song of the day – “Skateaway” | DIRE STRAITS | 1980 / 1981.

In 1980, when I was a geeky, lanky 13-year-old living in Central Maine, I was not what you would call popular, which was fine, because I had my select friends in junior high school, and that was good enough for me.  When I wasn’t nerding out during the day at school, I would nerd out after school and on weekends by the radio, listening to the favorite radio station of my youth, WIGY 105.9 (or Y106, as it was called).  Back then, more stations (at least in Maine) didn’t bother to mention their full number on the dial, they would either round up or round down.  The biggest Classic Rock station in Maine, WBLM, was just seven years old at the time, and at the time broadcasted from a house in Lewiston/Auburn, Maine.  They were at 108 on the FM dial.  They were my second-favorite station back then.

The infamous WBLM blimp logo that’s been around almost as long as I have…

It was not uncommon for students anywhere in Central Maine to possess and often wear their WBLM T-shirts, featuring their call letters and their logo, “the blimp.”  They were everywhere, and I think I had one.  I can’t imagine I wouldn’t.  (Haven’t seen them for a very long time, though, sadly.)  It was also not uncommon for stores like Ames or Zayre (remember those?) or Kmart to sell huge polyester tapestries and square mirrors housed in a wooden frame featuring band logos on them.  Those were everywhere too.  I should know – I had a huge J. Geils Band handprint tapestry on one of my walls, and a Rolling Stones tongue logo mirror on another wall, replete of course, with cut out bumper stickers of the call letters for my two favorite radio stations stuck on the mirror.  Aaaah youth.

Not quite the mirror I had, and mine was a regular square mirror with the logo, but it’s not far off.

Remember when radio stations gave away albums back in the day?  WIGY did that often, and I was lucky enough to win a few albums from them in 1980, including The Doobie Brothers’ ONE STEP CLOSER and Dire Straits’ MAKING MOVIES.  I would like to think I still have the MAKING MOVIES album I won, but I fear I parted with it long ago.

My respect for Dire Straits grew over the next few years, and my respect for MAKING MOVIES even more so.  In 1980, the four-man Rock band from London led by guitarist and songwriter Mark Knopfler, was coming off a successful year with their 1978 self-titled debut album, and huge hit, “Sultans Of Swing,” which reached No. 4 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 in 1979 and was a Top 10 hit around the globe.

The band’s second album, 1979’s COMMUNIQUÉ, fared well, but it wasn’t until MAKING MOVIES, released in October 1980, that I heard from Dire Straits on the radio again. 

The album was co-produced by Mark Knopfler and Jimmy Iovine, who Mark recruited for MAKING MOVIES after hearing Jimmy’s production of Patti Smith’s 1978 version of “Because The Night,” which she wrote with Bruce Springsteen, and not only became a Top 15 hit on the Hot 100, but one of the biggest songs of 1978.

And since Jimmy Iovine had also worked on a couple of Bruce’s early albums – BORN TO RUN and DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN – E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan was also recruited to play keyboards on MAKING MOVIES (Mark Knopfler’s brother, David, left during the recording of the album). 

“Skateaway,” the third in a killer trio of songs on Side One of MAKING MOVIES (which also included future singles “Tunnel Of Love” and the U.K. Top 10 hit, “Romeo And Juliet”) was about a female roller-skater zooming through the busy streets of the city, listening with her headphones to a radio station on her portable radio (a Sony Walkman, perhaps, since that was just released a year before).  “Hallelujah, here she comes!”

Around the time “Skateaway” and MAKING MOVIES caught my attention on WIGY, it debuted on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 at No. 90 in late December 1980.  “Skateaway” was a moderate hit on the chart, spending a week at No. 58 the end of January 1981.  Four weeks later, it skated away off the chart after 10 weeks.  It also reached No. 31 on the BILLBOARD Rock chart and No. 37 on the U.K. singles chart. 

From the “Skateaway” music video.

I think, kind of like my delayed respect for MAKING MOVIES and “Skateaway,” it was the same for a lot of folks.  It’s an amazing album.  Dire Straits always had a sweet (and successful penchant) for recording long songs (there’s only seven songs on MAKING MOVIES), which doesn’t always bode well as radio hits, and I don’t think radio stations were ready for Dire Straits in 1980, apart from the chart success of “Sultans Of Swing.”  If radio embraced the band like record buyers did, they would have had more than four Top 40 hits in America and 1983’s brilliant “Industrial Disease” wouldn’t have stalled at No. 75 on the Hot 100.

After the huge success of 1985’s BROTHERS IN ARMS album, Dire Straits would release one more studio album, 1991’s ON EVERY STREET, a live album from that tour, 1993’s ON THE NIGHT, and one final live album, LIVE AT THE BBC, in 1995.  After that album’s release, Mark Knopfler disbanded Dire Straits and pursued a successful solo career (he had already scored many films, including the gorgeous score for 1987’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE).

In a 2008 BBC interview, Mark Knopfler was asked about a possible Dire Straits reunion, and he declined, saying, “It just got too big.  If anyone can tell me one good thing about fame, I’d be very interested to hear it.”

The band was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2018, though Mark Knopfler didn’t show up.  Dire Straits bassist John Illsley accepted the honor, and of Mark’s absence, he said, “I’ll assure you it’s a personal thing.  Let’s just leave it at that.”

The legacy of MAKING MOVIES lives on, however, with much respect and admiration nearly 40 years later.  On a 2012 list of the 100 Best Albums Of The Eighties, ROLLING STONE ranked MAKING MOVIES at a very respectable No. 52. 

So, if you haven’t heard MAKING MOVIES before, or haven’t heard it in a long time, go pick it up, or if you still have a Walkman like I do, pop in a cassette of MAKING MOVIES, put on your roller skates (or roller blades, or whatever the young kids are using these days) and skateaway, that’s all…

“She gets rock n roll and a rock n roll station / And a rock n roll dream / She’s making movies on location / She don’t know what it means / But the music make her want to be the story / And the story was whatever was the song, what it was / Roller girl, don’t worry / DJ play the movies all night long / All night long…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQBKUPwG_Gk

song of the day – “1984” | TINA TURNER | 1984.

Today (May 29, 2019) marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Tina Turner’s PRIVATE DANCER album, a multi-platinum triumph that sparked the biggest comeback of the 80s and one of the biggest comebacks for any singer or musician or band of all time.

The nine songs on PRIVATE DANCER were an extraordinary collaboration of original songs written for the album (like her multi-Grammy winner and No. 1 hit, “What’s Love Got To Do With It”), and cover versions (like first single “Let’s Stay Together,” Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand The Rain,” The Beatles’ “Help!” and Dire Straits’ “Private Dancer,” written by Mark Knopfler) that became Tina’s once she belted them out.

Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler and Tina Turner, 1986.

Tina on the cover of ROLLING STONE, October 1984.

Nearly 10 producers worked on the album, including Martyn Ware of Human League and Heaven 17, the late Jazz great Joe Sample, and super English producer / musician / songwriter Rupert Hine, who has also worked with the likes of The Fixx, Howard Jones, Stevie Nicks and Thompson Twins.

The personnel on this album was equally extraordinary.  Members of Heaven 17, The Fixx and Dire Straits are all throughout the album, as were veteran English saxophonist Gary Barnacle, and Jeff Beck, who played the memorable guitar on the title track.

Also on the album is Tina performing an amazing, electronic update of David Bowie’s 1974 classic, “1984,” whose appearance on the album was quite fitting, considering it was Mr. Bowie who was instrumental in getting Capitol Records to release her cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” a global success that prompted Capitol to sign Tina Turner to a multi-record deal.  It’s also timely, with it being the year 1984, that the song “1984” was included on the album, itself inspired by the George Orwell novel (a film version of which was also released that year).  Also in that same year, Tina Turner returned the favor and sang on the title track of David Bowie’s album, TONIGHT.  Definitely the Mutual Appreciation Society at work there.

Tina Turner and David Bowie having a laugh, 1985.

Now 79, happily married since 2013 and a citizen of Switzerland, Tina Turner had an amazing year in 2018, where she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the autobiographical musical TINA she had been working on opened in London, and her second memoir, TINA TURNER: MY LOVE STORY, was released.  In the fall of 2019, the musical TINA opens on Broadway!

For anyone outside of the 20 million people worldwide who has yet to hear the masterpiece that is PRIVATE DANCER, on this 35th anniversary of the album’s release, what the what are you waiting for?!  You will not only listen to one of the most-charismatic and powerful voices in the history of music, you will hear history in the making; the history of 1984 and 1985 in 44 minutes…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOycYEA57y0

Tina Turner, 1984.

song of the day – “The Way It Is” | BRUCE HORNSBY AND THE RANGE | 1986.

There are some songs out there that can’t be grouped in with ballads or Dance or straight up Rock ’n’ Roll songs because they don’t fit in any of those categories.  But, you know, just because you can’t shake your booty to them or you prolly can’t slow dance to them at a wedding reception doesn’t mean they aren’t good; it just means they don’t really fit into any particular category you’re used to.  Case in point, at least for me, is today’s “song of the day” – “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby And The Range. 

Bruce Hornsby, a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, first got his music “start” in 1974 in a band put together by his older brother, Bobby (then a student at the University of Virginia), called Bobby Hi-Test And The Octane Kids, playing covers of songs by The Band, Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers at frat parties. 

That gig didn’t last long, but Bruce’s association with music continued.  He studied music at the University of Richmond, Boston’s Berklee School Of Music, and the University of Miami, where he graduated from in 1977.  After college, he went back to Williamsburg for a short time and played piano in clubs and bars before meeting up with his younger brother, John, in Los Angeles in 1980. 

QUIRKY FUN FACT(S): You can find Bruce Hornsby at the ol’ 88’s and hamming it up for the camera in Sheena Easton’s late 1984 hit, “Strut,” a song that was co-written by Charlie Dore, one of the (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s with her own 1980 hit, “Pilot Of The Airwaves.”  Bruce Hornsby was a member of Sheena’s touring band, and he also appeared in the video for Sheena’s Prince-penned and PMRC target practice favorite, “Sugar Walls.”

Yes, that’s really Bruce Hornsby in the 1984 video for Sheena Easton’s “Strut.”

In between his time in L.A. and touring with Sheena Easton, he formed a five-man Rock band called Bruce Hornsby And The Range, and they were signed to RCA Records in 1985.  Their debut album, THE WAY IT IS, was released on April 1, 1986, and seven of the nine songs on the album were written by Bruce Hornsby and his younger brother, John.  Bruce wrote the songs “Every Little Kiss” and the album’s title track.

The first incarnation of the album, was, oddly enough, targeted to New Age listeners (which I’m still trying to figure out).  The album even had a different cover that prolly most people who are familiar with the album haven’t seen, with an impressionistic shot of Bruce Hornsby playing the accordion.

The original cover art for THE WAY IT IS album.

A couple of months following the release of THE WAY IT IS, the first single released from the album was “Every Little Kiss,” which took two months to debut on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 and stopped at No. 72 in August 1986, but which still managed to stay on the chart for a couple months.

Well, once “Every Little Kiss” started getting airplay, THE WAY IT IS album got remixed, and a new cover was commissioned, this time with a darker, sepia-toned color, with a simple shot of the band in the foreground, and a shot of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the background.  The change must have worked.

The last week “Every Little Kiss” was on the Hot 100, the album’s title track debuted at No. 86.  By the following week, it had already surpassed the peak of “Every Little Kiss.”  “The Way It Is” reached the Top 40 in mid-October and the Top 10 a month later. 

I think what latched me onto “The Way It Is” at first was the impressive way Bruce Hornsby knew his way around a piano.  You don’t normally hear piano solos in Pop songs, let alone two of them in the same song.  Still impresses me to this day.  It didn’t sound like anything else, and it certainly didn’t sound like a Pop song, popular at the same time as songs by Bon Jovi, The Bangles, Peter Cetera and Amy Grant, Huey Lewis And The News, Duran Duran and Wang Chung. 

This is a song which brings up homelessness, the welfare divide of the rich and the poor, the Civil Rights movement and racism: “Well they passed a law in ’64 / To give those who ain’t got a little more / But it only goes so far / ‘Cause the law don’t change another’s mind / When all it sees at the hiring time / Is the line on the color bar, no…”

Well, it may not have fit in at wedding receptions or night clubs, but “The Way It Is” was a big hit with record buyers and radio listeners, and it spent a week at No. 1 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 in mid-December 1986, and finished at No. 8 for all of 1987.

Around the globe, “The Way It Is” reached No. 1 in Holland, No. 3 in Belgium, No. 4 in Canada, No. 8 in Ireland, and the Top 20 in the U.K., Germany, South Africa and Switzerland.

After the success of “The Way It Is,” Bruce and his band picked up the Best New Artist Grammy Award and would release two more studio albums together, going on to have hits with “Mandolin Rain” (No. 4, 1987), a re-issue of “Every Little Kiss” (No. 14, 1987),  “The Valley Road” (No. 5, 1988), “Look Out Any Window” (No. 35, 1988) and “Across The River” (No. 18, 1990). 

Bruce Hornsby would also have a songwriting credit (with his brother, John) on a No. 1 song by Huey Lewis And The News – “Jacob’s Ladder,” which spent a week at No. 1 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 in mid-March 1987, and which Bruce and The Range would record for their second album, 1988’s SCENES FROM THE SOUTHSIDE.  Incidentally, Huey Lewis co-produced THE WAY IT IS album, and played harmonica and provided backing vocals on the album track, “Down The Road Tonight.”

In a 2015 interview with Kate Mossman of the NEW STATESMAN, a political and cultural U.K. magazine, Bruce Hornsby was asked why “The Way It Is” was so successful, which he couldn’t do.  But, he did say, “I see it as a novelty record.  There are things that set it apart.  I feel the same way about ‘Sultans of Swing’ by Dire Straits.  It goes down easy and isn’t that what a lot of pop is about?  But at the same time, it’s a completely different sound than you’d heard.  Even the big piano guys like Elton and Billy Joel, they didn’t really solo like that.  A pleasing sound with solos.  Like Mark Knopfler on ‘Sultans of Swing.’  That’s how I explain it.  But that’s complete crap, too, probably.”

That same year, Elton John had said when Bruce Hornsby played piano on Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 beautiful heartbreaking gem, “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” it made him “seek perfection.  It is sublime.  He is one of the best pianists – if not THE best – out there.”

Bruce has long since left Pop music and has gone his own way, playing music from a plethora of genres, like Jazz, Blues, Bluegrass, Jam Band, Gospel and most recently, performing with his Rock / Folk touring band, The Noisemakers.  Interestingly enough, on their fourth studio album, REHAB REUNION (released in June 2016), Bruce Hornsby does NOT play the instrument for which is world-renowned, but instead plays the dulcimer, an instrument that the incomparable Cyndi Lauper has embraced on her albums and tours for many years.  There’s even a sweet, almost unrecognizable seven-minute folk version of his 1988 hit, “The Valley Road,” on the album.  It’s actually quite lovely.

Bruce Hornsby sure has come a long way from appearing in Sheena Easton videos and picking up a No. 1 hit of his own.  And, for more than 30 years, he had some success, and has performed with some of his music heroes, like Sting, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Grateful Dead, Don Henley, Ricky Scaggs and Bonnie Raitt, to name a few.  Now, Bruce is 62, married with twin adult sons, plays basketball when he’s not playing music (he’s 6’ 4”), and plays music for the absolute love of it.  You gotta respect that.  I know I do.

“That’s just the way it is / Some things will never change…”  Or, in the case of Bruce Hornsby, maybe they do…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeKidp-iWo

song of the day – “Days Gone Down (Still Got The Light In Your Eyes)” | GERRY RAFFERTY | 1979.

As I write on this warm August night in Central Maine, it’s still often hard to think about all of the many musicians we’ve lost this year, after I started the blog in January, in the middle of winter in Maine – heavy-hitters that included Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, Glenn Frey of The Eagles, Merle Haggard, and of course, David Bowie and Prince.

On January 4, 2011, a musician who I wasn’t a huge fan of but whose music I did enjoy – Scottish singer / songwriter Gerry Rafferty – died at the age of 63.  Gerry was prolly best known for two monster international hits – “Stuck In The Middle With You,” with Steelers Wheel, in 1973 (a song he co-wrote), and “Baker Street,” his huge 1978 solo hit (from the album, CITY TO CITY).  Hard to imagine now, but Gerry Rafferty actually had to beg his record label to release “Baker Street” as a single.  The record label said it was “too good for the public.”  Little did they know – it reached No. 1 in Australia, and the Top 10 in 10 countries, including the U.S., where it spent six weeks at No. 2.

After Gerry’s death, I was going through his 70s catalog, and he had some really great solo songs besides “Baker Street” – songs like “Right Down The Line” and “Home And Dry” (both from his 1978 BILLBOARD No. 1 album, CITY TO CITY), and “Get It Right Next Time” (from 1979’s NIGHT OWL album).  But, it was another song from the NIGHT OWL album I had completely forgotten about, rediscovered and fell in love with (again): “Days Gone Down (Still Got The Light In Your Eyes).”

“Days Gone Down” is a love song and though slower than his other big hits, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a ballad.  He’s got several musicians on this song, and the album version is a cool two-and-a-half minutes longer than the single version.  On the first weekend in June 1979, “Days Gone Down” was the highest-debuting song on the BILLBOARD Hot 100, coming in at No. 68.  In just three weeks’ time, it was already No. 30 on the Hot 100 and seemed like it would be another big hit. 

Well, 1979 was the last big year for Disco, and in late July, the week “Days Gone Down” peaked at No. 17 on the Hot 100, the Disco genre was well-represented in the Top 40, inbetween a few Rock gems like The Knack’s “My Sharona,” ELO’s “Shine A Little Love,” Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him” and Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” (even the big 1979 hit for Kiss, “I Was Made For Lovin’ You,” catered to the Disco crowd more than the Rock crowd).

“Days Gone Down” sadly dropped from the Hot 100 as fast as it climbed the chart.  Though it’s his third highest-charting hit here in the U.S., it’s been largely forgotten (though not by me).  Gerry would reach the Top 40 of the Hot 100 one more time, with “Get It Right Next Time” spending a couple of weeks at No. 21 in October 1979.

Photos from the NIGHT OWL inner album sleeve.

Despite being certified Gold in the U.K. and the U.S., Gerry Rafferty’s NIGHT OWL album was not well-received by critics, but Gerry continued to make music, releasing six more studio albums between 1980 and 2000, and he appeared on the 1983 soundtrack / score to the film, LOCAL HERO, the first soundtrack album (of nine to date) by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler. 

I know most people will forever remember Gerry Rafferty for “Stuck In The Middle With You” and “Baker Street,” but I’m not like most people.  Sure, I remember Gerry for those big hits, but on a cold Maine winter day in 2011, following Gerry’s passing, I rediscovered a song I hadn’t thought about in maybe 20 years – and that song is “Days Gone Down.”  Rediscovering that song did something for me that I can’t explain, but I can safely say, five years down the line, I don’t plan on forgetting it anytime soon…

“You still got that light in your eye / And our day is comin’ by and by / I’m travelin’ this long road to be with you / We still gotta long way, still gotta long way to go…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_4T0czSPrg

(real) one-hit wonder of the week – “Tell That Girl To Shut Up” | TRANSVISION VAMP | 1988.

Between late 1979 and the end of 1989, there were nearly 500 (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s that reached the BILLBOARD Hot 100 just one time, a list that includes Soft Cell, Gary Numan, Timbuk 3, The Church, Bronski Beat, Nik Kershaw, The Buggles, The Waitresses, Ultravox and two different bands named The Silencers.  Once a week, I’ll highlight a (real) one-hit wonder for you.

London Alt-Rock / Pop-Punk suburbanites Transvision Vamp were around for 5 years, starting in 1986, and didn’t catch my ear until many years later.  They released 3 albums, and between 1987 and 1991, they had 10 U.K. chart singles, led by 1989’s “Baby I Don’t Care” (No. 3) and 1988’s “I Want Your Love” (No. 5; not to be confused with the 1979 Chic hit). 

From their debut album, POP ART, “Tell That Girl To Shut Up” was actually a cover of a 1980 song by Holly And The Italians, written by Chicago’s Holly Beth Vincent, a musician / songwriter / actor and then some, who did a 1982 cover of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” with Joey Ramone (I’ve GOT to hear that!), who filled in as lead singer of The Waitresses for a few weeks in 1984, and who worked on the side project Vowel Movement with Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano in 1995.  SIDE NOTE: Holly Vincent was also the subject of the excellent 1980 Dire Straits song, “Romeo & Juliet.”  That song was about the failed relationship between Holly Vincent and Mark Knopfler.

“Tell That Girl To Shut Up” was the POP ART’s second single, and just missed the Top 40 in the U.K. and in Australia.  Here in the U.S., it was their only BILLBOARD Hot 100 single, spending 3 weeks on the chart, stopping at No. 87 in October 1988.  Over on the then-new BILLBOARD Modern Rock chart, “Tell That Girl To Shut Up” fared much better, reaching No. 9.

This song is a lot of fun, and I enjoy listening to it and playing it on the show whenever I can…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e2v5_6RM7k