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...

In May of 1981 I was given a pile of Christian records ... okay maybe not a pile, but it felt like a lot. I don't remember all of the titles but I do remember How the West was One by 2nd Chapter of Acts. This was my introduction to Phil Keaggy and his playing melted my brain. One of the vocalists in the band was a skinny young kid who sounded like a boy when he spoke and had a huge voice. It seemed inevitable that he'd release a solo album at some point. That point came in 1979 when Toward Eternity  was released, according to Mr. Ward's website he was 18 when he recorded the album, which is sort of mind boggling. I probably got it in 1982 when I was 19, and the most ambitious song I'd written to that point was "49 Rats Eating Beer-sausage." I remember reading the credits as I listened to the songs, and was really excited to see Phil's name listed on most of the tracks. The album opens with a one two punch that still makes me grin like an idiot. This is di...

I'll admit I'm sort of a sucker for this era of soft rock. It likely explains why I'm such a big fan of Christopher Cross ... no I am not kidding. Before Mister Cross though there were others - one of whom was Stephen Bishop. A year earlier he had contributed a couple of songs to Art Garfunkel's 1975 album Breakaway , and this helped him secure a record deal. Careless would feature some of the best players of the '70s: Andrew Gold, Jay Graydon, Larry Carlton and Eric Clapton played guitar, Russ Kunkel and Jim Gordon among others on drums, and Chaka Khan who was also on ABC records appeared as a backing vocalist on a couple of track. Art Garfunkel also appeared on a few tracks. For a debut this is pretty awesome. Stephen co-produced the album with Henry Lewy who also engineered the album. Lewy was no stranger to great sounding albums which included  Mitchell's Blue and Neil Young's Harvest . The album opens with Stephen Bishop's biggest hit - or at least ...

As a teenager Friday night often meant staying up late and watching "concerts" on TV. Before there was MTV and MuchMusic there was Burt Sugarman's The Midnight Special. Wolfman Jack would do something or other, but there would be "performances" by a lot of popular bands and musicians. Sure, they were likely lip synced, but what wasn't? You mean to tell me Dick Clark's American Bandstand was actually live? There would be a lot of stuff I don't remember, some I actively disliked. Yeah, early Prince in a loin cloth put me off his music for years. Then one night there was Christopher Cross performing "Ride Like the Wind" and after the fog machine more or less covers the stage the band launches in, and there's no Michael McDonald. Were they actually singing? I'm enthralled by this giant guitar playing Baby Huey with a receding hairline. The song gets to the end guitar solo and for the first time you can actually really hear what he's...