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Welcome to October. It's Homemade Cookie Day - hope you get to enjoy a few! HERC is back after another week of R&R, rested and ready to go a few more rounds.
HERC's been going through all the boxes and shelves and stacks and spindles that make up the Hideaway Audio Archives and the music is like a time-travel machine, taking him back through the past and then urging him towards the future. Y'all know what he's talking about? It's not just the music, it's the smell of the vinyl, the pictures of the artists or even the graphics on the album sleeves.
HERC's been going through all the boxes and shelves and stacks and spindles that make up the Hideaway Audio Archives and the music is like a time-travel machine, taking him back through the past and then urging him towards the future. Y'all know what he's talking about? It's not just the music, it's the smell of the vinyl, the pictures of the artists or even the graphics on the album sleeves.
Power Play, from 1980, is definitely about the cover graphics. And the music. K-Tel was on a roll, probably at it's peak in HERC's eyes ears in 1980, with possibly one its greatest all-time releases in Rock 80 (which has three tracks in common with Power Play), as well as other titles featuring the demise of disco and the rise of neuvo wuevo new wave. How about a few of HERC's favorites from Power Play?
Straight from the "love it or hate it" Yacht Rock playlist is Little River Band's "Cool Change". A calming, soothing song along the same lines as Christopher Cross's "Sailing", the Little River Band and, in particular, songwriter and singer Glenn Shorrock nails it. Every. Damn. Time. For the record, HERC was not born in the sight of water but it is there he feels his best. And MRS. HERC will attest to the fact that he's always been romantic.
Jefferson Starship has a long and storied history under several different names: they started out as Jefferson Airplane in the Sixties, graduated to Jefferson Starship in the Seventies and early Eighties and finally peaked, on the charts at least, in the mid to late Eighties after jettisoning the "Jefferson" to be known simply as Starship. This song rocks for three reasons: 1) that piano part, 2) that guitar part and 3) that Mickey Thomas part - the vocals not the cowbell. Thomas joined Elvin Bishop band in 1974 and eventually emerged as their vocalist, scoring his biggest hit (and definitely one of HERC's all-time top 10 songs) in 1976 with "Fooled Around And Fell In Love" before being asked to board Jefferson Starship in 1979, eventually becoming the band leader after all of the original member had left. Starship disbanded in 1991 but a few years later, Starship featuring Mickey Thomas was launched and they continue to perform to this day.
The Spinners have been together for almost 60 years - they continue to tour with two original members! In 1979, they came out with the first of two consecutive disco medleys featuring songs from the Sixties, "Workin' My Way Back To You"/"Forgive Me, Girl". The song peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 in the U.S. held out of the top spot by Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)". In the U.K., where the group is known as the Detroit Spinners, the song topped the charts. Listen to the full version below as well as that second disco medley HERC mentioned:
Power Play was released in Canada with an alternate song selection. Your good buddy HERC rounded up the songs and offers them in a mega super bonus deluxe double dozen track Spotify playlist below with most of the tasty tracks from the US version as well.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Fellow Spotify playlist practitioner joemoustache created his own K-Tel Power Play playlist a couple of weeks before HERC did. Click his name to listen to it.
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