Old Enough to Forget

Before cell phones the big advance in telecommunications was the cordless telephone ... before that he who had the longest coiled cord ruled the world. If you could make it from the kitchen to an adjoining room you were just showing off. The long red cord is all over the album cover, and the insert. Certainly Chris was flexing. Here we have Chris De Burgh's 1984 follow up to his rather good 1982 album The Getaway , and this was so good. Man on the Line was again produced by Rupert Hine who also provided keyboards and the orchestral arrangements. I also assume he programmed the drums for most of the album. Phil Palmer was again present on guitar, and oh my stars and garters he was ON FIRE throughout the album. The guitar solo on "High on Emotion" is jaw dropping. Speaking of the drums, this is how they should have sounded on The Getaway , oh I'm  not trying to do Steve Negus dirty, the man is a premier pounder but his drums sound absolutely horrid on that album - which...

When I was in high school a friend of mine had Spanish Train And Other Stories , and I remember being enthralled by the title track. I don't recall anything else. When videos were a thing in '83 I remember seeing "Don't Pay The Ferryman" and I was hooked. The album would be a big deal here in Canada where it sold over 100,000 copies. Chris De Burgh was likeable. I'll be the first to admit that I never really thought much of the rest of the album at the time. It was decent but I was really hoping for an album full of rockers. Of course I should have known better, but hey I was still a teenager. It didn't matter though - that one song was a killer, and the rest of the album was pleasant enough and I'd play it once in a while. After all, I was a fan of Al Stewart so it wasn't like I didn't listen to what could be loosely categorized as "adult contemporary" music. Rupert Hine produced this one, and he'd been working with SAGA around t...

The late Rupert Hine was a producer of the highest order who made incredible albums with SAGA, The Fixx, Howard Jones and Eight Seconds to name just a few. I knew he had a solo career that was a bit sporadic, but never heard any of his stuff. He released a trio of albums in the '80s. Starting with this one,  Immunity in '81 then he would drop another in '82 and finally one more in '83 and then he'd take over a decade before releasing his last solo album in 1994. I bought this as a curiosity, and really had no idea what to expect. Sometimes a producers fingerprints are unmistakable and are every where regardless of the act they're working with. Yeah, I'm thinking of David Foster ... although I do have to say The Tubes were the exception to the rule ... but you know what I mean. Rupert Hine's work with other artists was transparent. His style seemed to provide focus to the band he was producing, and he brought out their best work.  Immunity is an odd work....