I've never really watched Law and Order, or any of the endless spin offs, but I know the opening sequence. Which got me to thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I could get Steven Zirnkilton (I looked him up to give him credit) to narrate an opening segment to one of my blog posts. Actually, this post would be good. Close your eyes and read it while thinking of Steven's dulcet tones. Oh, right, maybe open your eyes so you can see. You'll have to figure out how to imagine his voice on your own.
"In a criminally competitive musical landscape, many albums are lost to time - forgotten, out of print, absent from streaming - these are considered especially elusive. One such album is Midnight Fire by Randall Waller.”
Yes that's right I finally found a copy of Midnight Fire to replace the one I lost many years ago. Talk about a blast from the past. This is Randall Waller's lone entry into my personal discography. The date on the label says it was from 1980, but I didn't pick it up until late '81 or early '82. I do remember it was when I was in my Solid Rock Records phase around mid '81 that started when I first picked up In Another Land (1976) by Larry Norman that was followed almost immediately by Randy Stonehill's Welcome to Paradise (1976) and The Sky Is Falling (1980) and Mark Heard's lone Solid Rock release Appalachian Melody (1979) and capped off by the last album of an era* Something New under the Son (1981) by Larry. The reason these albums are so important to me is they all featured a common thread that connected all of the album together: Guitarist Jon Linn, who to me was one of, if not the preeminent guitar players in my small musical world.
In the midst of all this awesomeness was Randall Waller's Midnight Fire. I'd love to know how he ended up on the little British Columbia based Tunesmith label. At the time Tunesmith took chances. I mean seriously, they specialized in quirky, almost risky music. Their roster contained Barnabas, Servant, Quickflight and Randall Waller. More often than not they seemed to be one and done, but not always.
The cover.
This is quite possibly one of the worst, absolutely worst covers I have ever seen. Midnight Fire looks like a Christmas album. I can easily picture Roger Whittaker, or Nana Mouskouri striking the same pose. The font choice is just extra cringe. But the piece de resistance, the French kiss, is the way a young (I'm guessing Randall was maybe 25 at the time) Randall is looking into the camera while holding a daisy in his left hand. The soft filter makes him look a little like an equally young Tim Roth caught in the act of playing "She loves me ... she loves me not." I'm not kidding the cover is terrible. There's even a credit, and I'm guessing it was a family member who thought it was awesome. This is absolutely a case of you can't judge a book by it's cover.
Man, this is going sideways. I'd call for a Mulligan, but I'm inclined to keep going and just chalk it up as a bit of a wobbly start and persevere. I could use an editor, but hey it's all part of the experience. To paraphrase the voice over to the old Outer Limits TV show I loved as a kid, "There is nothing wrong with your device."
Randall Waller enlisted Jon Linn to produce the album, and Jon brought friends. The first cut "I Need You" is one of the highlights on the record, Ambrosia's rhythm section is holding down the fort. Burleigh Drummond on drums and Joe Puerta on bass. I would have thought Joe would have been tapped for backing vocals, but nope. Now, at the time I didn't know they were in Ambrosia, but I do now, and that just adds to the cool.
"Cry From an Absent Friend" is another great song, and Randall's guitar work is so good. Burleigh and Joe are joined by keyboard player Richard Souther as well as Sir Randy Stonehill who provides the backing "oohs and aahs and a couple of whoos." While the song may be rooted in soft rock, there's a definite edge to the music I always loved. Heck there's a pick slide in it, come on, that's just cool. I'm not sure who thought the song needed to fade out though. The song is building to a climax and just before the finish the song abruptly fades out, but you get to hear the music stop. A terrible case of musical blue balls.
Flipping the record over, the first song is a loose jam. It's fun, but doesn't fit. It feels like a throwaway. It must have been a blast to record, and I do like it for all my whinging. Larry Norman played harmonica, Jon Linn played slide, and there was even an electric sitar played by Steve Kara, a name I'm not familiar with. It may have been an instrumental jam, but there were backing vocals, provided by Chuck Girard, Terry and Duane Clark. Both Terry and Chuck are Christian music pioneers and it must have been odd bringing them in to sing but not sing.
Complete with cheesy keyboard fiddle farty noises that ascend and descend around Randall's overly earnest vocals as he manages to somehow encapsulate everything that was wrong and horrible from the singer songwriter '70s ballad "Always Waiting" is subjectively, SUBJECTIVELY (as I'm sure there are people who heard this one and liked it) the worst song on the record. I didn't like it when I was in my teens, and it's a little surprising that the passage of time hasn't lessened my near vitriolic reaction. I have to remind myself this was 1980 and the '80s didn't even have a sound yet. It doesn't mean I like it any more than I did back then.
I know it wasn't a saying then, but Randall went all in on another glorious "Hold My Beer" moment. It wasn't enough to have just one acoustic ballad, he wrote a sequel. "Made for Me" just seemed out of place, even back then ... but if I'm being honest this was more in keeping with the guy on the cover than the face melting songs he pulled off on side one.
When I was a kid to get to school in the winter I had to literally walk down the side of hill in the snow to get to school ... which was about the same as having to listen to the songs on the second side. Walking to school just meant I made it to school and then had to deal with school before being forced to walk home through the snow and uphill. Listening to the second side however contained a payoff that totally made it worth listening to the first three songs. "Morning Star" was (is) a face melting rock song that eschewed power chords in favour of a power pop structure that balanced rock with the occasional jazz voiced chord turnaround. It was the accompanying fretwork that put this over the top, and boy oh boys Randall pulled out all the stops. There are dual tracked guitars emphasizing the melodic structure, and very clean stratocaster where he was pulling of quacky lead lines that were so good. Echoes of the Mark Knopfler effect, and Randall could play - he is monster on this song. Then there's the musical bridge where his chord changes and accompanying synth lines are deceptively simple so effective. The song is so good that when it ends all I can think of is playing the side over again. The song clocks in at just over six minutes and there are no wasted moments. None. This is the centrepiece of the entire album, and it comes right at the end.
I love this record. I still love this record. Yes, I basically crapped on 3 of the songs and farted on the instrumental ... but even back when I first had this I always listened to the entire record. Yes I pulled off half of the songs for various mix tapes as those songs were so good. For all the negatives I've liberally sprinkled throughout this long meanderambling post, my memory of the record is disproportionately weighed to the songs I liked, downplaying the ones I wanted to forget, but still listened to. I'm here dissecting a record that is over four decades (almost fifty years) into the rear view mirror and frankly for all intents and purposes this is a forgotten album - to what end?
The answer is somewhat pedantic.
I was excited to relive an album from my youth. I had not forgotten there were songs I didn't care for, but I'd forgotten how short the record was - short both in terms of number of tracks, and time. It didn't crest forty minutes. That first side though, and the opening one two punch were so good. It's weird how much I remembered, and how much I didn't. It's been decades since I've heard this, and frankly it's been awesome hearing this again. You may be asking yourself, "Is it really awesome, or are they just good in the context of the album?" Fair, but I do think that the good songs here are good, really good. Songs I'd stack against the best songs of the day. So, yeah this album has some excellent moments that more than make up for any perceived deficiencies. As a matter of fact a couple of years ago I made a list of albums I wanted to find and Randall Waller was near the top, and when I saw the record I snapped it up, I couldn't believe it. It's not on any platforms, which makes me wonder what the licensing arrangement was at the time, and where the master tapes are, does anyone actually know where they are? Who owns this? I know there are people who remember this album, as I did find a rip on YouTube so there is that.
As to Midnight Fire, it seems to be one of those albums that just seems to exist in the weird in between place where things are slowly forgotten. Which is a shame.
* I'm not sleeping on Daniel Amos' Horrendous Disc that was really one of the last albums to come out on the label, and Jon wasn't on that one. I was trying to keep it to the Solid Rock guys who were on Midnight Fire in some capacity. Mark Heard was on the list not only because Jon player on his record, but because he was one of the additional engineers in the credits. Man, I need to learn how to write less and say more.
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