Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Eric Clapton "Running on Faith"
Credit Eric Clapton's MTV Unplugged album for introducing me to three-time inductee to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame (thanks to his work in Cream, the Yardbirds and his solo efforts). The acoustic album recorded for MTV's Unplugged series contained the tear-jerker "Tears in Heaven", a neutered version of his signature "Layla" as well as "Running on Faith"--a cut from his 1989 Journeyman album. While thinking about it, Unplugged was only part of how I discovered Clapton. My parents divorced in 1992 and both eventually re-joined the dating world. It was a strange time for all involved including me. As much as I knew my parents marriage wasn't ever going to work, it was weird to watch them both date. For my dad, he moved out of our house and gradually introduced us to his lady friends. We lived with my mom in the house my parents built, so her private life wasn't so private. Almost immediately, she started dating a man named Steve. Steve was a soft-spoken used car salesman who looked like a cross between Eric Clapton and Kenny Loggins. Steve later opened his own car lot, and I created a fake radio commercial for him. The commercial "aired" within a series of songs on my fake radio station that broadcast from my bedroom. Whenever Steve was driving with friends in the car, he would cue up the cassette tape and say, "Oh, it's almost time for my radio commercial to air." His friends were always quite impressed when it did "air" -- twenty-five years later, I'm still creating commercials...but this time for three Chicago radio stations.