CoronaVinyl Day 166 (#): Tour de Force by .38 Special

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Well folks, when I initially started CoronaVinyl a little more than eight months ago, I was silly enough to think that we would be back to normal and I would be back at work after 30 days.  And then when it became more apparent that this pandemic wasn't going away for a while, I started adding CoronaVinyl categories to the original 30, with the intention of hopefully having enough categories to last until I went back to work.  Well, I've gone through all 135 of my additional categories -- and that was even with skipping October -- so now I'm just going to go A-Z through the rest of my vinyl collection, but not linearly.  

Starting today, I'm going to start at the beginning of my collection alphabetically -- which isn't a letter, but rather .38 Special -- and then feature an album from an artist with a different letter each day, A-Z, and then start over.  So, today, it's .38 Special.  Tomorrow, it will be a band or artist starting with A.  Monday, it will be a band or artist starting with B, and so on and so forth.  The way I organize my vinyl, I have collections and compilations by various artists after Z, so once I hit Z, I'm going go with one of those compilations or collections.  Then the next day, I'm going back to A, and we're gonna do this as many times as it takes until I go back to work or run out of vinyl.  I have well over 500 albums, so given that I skip weekends and holidays for CoronaVinyl, it would take us until sometime in 2022 to get through everything.  For everyone's sake, I hope that doesn't happen.

Here are a few things that will guide my choices:

• To the extent possible, I'm first going to go with albums by artists I haven't yet featured on CoronaVinyl.  Obviously, this isn't always going to be possible.
• I'm also going to first go with albums I've never listened to, so if I get to a letter with both an artist I haven't yet featured and an album by that artist I've never listened to, double whammy!
• I'm going to include 10-inch and 12-inch EPs and singles, as long as they play at 33 1/3 RPM.  I have a handful of 78s, but my record player doesn't have a setting for 78 RPM, so I won't be including those.  Likewise, 45s are out.  I have hundreds of those, but we'll save those for the next pandemic.

So anyway, today's selection is .38 Special's sixth studio album, 1983's Tour de Force.  The band was founded in 1974 by Donnie Van Zant, the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd original lead singer, the late Ronnie Van Zant, and the older brother of Johnny Van Zant, who has been Skynyrd's lead singer since 1987.  Van Zant and rhythm guitarist Don Barnes shared lead vocal duties, and the band also had two drummers.  They band released their self-titled debut album in 1977 and then follow up albums in each of the following two years.  Unsurprisingly, the band's sound was Southern rock.

From their third album and into the early '80s, the band switched to more of an arena rock and AOR sound, and they often collaborated on songwriting with with Survivor co-founder and songwriter Jim Peterik, who helped co-write several of the band's biggest hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 1979's "Rockin' into the Night" (#43), 1981's "Hold On Loosely" (#27), and the band's first Top 10 hit, 1982's "Caught Up in You."

By the time Tour de Force was recorded, they had split ties with Peterik, though I still hear his influence on many of the songs.  The album is definitely more AOR than Southern rock.  If you heard any of these songs without knowing who the band was or what year the album came out, chances are you'd say "early '80s."  That's not a bad thing.  The album is a good example of early '80s radio-friendly catchy rock and roll.

Tour de Force did pretty well on the charts and commercially.  It reached #22 on the Billboard album charts and eventually went platinum in the U.S.  The album also produced the band's second and third Top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100:  "If I'd Been The One" (#19) and "Back Where You Belong" (#20).  Both of those were also Top 5 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with the former hitting #1.  "One Time for Old Times" also charted at #17 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "If I'd Been The One"

This was the biggest hit from the album, and it's the first track.  It's a catchy rock song, so it's no wonder it was a Top 20 hit.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Long Distance Affair"
Listening to "Long Distance Affair," you would think Peterik had a hand in the songwriting (because of its polished Survivor-esque sound), but he didn't.  Regardless, it's another solid early '80s rock song.