ‘Unstoppable’ was embraced for the accomplished album that it was (top ten Canada), and the relentless beat of the title track single (top ten Canadian rock radio). The acoustic fed ‘Lesson To Learn’ reflected a band that had matured, and was also well received in Canada. Overall, ‘Unstoppable’ boasted pockets of pulsating power-pop, but a more moderate, middle of the road, vibe acted as a stylistic ballast, tempering the band’ s previously feisty waters. Mister Zero (known throughout the rest of the galaxy as Captain) also snagged a U.S. distribution deal for ‘Unstoppable’ (with bonus remastered ‘This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide’). That deal eventually went sour, but by decade’s end, The Kings had negotiated a deal with Warner Canada to release a remastered copy of ‘The Kings Are Here’, with five bonus tracks, on CD (that also led to the release of the ‘Party Live In ‘85’ set).

Throughout this period, Mister Zero and David Diamond remained constant subject’s in The Kings’ kingdom, though Sonny Keyes continued as an associate member for some recording and writing duties. Atilla Turi established a regular tenure on drums, whilst touring keyboard duties were assumed by Peter Nunn and Rich Roxborough. In both 2001 and 2002, the original knights of the round record, Zero, Diamond, Styles, and Keyes, assembled for the Camp Trillium benefit concerts in Toronto. Bullseye Records then backed the release of the 2003 album, ‘Because Of You’. 23 years post their debut set, The Kings co-produced the album with Harry Hess, and came up with their most diverse work to date. The title track embodied the spirit and energy of its vinyl ancestor, whilst the quirky, chirpy ‘The Fools Are In Love’, proved The Kings had lost none of their pop-rock lustre.

Over their thirty year crusade, The Kings have notched up over 2000 shows, and show no signs of abdicating their place as a live act of rare distinction. Much of their back catalogue has been made available online, and the new releases keep coming, with the latest being the 2009 release DVD, ‘Anatomy of a One-Hit Wonder’. The Kings are a band of exceptional quality, who have inexplicably flown under the popular radar for most of their career. For more insight into their music, and the opportunity to experience some of it first hand, check out The Kings’ fortress in cyberspace at -
http://thekingsarehere.com/