Old Enough to Forget

REO Speedwagon was back in '84 with Wheels are Turnin' and indeed the wheels were still turning. They may not have been able to attain the giddy heights they achieved with their 1980 release Hi Infidelity . It was an impossibly high bar, but REO Speedwagon had enough momentum to be able to crank out double platinum albums back to back. First with Good Trouble and again with Wheels are Turnin' .  I saw the video once for the lead off single "I Do' Wanna Know" and thought it was hilarious ... I never saw it again, and I don't think I heard it very often on the radio. However when they dropped "Can't Fight This Feeling" was a huge hit and seemed to be on the radio all the time. It's a song I still like. Heck, if you're going to write a syrupy sucky ballad this is how you do it. Gary Richrath seemed to revel in laying down rock solos on everything the band recorded. Slow song. Cool. Time to melt a face or two. One rock solo comin' u...

REO Speedwagon released Hi Infidelity in the fall of 1980. Through 1981, it seemed like the album was on practically every turntable in the country. Even my best friend Mike, who hardly ever bought a record, had it - so I borrowed his copy for a while so I could have it on my turntable, albeit briefly, as he took it back. Of course, I now have my own copy on CD, a wonderfully loaded remaster, and now this one on vinyl. At the time, what I knew about REO Speedwagon was on par with what I knew about algebra - which was nothing. To my dear old basketball coach and math teacher, Mr. Cameron, who passed me on the condition that I never, ever take another math class in high school. I promised and kept that promise. I needed to get that C- so that I could meet the minimum requirements to graduate. He's passed away since, but he was a wonderful man. So, here was REO Speedwagon catching their big break with their ninth release. They'd been on the verge of hitting it big, but with Hi In...

A while back on a SAGA page, someone posted a picture of a ticket stub with the name Starcastle crossed out, and SAGA written in pen. I don't know why this stuck in my memory, but it did. One day I was looking through the clearance section at an old video store that had recently added a record section, and I found a couple of cool-looking albums. Among them was this Starcastle album featuring a great cover. With the Hildebrandt signature, I'm going to assume this was done by the brothers. I'll look it up later.* Right off the bat, there was Roy Thomas Baker's name in the production credits, so if nothing else there was some muscle behind it and someone at Epic believed in the band. The back cover shows six rather dashing and very serious-looking fellows, two of whom had fine moustaches, and the guy in the back row far left could have been the inspiration for Michael Sadler's (lead singer from SAGA) epic 'stache from the '70s. I was pretty stoked, to be hones...