CoronaVinyl Day 298 (V): Alfie by Billy Vaughn

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "V," and my last album by a "V" artist is my third and final Billy Vaughn album.

I featured my other two Vaughn albums back in December and May, respectively -- Billy Vaughn Plays the Million Sellers and Sail Along Silv'ry Moon -- so I won't go into Vaughn's history again.

Alfie was released in 1967, and the album is comprised mostly of songs that had appeared in various movies and musicals.  Like his other stuff that I've featured, it's very big band jazzy, and the kind of music I imagine my grandparents' generation listening to.  The album went to #44 on the Billboard album chart.

The album is not on Spotify, but there is a YouTube video with the full album, so I'm embedding that below.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Strangers in the Night"
I'm a sucker for Sinatra, and this is an instrumental cover of an Old Blue Eyes classic from 1966, though it apparently was originally a song on the soundtrack of a movie from the same year called A Man Could Get Killed.  And as I just learned, despite the fact that Sinatra's version was his first #1 hit in eleven years, he hated the song!

Favorite song from Side 2:  "One of Those Songs"
This one was peppier than some of the other songs on Side 2, so I went with it.

CoronaVinyl Day 297 (T): Tower of Power by Tower of Power

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "T," and let's get funky with Tower of Power's 1973 self-titled third studio album.

The band formed in Oakland in 1968 as The Motowns, but changed their name to Tower of Power in 1970, the year they released their first album.  Complete with a horn section, Tower of Power was a soul and funk force in the early to mid '70s.  

Their third album was the first to feature Lenny Williams on lead vocals and Lenny Pickett on sax, along with the group's nine other band members.  It's a nice combination of early  funk and '70s soul.  The album was the band's biggest album, reaching #15 on the Billboard album chart and going gold in the U.S.  It spawned three singles that reached the Billboard Hot 100:  "So Very Hard to Go" (#17), which would be the band's highest-charting hit, "This Time It's Real" (#65), and the funk classic "What Is Hip?" (#91).  I first heard of the band on a funk compilation CD that I got in college that included "What Is Hip?"

Williams left the band in 1975 and went on to a successful solo career.  Pickett became a member of the Saturday Night Live Band in 1985 and has been its director since 1995.  That's his sax that you hear in the SNL theme song.

Tower of Power has continued to make music over the last five decades, even releasing an album as recently as last year.  In total, more than 60 musicians have been members of the band at some point.   

Tower's horn section has recorded with various artists over the years, including Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Elton John, The Grateful Dead, Santana, Heart, Rod Stewart, Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis, Poison, Stevie Nicks, Phish, Toto, John Lee Hooker, Little Feat, Paula Abdul, and Cat Stevens, among many others.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Get Yo' Feet Back on the Ground"
The last song on the first side is a funky one, sounding a lot like "What Is Hip?," which is a good thing.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Soul Vaccination"
This is a nice, funky song that is particularly poignant in today's times.  For the love of God (and everyone else), get a COVID vaccine if you haven't already, you selfish prick.

CoronaVinyl Day 296 (S): We Are Family by Sister Sledge

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I was busy on Friday, so I had to take a day off.  Many apologies.  Today's CoronaVinyl category is "S," and my selection is Sister Sledge's breakthrough third studio album, 1979's We Are Family.

As the name of the group implies, Sister Sledge was comprised of four sisters, Debbie, Joni, Kathie, and Kim Sledge.  They were from Philadelphia (and all four graduated from Temple), and they put out their first two albums in 1975 and 1977, respectively, but neither charted on the Billboard album chart, and only one song cracked the Billboard Hot 100 (but only reached #92).

In 1979, their record label decided to team them up with Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, and the result was We Are Family, an instant success.  Rodgers and Edwards -- who co-produced the album, wrote all eight songs on the album, and played guitar and bass, respectively, on the album -- brought a disco and funk edge.  It has a very Chic sound to it.  Several other members of Chic also played on the album or provided backing vocals, and a young Luther Vandross also provided backing vocals.  

The album would reach #3 on the Billboard album chart, #1 on the Billboard R&B album chart, #4 in Canada, and #7 in the UK.  Of course, the title track is the group's most well-known song, and it was a huge success internationally, going to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Billboard R&B singles and Dance singles charts, #1 in Canada, and Top 10 in three other countries.  It was also adopted by the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates as their theme song, on their way to a World Series title.  But that wasn't the only hit on the album.  The disco classic "He's the Greatest Dancer" went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard R&B singles and Dance singles charts.  A third single, "Lost in Music," also wen to #1 on the Billboard Dance singles chart.

As disco died, the group's fortunes in the U.S. did as well.  They had one other Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, a cover of Mary Wells's "My Guy" in 1982 that reached #23.  However, they experienced a bit of success in the UK and Ireland in the mid '80s, most notably with 1985's "Frankie," which hit #1 on the pop charts in both countries.  That was around the time they stopped making music, until an album in 1997 and another in 2003.

The Spotify version of We Are Family has a couple bonus remixes of songs on the album.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Thinking of You"
This is probably the song on the first side that most straddles the line between disco and funk.  Rodgers's guitars are that classic disco/funk jangly sound.  This song was a surprise hit in the UK five years later, reaching #11 on the UK pop chart

Favorite song from Side 2:  "One More Time"
The album ends on kind of sultry note.  This is another of the funkier songs on the album, and Rodgers has a nice little solo.

Hair Band Friday - 6/25/21

1.  "Three Lock Box" by Sammy Hagar

2.  "Dirty Boys" by Kix

3.  "Yesterdays" (live) by Guns N' Roses

4.  "Broken Dreams" by Lita Ford

5.  "Breaking the Silence" by Queensrÿche

6.  "Saints An' Sinners" by Whitesnake

7.  "Good With the Bad" by Bonham

8.  "Shot of Love" by AC/DC

9.  "House is On Fire" by Sleeze Beez

10.  "Contagious" by Y&T

CoronaVinyl Day 295 (R): City to City by Gerry Rafferty

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "R," and we're listening to Gerry Rafferty's second solo studio album, 1978's City to City.

Rafferty, a Scot, got his start in the music industry in the late '60s as a member of the folk-pop group The Humblebums, which also included comedian Billy Connelly -- who I first knew of as the guy who took over for Howard Hesseman as the teacher in the last season of Head of the Class, and who had acted in many films and TV shows over the years, including my personal favorite role as Il Duce in Boondock Saints.

After The Humblebums disbanded, Rafferty released his first solo album in 1971 before forming Stealers Wheel with his high school classmate Joe Egan.  They, of course, had a huge hit with 1973's "Stuck In the Middle With You," which would get a second life in the iconic ear amputation scene in Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film Reservoir Dogs.  Stealers Wheel broke up in 1975, but because of legal issues, Rafferty was prevented from releasing any music for three years.

Rafferty surely had to feel vindicated with City to City, a combination of rock, soft rock, and what we now know as yacht rock that became a massive international success, reaching #1 on the Billboard album chart, #1 in Canada, #6 in the UK, and the Top 10 in six other countries.  It eventually went double platinum in the U.S.  Three songs from the album reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.  "Home and Dry" went to #28, "Right Down the Line" went to #12 (and #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart), and of course, there was the lead single from the album, the iconic "Baker Street," which was a huge hit all over the world, going to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 in Australia, Canada, and South Africa, #3 in the UK, and Top 10 on the pop charts in seven other countries.

Rafferty's next album, 1979's Night Owl, also did pretty well, giving him another two Top 40 hits in the U.S.  But as we've seen many times throughout this CoronaVinyl journey, soft rockers from the late '70s faded pretty fast in the early '80s, as musical tastes changed.  Rafferty continued making music regularly until the mid '90s, and then released two more albums, one in 2000 and another in 2009.  Sadly, Rafferty suffered from chronic alcoholism, and he died from liver failure in 2011 at the age of 63.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Baker Street"
Named after the famed street in London on which Sherlock Holmes resided, "Baker Street" is a classic.  Even if you don't know who Gerry Rafferty is or what this song is called, you probably instantly recognize what I would say is probably the most recognizable sax riff in rock history, courtesy of session musician Raphael Ravenscroft -- which led to a resurgence of sax sales and the use of saxophones in popular music.  There are various stories about how it came about.  In one version, Rafferty originally wrote the hook to be sung, but then Ravenscroft wowed everyone with his sax riff, so the sax stayed in.  In another version, there were gaps in the song when it was given to Revenscroft, who filled in the gaps with the sax riff.  In another version, it was originally supposed to be a guitar riff.  However it came about, I think it's safe to say that it worked out.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Waiting For the Day"
The second side is a little on the soft side, but the album ends on a high note with this uptempo poppy rocker.

Retro Video of the Week: "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera

Today is the 35th anniversary of the release of former Chicago lead singer and bassist Peter Cetera's second solo album, Solitude/Solitaire.  It was Cetera's highest-charting solo album, reaching #23 on the Billboard album chart and eventually went platinum in the U.S.  It also featured Cetera's only two solo songs to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Glory of Love" and the duet with Amy Grant, "The Next Time I Fall."

I'm going with the power ballad "Glory of Love," which was featured in Karate Kid Part II.  The video features scenes from the movie and makes me yearn for the next season of Cobra Kai.

CoronaVinyl Day 294 (P): The Principle of Moments by Robert Plant

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "P," and let's go with some solo Robert Plant -- like, maybe, his second solo album, 1983's The Principle of Moments.

Plant, of course, is one of the all-time great rock singers, having fronted Led Zeppelin until their breakup in 1980 after John Bonham's death.  He briefly considering dropping music all together and becoming a teacher, but Phil Collins encouraged him to give a solo career a whirl.

His first solo album, 1982's Pictures at Eleven, sold well , reaching #5 on the Billboard album chart, #2 on the UK album chart, and #1 in Canada, and eventually going platinum in the U.S., but it didn't produce any Top 40 hits in the U.S. or UK.

The Principle of Moments kept the momentum going in the right direction.  Like Pictures at Eleven, the music on The Principle of Moments is not like the hard rock you might expect from the former lead singer of Led Zeppelin.  It's still rock and roll, with some pop and synth mixed in (it was the '80s, after all).  Collins drummed on six of the eight tracks on the album, and former Jethro Tull drummer Barriemore Barlow drummed on the other two.

The album went to #8 on the Billboard album chart, #7 in the UK, #1 in New Zealand, and Top 10 in Australia, Canada, and The Netherlands.  It featured Plant's first two Top 40 solo hits on the Billboard Hot 100:  "Big Log" (#20) and one of his signature solo songs, "In The Mood" (#39).  Both were also Top 10 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart (#6 and #4, respectively), and "Other Arms" went to #1 on that chart too.

Plant has continued to make music over the past four decades, often collaborating with other musicians, including the 1984 one-off supergroup The Honeydrippers with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, two successful collaboration albums with Page in the '90s, and a wildly successful 2007 collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss that netted the duo five Grammy Awards.

In total, including collaborations, he had 6 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including one Top 10 (1984's cover of "Sea of Love" with The Honeydrippers, which went to #3), and 20 Top 10 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, including six #1s.

The Spotify version of the album has four bonus tracks, including three live tracks and an extra studio track.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Other Arms"
Plant's first #1 song on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart kicks the album off.  It's a song that I can imagine being on a Led Zeppelin album had they continued to make music in the early '80s.  It's a rock song, but definitely not hard rock.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Horizontal Departure"
This one is soulful in the verses, and kicks into gear in the choruses.

CoronaVinyl Day 293 (M): Primitive Love by Miami Sound Machine

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "M," and my selection was Miami Sound Machine's ninth studio album, 1985's Primitive Love.

The band was formed in Miami in 1975 by Emilio Estefan, Jr. as the Miami Latin Boys, and they changed their name to Miami Sound Machine two years later.  Also in 1975, Estefan met Gloria Garcia Fajardo, and Estefan invited her to join the group later that year.  She was still in college at the University of Miami, and her only stipulation was that she could only perform on weekends, so that her studies wouldn't be interrupted.  The two started dating and eventually married in 1978, a year after the group released its first album.  Gloria Estefan graduated from the University of Miami in 1979 with a B.A. in psychology, but as you know, she decided to stay with the group and pursue music.

The group was originally comprised of six Cuban-Americans, but it expanded over the years, as they honed their Latin-tinged pop and R&B sound.  Primitive Love was their breakthrough album, reaching #23 on the Billboard album charts and #1 on the Billboard Latin album chart.  It eventually went triple platinum in the U.S.

The album produced four Top 25 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including three Top 10 songs:  "Words Get in the Way" (#5), "Bad Boy" (#8), "Conga" (#10), and "Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)" (#25).  The album is a combination of pop, ballads, and dance music, often behind Latin-infused rhythms and percussion.

From there, the band's success continued over the next several years, changing their name to Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine for the next album, 1987's Let It Loose, which went to #6 on the Billboard album chart and also went triple platinum in the U.S.  By 1989, the group had disbanded, and Gloria went on to a successful solo career, despite being in a horrific bus crash in 1990 that left her with a fractured spine and required a year of rehab before she could return to performing.  She has continued to make music over the last three decades.  As a solo artist, she has had 8 Top 40 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including three Top 10s and two #1s (1989's "Don't Wanna Lose You" and 1991's "Coming Out of the Dark").

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Bad Boy"
This is a poppy song with a catchy-as-hell chorus.  It was not only the opening song for the hit movie Three Men and A Baby, but the chorus was also later adopted by Bad Boy Records' Mase in his 1997 hit "Feels So Good."

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Conga"
I've always liked this song, but it is forever enshrined in a special place in my heart after my trip to Oktoberfest in 2010, when a bunch of us went to a late-night bar/club, and a band had been playing, but it wasn't really getting people going.  Everyone was just kind of standing around, and no one was really on the dance floor.  After the band was done, a DJ came on, and "Conga" was the first song he played.  Within the first few bars of the song, people went absolutely ape shit.  People were dropping beer bottles on the ground and throwing tables out of the way to get to the dance floor.  After that, it was a fucking party, and one of my friends didn't realize there was broken glass all over the dance floor, as he put his hands down to shake his ass, coming up only to realize his hands were all bloody.  Thankfully, we had consumed enough bier and Jager that he didn't remember it the next morning, but instead woke up and asked why his jeans were covered in blood.  Good times.

CoronaVinyl Day 292 (L): Lone Justice by Lone Justice

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "L," and I decided to go with Lone Justice's self-titled 1985 debut album.

This is another album that I must have acquired as part of a larger lot of records.  Before today, I don't recall ever hearing a Lone Justice song.  From the research I did on the band today, they formed as a cowpunk band in LA in the '80s, and they were signed by Geffen with some pretty strong fanfare.

They never quite lived up to the hype, and I'd describe their first album as a little schizophrenic.  There are some songs that are definitely more in the cowpunk or rockabilly field, while others are more country rock, and some are just more straight country.  Adding to the confusion is the album cover, which makes the band look more like a New Romantic group from the middle of England than a cowpunk band from LA.  The drab and overcast album cover certainly didn't match the music.

The album isn't bad by any means.  Lead singer Maria McKee has a nice, often twangy voice that is reminiscent of Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Bonnie Raitt, depending on the song.  The band had some help from some legends.  Jimmy Iovine produced the album.  Tom Petty and Mike Campbell wrote one of the songs, "Ways To Be Wicked," on which Campbell played guitar.  Fellow Heartbreaker Benmont Tench played piano and organs (and sang backing vocals on a couple songs).  E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt also played guitar on one song.

The album didn't do great commercially, only reaching #56 on the Billboard album chart and #62 on the Billboard Country album chart.  The two singles from the album were very minor hits, with "Sweet, Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)" going to #73 on the Billboard Hot 100 and "Ways To Be Wicked" going to #71.

The band's next album, 1986's Shelter, was co-produced by Iovine, Van Zandt, and the band, and it didn't do any better, though it produced the band's highest-charting song on the Billboard Hot 100, the title track, which went to #47.  The band then broke up in 1987 and has been largely forgotten.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "East of Eden"
The album kicks off with a nice rocker with kind of a hand jive shuffle to it.  McKee's vocals are more punky than on most of the rest of the album.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Wait 'Til We Get Home"
This is a toe-tapper that I'd probably classify as heartland rock, featuring Tench on the organ.

CoronaVinyl Day 291 (K): Hot in the Shade by KISS

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Friday's CoronaVinyl category was "K," and as you know by now, the only "K" albums I have left are KISS albums -- and I have eleven more!  Friday's selection was their fifteenth studio album, 1989's Hot in the Shade.

KISS had navigated its way through the '80s with mild success.  At the beginning of the decade, they still had their original lineup -- Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss.  Criss left first, in 1980, replaced by Eric Carr.  Then Frehley left two years later, replaced by Vinnie Vincent.  They took off the makeup in 1983.  The next year, Mark St. John replaced Vincent, and then he was quickly replaced by longtime KISS collaborator Bruce Kulick.  It was that lineup -- Simmons, Stanley, Carr, and Kulick -- that made Hot in the Shade, which was the band's most successful attempt at cashing in on the Hair Band Era.

I was obviously aware of KISS long before Hot in the Shade, and I was terrified of them when I was really young when they were still in the makeup.  Then there was a blank space of five or six year when I don't really remember hearing or seeing anything about KISS, until Hot in the Shade. 

Hot in the Shade was a pretty remarkable 15 songs.  It reached #29 on the Billboard album chart, but more importantly, it contained the band's biggest non-makeup-era hit -- and first Top 40 hit since "I Was Made For Loving You" in 1979 and first Top 10 hit since "Beth" in 1976 -- the power ballad "Forever," which was co-written by Stanley and Michael Bolton and went to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Two other songs from the album charted:  "Hide Your Heart" (#66) and their last charting song, "Rise To It" (#81).

I listened to the full album about eight times on Friday, as I ended up working far later than anyone should work on a June Friday.  It's not a bad album.  Having listened to KISS's other '80s albums with a little bit more regularity than Hot in the Shade, I think the band put out their best album since Creatures of the Night in 1982.  Sure, they were trying to keep up with all the bands that they influenced, but they did a good job, and there are a lot of good hard rock songs on the album, showing that the band could still rock with the best of them.  And, of course, "Forever" is a classic late '80s power ballad.

Sadly, this was the last album the band released before Carr died from heart cancer in 1991 at the age of 41.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Silver Spoon"
The last song on the first side is a solid hair band song, sung by Stanley.  I particularly appreciate that it ramps up at the end, with a good guitar solo and then an outro featuring impassioned female background singers.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Boomerang"
The last song on the album is a Simmons and Kulick-penned snarling rocker, sung by Gene.  It's just a good hard rock song, with another great solo by Kulick.

Hair Band Friday - 6/18/21

1.  "Dance" by Ratt

2.  "In a Simple Rhyme" by Van Halen

3.  "Red Hot (Black & Blue)" by Kix

4.  "Dyin' to Live" by Sleeze Beez

5.  "Snakebite" by Jetboy

6.  "Tomorrow" by Europe

7.  "Get Used To It" by Giant

8.  "Reach for the Sky" by Slaughter

9.  "Babylon" by Shotgun Messiah

10.  "Six Guns Loaded" by Britny Fox

CoronaVinyl Day 290 (J): An Innocent Man by Billy Joel

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "J," and I have multiple albums left by multiple "J" artists I've already featured, so I figured I'll go with a Billy Joel album, since I haven't featured one of his albums since last July.  It's his massive ninth studio album, 1983's An Innocent Man.

This was an album that was in the regular rotation in my house after it came out.  I remember listening to it a lot as a six- and seven-year-old.  By this time, Billy Joel was a bona fide star, though his previous studio album, 1982's The Nylon Curtain, was a relative step sideways, "only" going to #7 on the Billboard album chart, producing "only" one Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and "only" going double platinum in the U.S.

An Innocent Man is arguably his biggest album, other than maybe The Stranger.  The album is an homage to '50s and '60s soul, rock, and doo wop, with each song being a tribute to a particular artist or two from the '50s or '60s, from James Brown and Wilson Pickett ("Easy Money") to several doo wop groups ("The Longest Time" and "This Night") to Motown ("Tell Her About It") to Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis ("Christie Lee") to Betty Wright's "Clean Up Woman" ("Keeping The Faith"), among others.  There's lots of blue-eyed soul and horns, and it's just a fun album.

The album went to #4 on the Billboard album chart -- his fifth of eight consecutive studio albums that got at least to #7 on the Billboard album chart -- and it stayed on the chart for 111 weeks, as well as over a year on the album charts in Australia, Japan, and the UK.  It also ended up as the #4 album on Billboard's Year-End album chart for 1984.

It also featured an impressive six Top 30 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including his second #1 hit, "Tell Her About It," as well as "Uptown Girl" (#3), the title track (#10), "The Longest Time" (#14), "Keeping The Faith" (#18), and "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (#27).  The album eventually went 7x platinum in the U.S.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Easy Money"
The album kicks off with a punchy, soulful homage to James Brown and Wilson Pickett.  The song was the title track of the Rodney Dangerfield movie of the same name.  It has great horns, breaks like James Brown songs would have, and a Memphis Soul feel.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Uptown Girl"
Joel's homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is spot on, from Joel's solid impression of Valli to the backing vocals and arc of the song.  The fish-out-of-water, working class meets upper class story was inspired by his relationships with Elle Macpherson and then his girlfriend (and eventually wife) Christie Brinkley, the latter of whom starred in the video for the song.  Even though I didn't know what "uptown" or "downtown" meant when I was six, I got the point of the song -- that there's always hope for a guy to outkick his coverage.