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.
Showing posts with label Rock 'n Rock Hall of Fame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock 'n Rock Hall of Fame. Show all posts
How much bad blood exists between Peter Cetera and his former Chicago band mates? Plenty. Cetera refused to take part in Chicago's Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2017. Rewind twenty years prior to that for more drama. When putting together an album of his greatest solo hits, You're the Inspiration: A Collection, Cetera had to remake a few of his Chicago tunes because his former colleagues wouldn't release the original master recordings to him. One such tune is "Baby, What A Big Surprise" which got a fresh coat of paint in 1997.
The end of the year signifies a look back -- typically of those we lost during the year. That aside, let's recognize who we gained in 2018. In this case, we re-gained Steve Perry. Following a decade-plus as a successful solo artist, Perry re-joined Journey in the mid-1990s. Just as Journey was ready to set sail and tour again, Perry withdrew from the band for health reasons. After putting their comeback tour on hold for nearly two years, the band replaced him. It wasn't until 2014 when he took the stage with the Eels for his first time performing since 1995. He sat out performing during Journey's 2017 Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction out of respect to the band's new singer. In October 2018, Perry released Traces -- a solo album that Adult Contemporary radio stations embraced. For that, we welcome back Steve Perry.
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.