Where's My Shades?

Ian Hunter : Just Another Night

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In March of 1979, Ian Hunter released You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic. Reunited with his Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ronson, who also took on some producing roles, Hunter rocks through the set list with members of the E Street Band including organist Roy Bittan, bassist Gary Tallent and drummer Max Weinberg.

The first single from the album was "Just Another Night", a straight forward rocker that peaked in the United States at #68.

Best known in the States is "Cleveland Rocks", which became the theme song of The Drew Carey Show as play by The Presidents of the United States. Hunter told SongwriterUniverse.com  he wrote the song because someone needed to stand up for Cleveland:

What it was, when we first came [to the U.S.], you had those talk shows like Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson, and I noticed that they’re always taking the mickey out (making fun) of Cleveland. If there was a town to be taking the mickey out of, it was Cleveland. And I’m like, “That’s not right. Because we didn’t get discovered in L.A., we didn’t get discovered in New York. We got discovered in Cleveland, as did a lot of people.” The same with (David) Bowie…Cleveland was way ahead. You’d play Cleveland and [the venue] would be full. Everywhere else, it would be like 150 people staring at you, saying “What is that?” And so that’s why I wrote “Cleveland Rocks.”

The album is schizophrenic, settling into ballad mode for "Ships", a song about fathers and sons and the distances they must overcome. Strangely, Hunter's labelmate , Barry Manilow,  covered the song and hit the U.S Top 10 with it later in the year. Hunter told 3 Songs Bonn how it happened:

It was confusing. What it was, was that Clive Davis who is head of Arista now. He was head of Columbia Records in those days. If Clive liked a song, when his big artists came in he would put it on in the background during a meeting and the idea was that the artist would pick up on the song. That’s what happened with ‘Ships’. Manilowe’s father had just died. Clive’s sitting there talking to him and Manilow starts getting into ‘Ships’ and that’s how that happened.

Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of B writing 

Six winners out of nine on this mini-comeback, and he doesn't seem to be straining, either. But that's not entirely a blessing--the musical territory is conventionally good-rockin', and only on the gnomic "Life After Death" and the second verse of "When the Morning Comes" does he reconnoiter lyrically. The titles of the bad songs--"Bastard," "The Outsider," and "Ships" (in the guess what)--are warning enough

40 Year Itch : Those We Missed July 1973

 

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10cc's playful debut spawned four singles in the UK ( the #1 "Rubber Bullets" and #2 "Donna" among them). One of the weirdest art pop bands of its day, 10cc's entire catalogue from here to Bloody Tourists is worth owning.

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Although it's home to "Knockin' On Heavens's Door" ( US #12), this soundtrack of mostly instrumentals makes for nice background listening and that's it. And why would you by a Dylan album that you didn't want to really listen to?

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Fusion doesn't get more furious than on this 5-track album from Carlos Santana and members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra ( as well as Stanley Clarke of Return to Forever and Larry Young of the Tony Williams Lifetime). It's not a particularly easy listen , but the album went gold anyway.

 

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No band went through more stylistic changes than this Dutch group which formed in 1961. (Their Beatlesque stuff is pretty great!) Twelve years later, Moontan  and its single "Radar Love" broke Golden Earring in the US where they toured with the Doobie Brothers and Santana. Album closer "The Vanilla Queen" is a classic rock track for disc jockeys needing a pee break. "Just Like Vince Taylor" sounds like something the Del Lords would have put out in 1984.

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Prone to disenchantment, Cat Stevens left behind his hit making era with Foreigner, an album featuring a  side long suite and some prog rock and funk experimentation. Tedious but it still went gold.

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After years of playing and arranging for Bette Midler and singing and writing commercial jingles, Barry Manilow signed with Bell and released his first album. "Could It Be Magic" was a #6 hit in 1975 . But the real surprise here is the rocking tune "Flashy Lady".