Old Enough to Forget

Gary Wright followed up his double platinum release The Dreamweaver in 1977 with The Light of Smiles . It must have been a surprise and a bit of a disappointment when the album didn't perform as well as hoped. It did chart as high as 23 on the Billboard top LP and Tape chart according to what I read on the wiki, but it must have been more of a spike than anything. As the album didn't seem to attain any certifications that I could see. Not that it matters, I've said it before, and I'll likely say it again (more than once) most of my favourite albums never really attained any significant commercial success.  I'd seen this album over the years, but that was about it. Gary Wright was Mr. Dreamweaver and I'm sure somehow it was worked into his epitaph when he passed away a couple of years ago. For me I was really curious about this one, lately I've been a sucker for finding albums that follow a big release. For Gary Wright he was flying high after The Dreamweave...

It's hard to imagine now, but this movie was sort of a biggish deal. Following The Breakfast Club a few months later St. Elmo's Fire hit the threatres. The cast was a hodgepodge of members of the so called Brat Pack, and both movies were produced by a guy named Ned Tanen who was behind some pretty impressive movies. The Breakfast Club is a coming of age classic now, whereas St. Elmo's Fire is mostly a forgotten misfire that was surprisingly popular when it was released. I'll admit that I took my girlfriend at the time to see it. It was a bit weird seeing many of the kids who a few months earlier were in detention playing a more age appropriate role. In many ways it was a foreshadowing of Friends , except this wasn't funny or all that good. However, there was the soundtrack. David Foster was all over this, and it's a sort of mixed bag of horseshoes. I happen to like David Foster, but there are times his style of music, keyboard sound choices, and layers of syru...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record and repeating myself, I'll bring you up to speed on my love hate relationship with Payolas ($). At best I was a casual fan but I will give credit where credit is due. When they were good they were as good as it got. Seriously, "Eyes of a Stranger" is just about as good as it gets, and over the decades the song has woven itself into the fabric of Canadian classic rock.  When the band followed up their 1982 release No Stranger to Danger a year later with Hammer on a Drum also produced by Mick Ronson, there was anticipation in the air. This was going to break the band wide open. "Where is this Love" was the song that got me in the feels and I would have picked up the album except the other song that got radio play was "Never Said I Loved You" where Paul and Carole Pope took turns singing ... in other words it was a duet. To say I had a visceral reaction to the song understates the meaning of the word visceral....

By the mid '80s David Foster was manifesting the Midas touch for just about everything he worked on (except for that Payolas album that was supposed to be gold - those guys couldn't catch a break. I mean really, if guys like Mick Ronson and David Foster can't push a band over the top, the cards are stacked against you). Much of the MOR highly polished pop and the mushy synthesizer "strings" in the '80s could be laid at Mister Foster's feet. Don't get me wrong, I bought the St. Elmo's soundtrack when it came out, but I also eschewed a lot of what he produced. I mean there was only so much insipid music I could stomach. I remember hearing "Who's Gonna Love You Tonight" on the radio, rock radio at that, and thought to myself, "Hey, that's a pretty good song. Who is that?" Don't forget it was around this time a lot of really cool but somewhat faceless "rock" was huge. Mr. Mister was the poster band of corporate...

This was the album that was supposed to make The Payola$ huge ... all that was missing was an excellent album to propel Vancouver's perennial group of punk to pop heroes to the big time. They'd been skirting on the edge of success for a few years, and were so close to being a really big deal. The band first made it onto my radar when they released "Eyes of a Stranger" back in 1982 and the song was huge here in Canada (okay, maybe just Vancouver, but it seemed like it was huge). I remember an entertainment segment on the local news where the band was pretty excited about the prospect of being able to ditch their day jobs. A year later the band dropped Hammer on a Drum and "Where is this Love" was the big hit (all things are relative, it was on the radio and I liked it, so it must have been a hit), and remains one of those songs that'll get me right in the feels when I hear it. Mick Ronson had produced both of those albums, and while they did okay, from ...

My first exposure to The Tubes came with "Talk to Ya Later" a song so good even Gil Fisher, The Fishin' Musician had them up to Scuttlebut Lodge to play it for his television viewing audience. It was at that moment I realized The Tubes weren't like most other bands as they opted to play "Sushi Girl" and not the big hit - that to me was cool. The Completion Backward Principle was the band's first release on Capitol, and was produced by David Foster, who wasn't yet known as the king of schmaltz, also co-wrote some of the best songs on the album. Those being "Talk to Ya Later" and the incredible "Don't Want to Wait Anymore" a song so good it's mind boggling that it was a massive hit - Bill Spooner took lead vocals on that one, and absolutely killed it - no small feat as I consider Fee Waybill one of rock's greatest vocalists. No, I'm not kidding. This was where I started with the band, so like any starting point i...

Just about everyone's heard "Dream Weaver" - I suppose Wayne's World can take credit for that (although it is a different version, he did like to re-record this song). Still when I found this album I was pretty stoked as I happen to like that song, but I really liked "Love is Alive" and I'll be honest I'd forgotten about that one until I dropped the needle, then it was "Holy mackerel. I love this song." While my dollar bin copy didn't have an insert, there were decent credits on the back cover, and it was cool to see names like David Foster, drummers Andy Newmark and Jim Keltner and even a guitar cameo by Ronnie Montrose on "Power of Love" - it's the only guitar on the album and it comes at the close of the first side. After setting the tone with the various keyboard and special effects on the first four songs I actually didn't even notice the guitar the first time through - dang, even on the second pass it was there ...