Old Enough to Forget

All Dressed Up is one of the best albums you've never heard. Released in 1982 David Roberts was poised to be a big deal. At least here at home in Canada ... before the conquering the rest of the world. The album was slick with enough rough edges to appeal to the rock guy in me. It didn't hurt that the album contained a who's who of the best session players on the friggin' planet. This came out the same year TOTO IV and musically All Dressed Up borrows more from the late '70s light funk and jazz grooves than the harder West coast AOR that was starting to percolate to the top of the charts. It was really good. So what happened? I remember watching David perform "Boys of Autumn" on the Juno Awards, and he was up for Most Promising Male Vocalist in '83 but lost out to Kim Mitchell, who was so far removed from being considered a "new" talent that it is mind boggling to me the guy was even nominated. Oh well.  I don't know how well the album...

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...