The Music Of The 80s - Favorites, Classics And Rarities

[señor_bugoy]

I want you - Gary Low

[BlackWizard]

All of Spandau Ballet's songs...

[hitman531ph]

whatever happened to:

 

nielsen pearson - "if u should sail"

roger voudoris - "get used to it"

kashif - (jazz)

paul young - "everytime u go away"

general public - "tenderness"

jerry rafferty - "baker street"

john waite - "missing u"

pablo cruise - "whatcha gonna do"

style council - "ur the best thing"

ambrosia - "biggest part of me"

johnny hates jazz - "turn back the clock"

steve perry - formerly of journey

windjammer - (pop)

 

??????????

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I will try to get more info about:

 

Nilssen/Pearson

Roger Voudouris

Kashif

Windjammer

 

As for Gerry Rafferty, I think he's a 70s artist but I'll check anyway

Pablo Cruise is a 70s artist

 

As for the others, try to backread, they're all there

Edited May 16, 2006 by hitman531ph

[DomPerignom]

Tears For Fears and Duran Duran

[hitman531ph]

WINDJAMMER

 

Windjammer hail from New Orleans.

 

During 1977, Kevin McLin broke into a hotel and gave Tito Jackson, of The Jacksons, a Windjammer demo tape while riding an escalator.

 

Two years later Jacksons' father and manager Joe Jackson signed them to his management company.

 

A debut single 'Stay' sold well around New Orleans before the group were signed by MCA in 1982.

 

In 1983, their first album 'Windjammer' was released.

 

In 1984, 'Windjammer II' featured 'Tossing And Turning', a UK Top 20 hit.

 

The song was remixed and re-released by Debut Records in 1989.

 

In 1985, a final album for MCA was released, entitled (you've guessed it!), 'Windjammer III'.

 

The group have adopted a low profile since that release.

 

Their most successful record was Windjammer II which also chalked up two R&B hits in the US, 'Anxiously Waiting' and 'Live Without Your Love'

 

'Live Without You Love' received much radio airplay in the Philippines, while 'Anxiously Waiting' eventually became a 99.5RT classic.

 

Windjammer comprised of:

 

Kevin McLin (guitar / producer)

 

Roy Paul Joseph (guitar)

 

Chris Severin (bass)

 

Darrell Winchester (drums)

 

Carl Dennis (lead vocals)

 

and Fred McCray (keyboards).

[hitman531ph]

ROGER VOUDOURIS

 

Roger was born on December 29, 1954 in Sacramento, California. In the Seventies, he played with his own band Roger Voudouris Loud as Hell Rockers as an opening act for The Doobie Brothers, John Mayall and Stephen Stills among others.

 

After an eponymous album in 1978, his second album "Radio Dream" (1979) has featured the hit single "Get Used To It" which reached #21 in the Billboard Charts.

 

Two albums followed: "A Guy Like Me" (1980) and "On The Heels Of Love" (1981) and found a nice Japanese audience.

 

In 1983, he wrote lyrics for the movie "The Lonely Lady" starring Pia Zadora as well as recording some tracks for the film LP.

 

Roger Voudouris passed away on August 3, 2003.

Edited May 16, 2006 by hitman531ph

[hitman531ph]

KASHIF

 

Singer/songwriter/keyboardist/producer Kashif wrote and played on Evelyn King's (aka Evelyn "Champagne" King) number one R&B hits "I'm in Love" and "Love Come Down," Whitney Houston's first hit "You Give Good Love" and one of its follow-ups, "Thinking About You" from her 17-million-selling debut album Whitney Houston. He also contributed to her 17-million selling Whitney LP. His own recording career yielded 17 R&B hit singles and four Top 40 albums. He recorded several duets: "Love Changes" with Mel'isa Morgan, "Love the One I'm With" with Melba Moore, and "Reservations for Two" with Dionne Warwick.

 

Part of the vanguard that includes early pioneers Stevie Wonder and Ronnie McNeir and his '80s contemporaries the System, Kashif helped to revolutionized R&B music through the infusion of the then-emerging affordable, MIDI/synth technology of the '80s. Music synthesizers at one point could easily fill a room. With the advent of the microchip, synths became more portable and had tonal stability and pricing (though most professional-level synths cost a couple thousand dollars or more) during the '80s. Like McNeir, Kashif shares the distinction of having two self-titled albums in his catalog.

 

Born Michael Jones in Brooklyn, NY, in 1959, Kashif was orphaned at an early age, growing up in eight foster homes. His first experience with synthesized instruments came during his years with B.T. Express ("Express," "Do It 'Til You're Satisfied"). He appears on the group's early-'80s sides for Columbia Records (check out "Ride on It " from 1978's Shout! LP, among others). Kashif began playing synthesizer bass using the miniMoog while on the road with the group.

 

After leaving the group, Kashif began making demos with the group Stepping Stone. The demos led to his recording contract with Arista Records in 1983. Because of his burgeoning mastery with synthesizers, Kashif was invited to tour with hitmaker Stephanie Mills at a time when contemporary R&B acts were just beginning to use electronic instruments for live work.

 

Inspired by Gamble & Huff and Thom Bell's Mighty Three Music, he formed Mighty M Productions with Paul Laurence and Morrie Brown, infusing early-'80s R&B with a fresh synth-based sound. One of their first projects was Evelyn Champagne King who had a 1979 gold single, "Shame." Prompting her to sing in her higher register than in her previous records, the Mighty M was were attempting to give the singer a more youthful sound. At the same time, RCA Records suggested that she same drop the "Champagne" from her name, thus becoming Evelyn King. The result of their collaboration was "I'm in Love," whose style and bass sound was different from anything being done at the time. It went to number one R&B in summer 1981. The I'm in Love album, which also included the hit "Don't Hide Our Love," peaked at number six R&B. RCA asked Kashif, Brown, and Laurence to produce her follow-up album. Influenced by songwriter/producer Leon F. Sylvers III, Kashif came up with the sprightly "Love Come Down" on which he played all of the instruments except guitar, which was played by Ira Siegel. The single went all the way to number one R&B and didn't come down for five weeks. It was included on her gold Get Loose LP, which parked at number one R&B for two weeks and yielded the number two R&B smash "Betcha She Don't Love You."

 

Around this time, Kashif had begun working with the New England Digital Synclavier. Kashif invented uses for sampling, for example, replacing drum sounds, lead and background vocal placements, and even dialog editing. Howard Johnson's "So Fine" was the first record on which he used the technique of "flying in" vocals -- some vocal passages could be duplicated by the Synclavier. This created a whole new approach to production with vocalists that continues to be used extensively.

 

Signing with Arista Records in 1983, his self-tilted debut Kashif spawned the hits "I Just Gotta Have You (Lover Turn Me On)," "Stone Love," "Help Yourself to My Love," and "Say Something Love." His other albums are Send Me Your Love, "Baby Don't Break Your Baby's Heart," "Are You the Woman," Condition of the Heart, Love Changes and 1989's Kashif, with the charming cover of the Four Tops hit "Aint No Woman Like the One I Got." Becoming an in-demand writer/producer, Kashif can be heard on releases by Kenny G ("Keeping Love New"), George Benson, Johnny Kemp, Dionne Warwick, Giorge Pettus, Stacy Lattisaw, Expose, the Wootens, Freda Payne, and others. His Grammy nominations are for the instrumentals "The Mood," "Call Me Tonight," "Edgartown Groove" featuring Al Jarreau, and "The Movie Song."

 

During 1994, Kashif received an invitation from the famed U.C.L.A. Extension program and created a course called Contemporary Record Production With Kashif. In August 1995, Kashif authored the music industry tome Everything You'd Better Know About the Record Industry as CEO of his Los Angeles-based Brooklyn Boy Books, Entertainment, and Information. In 1998, Kashif signed with U.K. label Expansion Records and his album Who Loves You was released that same year.

[hitman531ph]

GERRY RAFFERTY

 

Gerry Rafferty was a popular music giant at the end of the 1970's, thanks to the song "Baker Street" and the album City To City. His career long predated that fixture of top 40 radio, however-indeed, by the time he cut "Baker Street, " Rafferty had already been a member of two successful groups, the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel.

 

Gerry Rafferty was born in Paisley, Scotland in 1947, the son of a Scottish mother and an Irish father. His father was deaf but still enjoyed singing, mostly Irish rebel songs, and his early experience of music was a combination of Catholic hymns, traditional folk music, and 50's pop music. By 1968, at age 21, Rafferty was a singer-guitarist and had started trying to write songs professionally, and was looking for a gig of his own. Enter Billy Connolly, late of Scottish bands like the Skillet-Lickers and the Acme Brush Company. Connelly was a musician and comedian, who'd found that telling jokes from the stage was as appealing an activity to him-and the audience-as making music. He'd passed through several groups looking for a niche before finally forming a duo called the Humblebums with Tam Harvey, a rock guitarist. They'd established themselves in Glasgow, and were then approached by Transatlantic, one of the more successful independent record labels in England at the time, and signed to a recording contract. After playing a show in Paisley, Rafferty approached Connelly about auditioning some of the songs he'd written. Billy Connelly was impressed not only with the songs but with their author, and suddenly the Humblebums were a trio. The Humblebums trio was a major success in England, both on stage and on record, but not without some strain. Connelly was the dominant personality, his jokes between the songs entertaining audiences as much as the songs themselves. Additionally, Rafferty began develop a distinctive style as a singer-guitarist and songwriter, and this eventually led to tension between him and Harvey-the latter exited in 1970, and Rafferty and Connelly continued together for two more albums, their line-up expanding to a sextet, but their relationship began to break down. The records were selling well, and the gigs were growing in prominence, including a Royal Command Performance. Connelly, however, worked himself to the point of exhaustion amid all of this activity, and when he did recover, he and Rafferty ultimately split up over the differing directions in which each was going. Rafferty had noticed that Connelly's jokes were taking up more time in their concerts than the music he was writing.

 

They parted company in 1971. Transatlantic didn't want to give up one of its top money-makers, however, especially if there was a new career to be started. Rafferty cut his first solo album for the label that year. Can I Have My Money Back? was a melodious folk-pop album, on which Rafferty employed the vocal talents of an old school friend, Joe Egan. The LP garnered good reviews but failed to sell.

 

Out of those sessions, however, Rafferty and Egan put together the original line-up of Stealers Wheel, which was one of the most promising (and rewarding) pop-rock outfits of the mid-1970's. Unfortunately, Stealers Wheel's line-up and legal history were complicated enough to keep various lawyers well paid for much of the middle of the decade. Rafferty was in the group, then out, then in again as the line-up kept shifting-their first album was a success, the single "Stuck In The Middle With You" a huge hit, but nothing after that clicked commercially, and by 1975 the group was history. Three years of legal battles followed, sorting out problems between Rafferty and his management.

 

Finally, in 1978, Rafferty was free to record again, and he signed to United Artists Records. That year, he cut City To City, a melodic yet strangely enigmatic album that topped the charts in America, put there by the success of the song "Baker Street." The song itself was a masterpiece of pop production, Rafferty's Paul McCartney-like vocals carrying a haunting central melody with a mysterious and yearning lyric, backed by a quietly thumping bass, tinkling celeste, and understated keyboard ornamentation, and then Raphael Ravenscroft's sax, which we've had a taste of in the opening bars, rises up behind some heavily amplified electric guitars-it was sophisticated '70s pop-rock at its best [and better yet, it wasn't disco! -- author's note], and it dominated the airwaves for months in 1978, narrowly missing the No. 1 spot in England but selling millions of copies and taking up hundreds of cumulative hours of radio time. The publisher and the record company couldn't have been happier. Everyone concerned was thrilled, until it became clear that Rafferty -- who had a reclusive and iconoclastic streak -- was not going to tour America to support the album. The album, which hit No. 1, might've gone double-platinum and meant it (lots of records were shipped platinum in those days, only eventually to return 90% of those copies) had Rafferty toured. His next record, Night Owl (1979), also charted well and got good reviews, but the momentum that had driven City to City to top-selling status wasn't there, and Snakes and Ladders (1980), his next record, didn't sell nearly as well. Ironically, around this time, Rafferty's brother Jim was signed to a recording contract by Decca-London, a label that wasn't long for this world -- something that Gerry would soon have to face about his own situation at United Artists.

 

United Artists Records had seen some major hit records throughout the '60s and '70s, but by the end of the decade, the parent film distribution and production company was revamping all of its operations, in the wake of the mass exodus of several of its top executives. The record label was one of the first things to go -- running a record company was a luxury that the current UA management felt it could do without. Rafferty was practically the last major artist signed to the label, and if City To City had been a hit when the label was sold to EMI, he'd probably have been treated like visiting royalty. But by the time United Artists Records was sold to EMI around 1980, his figures weren't showing millions of units sold anymore. His contract was merely part of a deal, and, in fact, almost none of the UA artists picked up by EMI fared well with the new company -- as with many artists caught up in one of those sale-and-acquisition situations, even if Rafferty had been producing anything comparable to "Baker Street" in popularity, it's doubtful the record would've gotten the push it would've taken to make it a hit.

 

Sleepwalking (1982), issued on the Liberty label, ended that round of Rafferty's public music-making activities, and he was little heard from during the mid-'80s, apart from one song contributed to the offbeat comedy Local Hero, a producer's gig with the group the Proclaimers that yielded a Top Three single ("Letter From America") in 1987. A year later, he released his first album in more than five years, North And South, which failed to register with the public. By that time, Transatlantic had begun exploiting his early recording activity, reissuing his early solo and Humblebums tracks on CD. On A Wing And A Prayer (1992) was similarly ignored by the public, although the critics loved it, and Over My Head (1995) was an attempt to reconsider his own past by re-thinking some Stealers Wheel-era songs. Gerry Rafferty is still remembered, two decades after it was a hit, primarily for "Baker Street" and City To City, which have been released as gold-plated audiophile CDs. And every so often, when some Stealers Wheel track gets picked up for some soundtrack (as "Stuck In The Middle With You" was for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs) or commercial, his voice and guitar also get a fresh airing.

[hitman531ph]

GARY WRIGHT

 

Most closely associated with his atmospheric 1976 smash "Dream Weaver," singer Gary Wright was born April 26, 1943 in Creskill, NJ; a former child actor who appeared on Broadway in a production of Fanny, he fronted a number of local rock bands during his high school years before turning his attention to psychology, completing his studies in Berlin at Frei University. In 1967, Wright's band, the New York Times, opened for Traffic, bringing him to the attention of Island Records honcho Chris Blackwell, who in turn introduced the singer to the members of the band Art; relocating to London, Wright joined the band, soon renamed Spooky Tooth and later emerging among the UK's premier hard rock outfits. When Spooky Tooth temporarily disbanded in 1970, Wright jumped ship to form Wonderwheel, concurrently playing keyboards on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass; the two eventually became close friends and collaborators, together taking a trip to India which inspired the mystical themes of Wright's subsequent solo efforts. He returned to Spooky Tooth in 1973, but when the band again dissolved the following year he returned to his solo career, scoring his greatest success with 1975's The Dream Weaver; both the title track and "Love Is Alive" reached number two on the Billboard pop charts, and the album -- one of the first created solely via synthesizer technology -- achieved platinum status. Follow-ups including Light of Smiles, 1977's Touch and Gone, and 1979's Headin' Home failed to repeat The Dream Weaver's success, however, and in 1981 Wright notched his final chart hit with "Really Wanna Know You," from The Right Place. From there he composed a series of film scores, including 1985's Fire and Ice, which topped the German charts; Wright's first solo album in seven years, Who Am I, featured contributions from Indian classical greats Lakshmi Shankar and L. Subramanium. In 1991, he remade "Dream Weaver" for the soundtrack of the hit film comedy Wayne's World, and in 1995 issued his first world music effort, First Signs of Life. Human Love followed five years later.

[hitman531ph]

GARY LOW

 

Not much is known about Italian-Spanish artist Gary Low whose real life name is Luis Romero.

 

Gary Low had two LPs, "Grandes Exitos" and "Go On" in the late 80s. He had three Italo-disco hits "I Want You," "La Colegiala" and "You Are A Danger"

Edited May 16, 2006 by hitman531ph

[hitman531ph]

BALTIMORA

 

Maurizio Bassi is the man behind Baltimora. He did all the composing and singing of his songs. The person who was the 'front' of Baltimora was Jimmy McShane.

 

Jimmy McShane was born on May 23rd 1957 in Northern Ireland and died on March 29th 1995 as a result of AIDS. The first Baltimora release, Tarzan Boy, was a massive hit in Europe and even made it to the US Top 20 in 1985. Baltimora never repeated the success of Tarzan Boy and is considered by many a one-hit wonder.

[KayaK]

one of my favorite groups - The Scandals, kind of one-hit wonder with their song "the warrior".

 

i was surprised recently to see its lead vocalist, patty smyth, in a talk show interview who's now been married for sometime with the original bad boy of tennis - john mcenroe.

 

another hottie(s) of the 80s bands, Ann & Nancy Wilson of Heart, used to be yummylicious in their music videos like "what about love". twenty years later, ann wilson is now what carnie wilson of wilson philips used to look like - parang aparador. nancy wilson has kept her waist line at bay.

[robin1212]

New Wave rules!

[hitman531ph]

SCANDAL

 

Guitarist Zack Smith formed the mainstream pop/rock band Scandal after playing in various groups, including ones that featured Dee Murray and Davey Johnson of the Elton John band. Scandal's lineup was secured in 1982, with the addition of vocalist Patty Smyth; the rest of the band included bassist Ivan Elias, guitarist Keith Mack, keyboardist Benji King, and drummer Frankie La Rocka. After opening for acts like the Kinks and Hall & Oates, the band released their debut single, "Goodbye to You," in 1982; their self-titled debut album followed soon afterward. The Warrior was released two years later. The title track was a Top Ten hit and the album went platinum. However, Smyth left for a solo career the following year, causing the band to break up.

[hitman531ph]

AUTOGRAPH

 

Despite scoring a massive MTV hit with their very first single, "Turn Up the Radio," Autograph quickly got lost in the shuffle of the thriving L.A. pop-metal scene. Formed in the early '80s by vocalist/guitarist Steve Plunkett, guitarist Steve Lynch, bassist Randy Rand, keyboard player Steven Isham, and drummer Keni Richards, the band seemed to have it all: a fine commercial hard rock debut in 1984's Sign in Please, good looks, great hair, and even a cartoonish drummer (half jock, half animal). Still, it wasn't enough, and by the time they released the following year's disappointing This Is the Stuff, Autograph's 15 minutes were pretty much up. 1987's Loud and Clear showed improvement, but arrived too late to save the band, which split up soon after. A posthumous collection of outtakes called Missing Pieces was released a decade later.