Rick Springfield released one of the greatest power pop records ever. No, it’s not his new album Songs for the End of the World, though there are echoes worth hearing.
With his 1981 album Working Class Dog, and the song “Jessie’s Girl”, he found the formula to make one of rock’s best-ever power pop records, right up there with the stuff of Cheap Trick, The Romantics, Matttew Sweet and The Cars. The guitars, the sugary background 
vocals and three-minute pop/rock songs about girls and boys and more girls made the album a surprise hit record.
He would never match that sound or vibe again.
He’s given his new album a “take-a-dip-from-past” wash of his previous records, splashing guitar-driven, hook-laden, layered background vocals on the pop/rock. While not a truly great record, it is his best since returning to recording a little more than ten years ago.
Rob Nichols
Battle of Birdy's Finalists announced
What do you know of these bands? Any favorites? Indianapolis’ live music venue just off of Keystone Ave. has held this contest for years….
Battle of Birdy’s – Band finalists
Saturday, November 10 – 8:30 pm
Rivetshack 9:15
Morning Goldrunner 10:00
Funky Junk 10:45
Audiodacity 11:30
Coup D’etat 12:15
And Away They Go 1:00
Special Encore Performance By 2011 Champions – Phoenix on the Fault Line
Lost Video : Huey Lewis (circa 1984) solo with David Letterman’s orginal band
One of the lost little video nuggets of 80’s rock. Huey Lewis (with just one member of the News in tow) plays “Heart of Rock and Roll” with Paul Shaffer and the first Late Show band -back in 1984 – with Matt “Guitar Murphy” in for Hiram Bullock on guitar. And gotta love the raw look of the Letterman shows from the time. Though the song is a piece of pop/rock that felt more like fluff than rock and roll from Lewis, this version is interesting for the setting, and the fact that the massive Sports album, which would be career-changer for the band, was just breaking out, and Lewis is essentially solo here.
VIDEO: The Lumineers breaking big ("Stubborn Love")
The Lumineers have sold nearly 300,000 copies of their debut album. They played a 200-person club in Indianapolis in May, and much like fellow Americana darlings The Civil Wars, are on the cusp of breaking really big. Love their sound, and love the loose-limbed live performances. Here’s one recorded in a radio studio of “Stubborn Love” – simultaneously melancholy and uplifting…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6gKOKO484w]
HonkyTonk Prowler Reunion at the Melody Inn
Slim Hadley from The Punkin Holler Boys shot me an email about a Melody Inn show this Friday (Sept. 14) featuring a reunion of the Honky Tonk Prowlers (and a recreation of the Big Ol’ Cadillac album) plus the country rock of 19Clark25 and the Fabulous SlimTones.
So I found Slim, and we talked about the old band, what’s ahead for what he calls “real country music” and the inspiration for getting the bands together for one night of twangin’ and rowdy country music.
For a brief history lesson, we recall the Prowlers featured the singing and writing of Punkin Holler’s Ralph Ed Jeffers, and were an Americana/Roots/country and hillbilly punk-leaning band. The leader of the band, Jeffers, got the chance to work with another Indy legend, Frank Dean, on the Cadillac album.
“We took inspiration from Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins and Dwight Yoakam”, Hadley says of the HTP band. “This will be an evening of music akin to the above-mentioned as we will perform the complete Big Ol’ Cadillac album live for the first time in 20 years, as recorded by Ralph Ed Jeffers all those years ago.”
Rob Nichols: What’s the story of the Big Ol’ Cadillac album?
Slim Hadley: Ralph and (local singer/songwriter) Frank Dean had been wanting to work together. Frank had access to Monday Morning Studios and they took Ralph’s songs and a couple from Frank and created a narrative of an aspiring country singer going through the process of trying to make it big.
It could’ve been from 1962 or 1992 or 2012. It’s a timeless story of passion for one’s craft and the trials of getting to where one can do it. Or not getting there.
Joe South – legendary songwriter ("Games People Play", Rose Garden", "Walk a Mile in My Shoes") dies at 72
One of the great forgotten names in late 60’s rock/early 70’s country music songwriting – Joe South – died last week a age 72.
The records he made were oddly compelling, full of vocal echo, strings and reverb-drenched guitar – and the others too – sound. But his songwriting was killer. I love the Geaorgia Satellites version of “Games People Play”, John Mellencamp did a down-and-dirty Joe South set during his “Scarecrow” tour encore when I saw him at Detroit’s Cobo Arena in 1985, and South freakin’ wrote “Rose Garden” for Lynn Anderson, a #1 for 16 (!) weeks.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/JpPpCubCKig?t=3m]
from wikipedia: South was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Aretha Franklin‘s “Chain of Fools”,[1] Tommy Roe‘s “Sheila”, and Bob Dylan‘s Blonde on Blonde album…1969’s pungent, no-nonsense “Games People Play” wasva hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. He wrote the back-to-nature “Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home” (also covered eight months later by Brook Benton With The Dixie Flyers) and the socially provocative “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” (also covered by Elvis Presley in a Las-Vegas era version.
Artists who had pop hits with South compositions include Billy Joe Royal’s songs “Down in the Boondocks“, “I Knew You When”, “Yo-Yo” (later a hit for the Osmonds), and “Hush” (later a hit for Deep Purple.