Old Enough to Forget

After a string of somewhat lacklustre albums Heart reinvented themselves as mainstream rockers, got picked up by Capitol Records and dropped one of their biggest albums ever in 1985. The band employed outside writers on over half of the tracks including the rejected Toronto track "What About Love" that became the band's first big hit in years, and after that the hits kept coming  "These Dreams" which would go all the way to number one, along with "Never" and "Nothin' at All", and "If Looks Could Kill" which was pretty cool. I wonder how much of this was right place, right time ... whatever the case Heart was back, and the album would sell over 600,000 in Canada, and over 5,000,000 in the States. Not bad considering their previous two records hadn't gone gold, and the band seemed to be done. Heart is one of those bands I never really gave much though to. When I was a kid I absolutely loved "Barracuda" and "Magi...

Breakdown in Paradise  was aptly titled. When the band signed to Mushroom records, the little label that signed Heart and put out their first two records (although they'd later write "Barracuda" as a diss track to their former label) their next two records Dreams, Dreams, Dreams and Lights in the Valley would go platinum in Canada. Then in '79 Mushroom Records head Shelly Siegel died and the label started to flounder, and Chilliwack kept plugging away hoping for the best. When the album finally dropped in December of 1979 the label no longer seemed to be capable of marketing or pushing singles to radio. There must have been some word of mouth no doubt as I remember the album and I liked "Communication Breakdown" and always thought it was a hit. There were enough copies printed that it's not a hard album to find. Who knows how many copies, maybe the record keeping sucked and the album actually did better than what was reported on the charts. Regardless, t...

I was this many years old when I finally realized it wasn't Seals & Croft ... it was Seals & CROFTS. Well, better late than never I guess. Seals & Crofts had a pretty good run through the early '70s. While I'd never have called myself much of a fan I had to admit that their radio hits were syrupy ear candy. I still love "Summer Breeze" and "Diamond Girl" and when I saw the Greatest Hits album in the bargain bin (along with about twenty other albums that came home with me ... it was a good haul) I had to get it. So I did. The album after a deep clean was remarkably pristine and the liner notes were still inside the jacket. Sadly it was just a lyric sheet with no credits. At least the back cover listed the producer - Louis Shelton, the legendary session guitarist who I assume also played guitar on the album.  This is a great sounding record, and the intertwined harmonies of James Seals and Dash Crofts are so good. It would have been cool to ha...

April Wine was striking while the iron was hot, or in this case platinum. The band had finally cracked the US market with The Nature of the Beast and at home the band had released consecutive gold or platinum albums since 1975's breakthrough Stand Back .  Power Play managed to ride the band's momentum to platinum status in Canada, but despite the album cracking the top 40 on the US album charts it didn't translate into sales. The album was produced by Mike Stone and Myles Goodwin, and the classic line up was still intact. Brian Greenway - guitar, vocals Myles Goodwyn - vocals, guitars, keyboards Gary Moffet -guitar, background vocals Steve Lang - bass, background vocals  Jerry Mercer - drums Heck the album cover was awesome. There was Myles with his three pick up Les Paul slung over his shoulder arms splayed out basking in the moment. I loved that guitar. Two pickups good. THREE BETTERER! Take that Peter Frampton! The only problem was the songs. The band had been cranking ...

When I first bought There Goes the Neighborhood I knew who Joe Walsh was, but other than a couple of songs on the radio I hadn't had the opportunity to hear any of his solo records. This was also true of the Eagles, but that's only tangentially related. The first Eagles record I'd pick up was Eagles Live in 1980 which more or less cemented my appreciation for Joe Walsh as a player. When Joe released There Goes the Neighborhood in '81 it would be my gateway into his solo career. I didn't quite know what to do with this one when I first heard it - this was a weird album. To me Joe Walsh was the rocker who wrote "In the City" for The Warriors soundtrack and was the guy who did "Rocky Mountain Way" and despite my teenage protestations that Triumph did it better - in the long run, Canada's other power trio couldn't hold a candle to the original. Of course "Life's Been Good" is pretty much the penultimate Joe Walsh song, but th...