Good gravy here were are enjoying the lazy dog days of summer and thankfully the basements is still relatively cool compared to the rest of the house. The tunes are cranked and I'm annoying everyone in the house. Life is good. I suppose the most interesting thing to me in this bunch of records was hearing Leo Sayer's Living in a Fantasy, an album that fits with Cliff Richard's early '80s output produced by Alan Tarney. Man there was some good stuff coming in the early to mid '80s.
- Leo Sayer - Living in a Fantasy (1980)
- Christopher Cross - Every Turn of the World (1985)
- Chalk Circle - The Great Lake (EP) (1986)
- Cliff Richard - Wired for Sound (1981)
- Red Rockers - Schizophrenic Circus (1984)
Leo Sayer - Living in a Fantasy (1980) Man, had I known how good this album was I'd have gotten it years ago. I really, really liked the songs Alan Tarney produced with Cliff Richard. Oddly Cliff had a huge hit with "Dreamin'" in 1980, a song produced and written by Alan Tarney and Leo Sayer. At the same time Alan and Leo were on the charts with the excellent "More Than I Can Say" which was kind of cool. I wonder why Leo never recorded the song for
Living in a Fantasy?
Now over the years I became a big fan of Alan Tarney, and this period where he and drummer Trevor Spencer were essentially recording Tarney / Spencer albums with different vocalists. I will say it was weird hearing "Once in a While" a song that a year later appeared on Cliff Richard's Wired for Sound. Musically Living in a Fantasy was pure unadulterated pop goodness. Hearing Leo Sayer sing the songs was a rather pleasant surprise. Leo and Cliff have a similar tone, but are different enough to give the music a different feel, but my goodness this really is just The Tarney Spencer Band with a different singer, whether it be Leo, or Cliff.
After I went through Leo's Richard Perry trilogy I gained a new found respect for Mister Sayer, and when I discovered this album it was one I was looking forward to hearing. Oddly this album is one of the dead spots on digital platforms which is a shame.
Christopher Cross - Every Turn of the World (1985) Christopher Cross released his third album
Every Turn of the World in 1985 and no one noticed.
Considering a few years earlier Mr. Cross was at the top of the world it seems strange his fall from public favour was so quick. Sure his follow up
Another Page managed to go gold in the States, but it was a far cry from the multi-platinum success of his debut. I'll admit it wasn't an album that really stayed with me. However I liked it enough that when a couple of years later
Every Turn of the World dropped I bought it right away. This album had hit written all over it. The album, like his first two records, was produced by Michael Omartian, and while this is still a Christopher Cross album, this was more of a rock album than it was a collection of soft rock ballads. I thought it was going to be a big hit. It's honestly my favourite of all his albums, and trust me ... this is an absolutely killer album. Of course, it's in the ear of the beholder, and if you don't like Christopher Cross' voice, well this may not change your mind, but the songs are so good if you give them a chance. I love that Christopher was allowed to be front and centre with his guitar. He is a monster, and his tone is like butter. After all these years I am still enthralled by the closing track, "Open Your Heart" his solo on the song is so good, the sax solo is pretty wicked too.
Chalk Circle - The Great Lake (EP) (1986) Well this was a cool find. I was on holiday and there in the bins in a small town record store was the six song EP version of Chalk Circle's
The Great Lake. This was an album I had always wanted to pick up and for whatever reason it eluded me. A while back I'd found the band's third and final album,
As the Crow Flies, and that was a real grower. So when I found this I snapped it up. This is pure '80s goodness, and Chris Tait's voice was malleable enough to fit right in with the best of what was going on at the time. Yeah one could make a case that the music was overly derivative but that's a little unfair. They were working in a pop music vein that was more alternative than commercial, and my goodness they made some tasty ear candy. From the opening cut "April Fool" that's one of my favourites from the album, and is truly a classic through to the album's closer "Superman (Meets the Man of Steel)" there aren't any weak links in the chain. It's a shame they aren't remembered. I may be a few decades late to the party but I'll remember.
Cliff Richard - Wired for Sound (1981) This was the second album of Cliff's that was driven by Alan Tarney and it was another collection of great pop songs. Alan Tarney sounds like,
Alan Tarney and if you like it, you like it a lot. At least based on my own personal opinion. Results as they say may vary. Cliff never seemed to really crack the US market, but he was a pretty big deal in the UK, and here in Canada and a bunch of other Commonwealth countries he sold a lot of records.
I'd been listening to Leo Sayer's Living in a Fantasy and his version of "Once in a While" caught me off guard, as this was where I'd first heard it. They're both excellent, but I still prefer Cliff's rendition, mainly because it was first for me even if it came out second. This was his 24th record, but the albums that meant the most to me were the three he released from 1979 to 1981. There was something about them that just got me in the feels.
This isn't to say there aren't some wobbles here and there, despite being a huge hit I never really liked "Daddy's Home" and some of the ballads are frankly syrup filled schmaltzy time wasters. It's weird listening to it now that my stalwart assessment that this is a collection of great pop songs is kind of hard to defend at times, but the reality is I don't have to defend it at all. The songs I liked (and still like) on the album, I really liked (like) and it coloured my impression of the whole darned thing. This really is a great collection of pop songs.
Red Rockers - Schizophrenic Circus (1984) After picking up Red Rockers
Good as Gold, and really liking the album I was on the look out for the band's other releases. As fate would have it, the album I found was their follow up to Good as Gold the oddly titled
Schizophrenic Circus. At this point any of the band's earlier nods to bands like the Clash had given way to embracing alternative '80s power pop. The album leads of with "Just Like You" that owes a pretty big debt to Big Country. "Blood from a Stone" written by The Hooters songwriting team of Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian was a fantastic cover, was a fantastic cover and The Hooters themselves seemed to borrow from this version when they redid the song a year later on
Nervous Night. I'm not sure whose decision it was to have so many outside writers on the album. Maybe the label didn't have enough confidence in the band. Not sure it matters at this point, the song choice were pretty strong and the band made the songs their own. I particularly got a kick out of Gary O's "Shades of '45" which was really good. Same with "
Eve Of Destruction" the band sped the song up, and added layers of jingle jangle guitars that served as a happy counterpoint to the lyrics. It's a shame this never found an audience, this was really good stuff. This would be the last album by a band who never really had a chance to find their footing.
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