April 2020 – What Was Left In

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1955 Sarah Vaughn – How Important Can It Be

1955 Sarah Vaughn – How Important Can It Be

Sarah Vaughn grew up in Newark, New Jersey. She attended Newark Arts High School until her junior year. She dropped out of school to pursue a musical career. Sarah was an accomplished piano player as well as an extremely talented singer.

Sarah appeared at amateur night at the Apollo and won the $10 first prize in 1942. Winning also granted her a one-week engagement at the Apollo, and that led to a job with the Earl Hines Big Band.

By 1945, Sarah was appearing as a solo act in clubs in New York City. She began recording for Musicraft in 1946. Her first four singles failed to chart, but her recording of Tenderly reached #27 on the Hot 100 in 1947.

She released nine top twenty singles during the next four years. After that, she only managed one record that peaked at #22 in the following three years. Her single, Make Yourself Comfortable, became her second top ten record in late 1954.

Sarah began 1955 by recording How Important Can It Be with Count Basie. The song was initially recorded by Joni James, but Joni was unhappy with the record and insisted on re-recording it with a different arrangement and some additional male background singers. After Sarah had recorded her version, Joni returned to the studio and made a second recording that MGM rush-released. Joni’s version reached the charts a week before Sarah’s single. When the dust settled, Joni peaked at #2 and earned a gold record, while Sarah’s version only reached #12.

Sarah’s next record competed with Dinah Shore. Whatever Lola Wants became one of the standout songs from a new play, Damn Yankees. That time, Sarah came out on top: her single reached #6 on the Hot 100, while Dinah’s version peaked at #12.

Sarah released three more singles that reached the top fifteen that year, after which the hits slowed down. She got her first gold record and her first Grammy nomination when she recorded the top ten single, Broken-Hearted Melody in 1959. Nat King Cole beat her out for that Grammy award.

Sarah continued performing until the late eighties and became one of the most celebrated female jazz singers.

She began chemotherapy for lung cancer and later passed away in 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Vaughan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Vaughan_discography

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Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1989 Information Society – Walking Away

This article is now included in Lost Or Forgotten Oldies Volume 5

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1988 Poison – Fallen Angel

1988 Poison – Fallen Angel

Singer Bret Michaels started out in the band Laser in Pennsylvania in the seventies. He and his childhood friend, drummer Rikki Rockett, formed the band the Spectres in 1979. In 1980 they recruited guitar player Matt Smith and bass player Bobby Dall and formed the band Paris. While they gained a following playing in local clubs, the band moved to Los Angeles in 1983 to pursue a better future. They also changed the name of the band using a song title from Kix: Poison.

Matt had gotten a woman pregnant and moved back to Pennsylvania. The band considered replacing him with Slash, who later became a member of Guns And Roses. The also decided against a guitar player from the Joe Perry Project (Steve Silva) and finally chose C.C. DeVille as their new lead guitar player.

The group’s first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, came out in 1986. The first single from the album failed to chart except in the UK (where it only reached #97). The next year the album started selling and the record company released the top ten single, Talk Dirty To Me. Three more singles followed with uneven results.

The group’s second album, Open Up and Say…Ahh!, came out in 1988 and was even more successful: it sold over 8 million copies. The band got three top ten singles off the album including the number one hit, Every Rose Has Its Thorn. The other single from the album only reached #12, so Fallen Angel tends to be overlooked.

The band stepped away from their big hair image with the release of their third album in 1990 but still managed two more top-five singles. They followed that with a double album that featured four new studio recordings and three sides full of live performances.

C.C. was struggling with cocaine addiction and was fired from the band in 1991. The band chose Richie Kotzen as his replacement in 1991. The result was more blues than glam metal, and the hits evaporated. Blues Saraceno became the new guitar player in 1993, but by 1996 C.C. returned to the group and the band’s hit lineup and glam metal roots returned to the fore.

Since 2000 there have been a few solo albums by members of the group, but Poison still continues to appear in concerts. The group hasn’t recorded a new studio album since 2007.

Bret found a new career appearing in reality television shows and continues to record singles and videos. While none of his singles has charted, his 2010 single Nothing To Lose featured Miley Cyrus on vocals and its video had a cameo from a very young Donald Trump Jr.
In 2020, Bret appeared as one of the masked contestants on The Masked Singer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_(American_band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Michaels

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1987 Glenn Medeiros – Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You

1987 Glenn Medeiros – Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You

Glenn Medeiros grew up in Hawaii. His father drove a tour bus, and at age ten, Glenn began his musical career by entertaining tourists on the bus.

George Benson recorded Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You, a song written by Gerry Goffin and Michael Masser on an album in 1985. His record company released the song as a single, but only in Europe. In 1986, when he was only 16 years old, Glenn sang the song in a local radio station talent contest. The program director of the station, Jay Stone, produced a single version of the song for Amherst Records. The program director of Phoenix radio station KZZP, Guy Zapoleon, heard the song while visiting the islands and took a copy back to Arizona. It took a few months, but by June 1987, the record had peaked at #12 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The record also reached the top of the charts in at least seven other countries.

The record got some sales help when the soap opera Days Of Our Lives featured the song on an episode. Three more soap operas used the song in 1988.

Glenn’s next three singles reached the Hot 100 but stalled at #67, #68, and #80. The next three singles failed to even reach the top 100, although the duet he recorded in French with Elsa Lunghini reached #1 in France in 1989.

Glenn recorded songs with three very different artists in 1990. His duet with Bobby Brown, She Ain’t Worth It, topped the Hot 100 in 1990 and even reached #43 on the R&B chart.

He recorded All I’m Missing Is You with Ray Parker, Jr., but the single peaked at #32.

His last visit to the Hot 100 came from a single he recorded with the Stylistics, Me – U = Blue.

When his music career slowed down, Glenn returned to school. He began teaching on Oahu and became a vice principal. He earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California in 2014 and became the Head of School/Principal at an all-boys Catholic school. In 2017, he became President and CEO of the school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Medeiros

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1986 The Fabulous Thunderbirds – Tough Enuf

1986 The Fabulous Thunderbirds – Tough Enuff

Jimmie Vaughan was born in Texas and moved to Austin in the late sixties, where he played guitar in several different groups. When he was only 18, the group he was in opened at a Jimi Hendrix Experience concert. In 1974, he joined with singer/harmonica player Kim Wilson to form the Fabulous Thunderbirds. A large number of other musicians have been in and out of the group.

Bass player Keith Ferguson and drummer Fran Christina were with the group when they recorded and released their first album in 1979. Their music focused on Texas Blues.

The Thunderbirds were a popular act and even opened for the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, but sales of their blues recordings were always thin. The one time they had a hit record came with the release of Tuff Enuff. Dave Edmunds (who had a hit single with his cover of I Hear You Knocking in 1971) produced the record. It put them in the top ten on the Hot 100 in the Spring of 1986. Three more singles reached the Hot 100 in the next two years, but none of them got close to the top forty.

Jimmie left the Thunderbirds in 1990 to make time to record an album with his younger brother. Stevie Ray also played guitar and had gained international attention after playing on several singles for David Bowie. His single, Crossfire, had also topped the US Mainstream Rock chart in 1989. After they finished the album, but before they released it, Stevie Ray died in a helicopter crash. The album, Family Style, won the Grammy award for the Best Contemporary Blues Recording.

Jimmie kept working primarily as a solo artist and released eight more albums. He appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000, playing guitar in BB King’s fictional band, the Louisiana Gator Boys.

Jimmie still tours as a solo act and released his most recent album in 2019.

A series of guitar players replaced Jimmie in the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Kim continues to lead a touring group. They released their most recent album in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_Thunderbirds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Ray_Vaughan

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1985 Depeche Mode – People Are People

1985 Depeche Mode – People Are People

Now included in https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B098HCW885/

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1984 Alan Parsons Project – Don’t Answer Me

1984 Alan Parsons Project – Don’t Answer Me

Abbey Road Studios hired Alan Parsons as an assistant engineer in 1967. In the next few years he worked on a few albums: Abbey Road, Let It Be, and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon.

Songwriter Eric Woolfson had written songs for many artists in the UK in the mid-sixties and had expanded his career to include producing recordings as well. He was working on an album of songs based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1974, Alan met songwriter Eric in the Abbey Road canteen and the two determined to work together. Eric became Alan’s manager, and the two produced recordings for the Hollies, Al Stewart, Pilot, and Ambrosia.

The pair created the Alan Parsons Project and began recording an album based on Eric’s Edgar Allan Poe songs. They extensively used studio musicians and completed the album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, in 1976. Three singles came from the album, but only the middle release reached the top forty in the US: (The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether peaked at #37 on the US Hot 100.

The album impressed Arista Records enough to gain the duo a recording contract for multiple albums. Their albums sold well while their singles were hit and miss. Their second album, I Robot, earned a platinum record and contained their second top forty single. I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You, which only made it up to #36 on the Hot 100.

Their best performing single came in 1982 when Eye In The Sky reached #3 on the Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts and #11 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

Two more singles from their next album reached the top forty in 1984. The first single, Don’t Answer Me, peaked at #15 on the Hot 100 and the Mainstream Rock charts and #4 on the AC chart. The video for the record was an animated story video that even included a cameo of a band playing the record.

The second single did not do as well; Prime Time only reached #34 on the Hot 100, but reached the top ten on the AC chart and peaked at #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

Three more of their singles in the next few years reached the top ten on the Mainstream Rock chart but they never again got into the top forty on the other two charts.

Reproducing their music live presented many difficulties, so the band appeared live in concert only one time.

The group sold over 30 million records but never had a top forty single in the UK. Their most familiar production is likely to be music that was never released as a single. Sirius was used extensively in the nineties by the Chicago Bulls basketball team. Ricky Steamboat also used the song as his entrance music in his pro wrestling career. The song is instantly recognizable.

The band had split up by about 1990 so the duo could pursue solo careers. Eric began writing and producing musicals based on the band’s music. Alan began touring with an acoustic group that he eventually named the Alan Parsons Live Project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alan_Parsons_Project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alan_Parsons_Project_discography

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1983 Little River Band – The Other Guy

1983 Little River Band – The Other Guy

The Australian band finally reached the US Hot 100 in 1977, and followed that with their biggest hit in the US, Reminiscing, which reached #3 on the Hot 100 in 1978.

The group had several hit records a year while constantly replacing many of the members. Guitarist David Briggs left the group in 1981, and lead vocalist Glenn Shorrock left in 1982. John Farnham joined the group and took over singing lead vocals, and Stephen Housden became the new lead guitar player.

The first single featuring John and Stephen came in 1983 with the release of The Other Guy. The single peaked at #11 on the US Hot 100 and #6 on the Adult Contemporary chart in early 1983.

Two more singles followed that year, but the sales dropped and the group never reached the US top forty again.

The group tried changing its style from soft rock to something more progressive. In 1985, they also changed their name to LRB. The combination of a new name and a different music style didn’t help at all. They even performed their new single Playing To Win on the Solid Gold television show, but the single only reached #60 on the Hot 100. It was little consolation that the record reached #15 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

John left the group in 1986, and it essentially disbanded for a year or two. Glenn rejoined the group in 1987 and various lineups of the group recorded a few more albums.

According to Stephen, in 1988, the current lineup formed a parent company to control the name and trademark for the Little River Band. They set up ownership split equally between the five remaining members. By 1997, all the other members of the group had left and Stephen became the sole owner of the company. Stephen formed a touring group that used the Little River Band’s name.

In 1982, original members Glenn, Beeb Birtles, and Graeham Goble began touring as The Original Little River Band and The Voices of Little River Band. Stephen successfully sued them to stop their use of the band’s name.

The original members later sued to stop the touring band from using their original music and likenesses to advertise their shows, and Stephen responded by having the touring band re-record the original hits.

The group currently appearing as the Little River Band has no original members from the group and doesn’t even have a single person from Australia. One musician responsible for their hits in 1976-1978 reasonably refers to that group as a “tribute band.”

Glenn scheduled a performance for March 2020 but had to delay the event because of the covid-19 virus outbreak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_River_Band

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1982 Karla Bonoff – Personally

Karla Bonoff grew up in the Los Angeles area. She began playing at the Monday night hootenannies at the Troubadour Night club, where she met several other musicians. In 1969, Karla was a founding member of the folk-rock group Bryndle. The group brought Karla together with three other singer/songwriters she met at the Troubadour: Kenny Edwards (a founding member of The Stone Poneys), Andrew Gold, and Wendy Waldman.

They signed with A&M Records and the label brought in Lou Adler to produce the group. The result was a single that Karla wrote and sang lead vocals on, Woke Up This Morning. The group disbanded soon after when they were unable to get A&M to release an album. They each went on to pursue solo careers. The other three all toured or wrote songs with Linda Ronstadt. Linda also recorded several songs written by Karla, including the 1976 single Someone To Lay Down Beside Me. Karla provided background vocals for a few of Linda’s songs.

Karla recorded her first solo album in 1977, which Kenny produced. The other artists who helped her record the album included all three other members of Bryndle, Linda, Glenn Frey, and J. D. Souther. Several Country artists covered some of the songs Karla had written.

Karla’s third album included her most successful single. Jackie Moore had recorded the song Personally in 1978, but the single had missed the Hot 100 and barely reached the R&B chart. Karla’s 1982 cover version from her album peaked at #19 on the Hot 100, her only top forty single on that chart. Fortunately, the record also reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary (AC) chart. She followed that with the single Please Be The One, which reached #22 on the AC chart.

The 1984 Footloose soundtrack included Karla’s song Somebody’s Eyes, which reached #19 on the AC chart.

The 8 Seconds soundtrack included Standing Right Next To Me, which only made it up to #38 on the AC chart in 1994. That was Karla’s last charting single.

Bryndle reformed in the early nineties. They finally released their first album in 1995, and a second album followed in 2002.

Karla still writes and records new music and is actively appearing in concerts. She has her homepage at https://www.karlabonoff.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Bonoff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryndle

Lost or Forgotten Oldie of the Day: 1981 Champaign – How ‘Bout Us

1981 Champaign – How ‘Bout Us

Now included in https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B098HCW885/