Kool & The Gang mastered the transition from funkmeisters to smooth pop R&B. A band since 1964, they are still tour ready. Top 40 radio dug them for the better part of ten years. I mean, really loved them.  The band’s first taste of pop  success came with the release of their fourth album Wild and Peaceful (1973), which contained the US top-ten singles “Jungle Boogie” (#4) and “Hollywood Swinging“ (#6). Disco didn’t really work for them.  Back in the 70’s, they had  more in common with Sly and the Family Stone than Donna Summer. We dig in to the 80’s Output … Read more

There’s always been bands that had some part of their success because they – a little or a lot- sounded like other bands.  The Beatles and Badfinger.  The Beatles and a band called the Knickerbockers with a 1965 hit song called “Lies”.   “Oh Sheila” was a hit for the band Ready For the World that had a sound like Prince. An R&B singer named Fontella Bass sounded a whole lot like Aretha Franklin with a 1965 hit called “Rescue Me” – Greta Van Fleet sounds eerily like Led Zeppelin. So did the 80s band Kingdom Come.  And I always … Read more

As big as Bob Seger is on the radio – arguably one of the top half dozen classic rock artists to still have a big footprint on rock radio – in his entire career, he actually only had seven top 40 hits that cracked the top 10. He spent a lifetime on the road. A classic rock mainstay.  But big top 40 hits?  Hardly. Bob Seger’s only #1 hit? – “Shakedown” from 1987 and the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack. His other top 10’s? “Night Moves” #4 in 76 “Still The Same” #4 in 78 “Against The Wind” #5 in … Read more

By 1982, and 1983, Brian Setzer’s group, The Stray Cats, had earned three top 10 hits: “Rock This Town”, “Stray Cat Strut”, and “She Sexy and 17”. And in late 1984? That was the year Setzer decided to break up Stray Cats in the midst of their success. Why? He told the Los Angeles Times in 1986 that he thought the band had run its course. “I didn’t want to make another rockabilly album.” Setzer made a couple album in the two years away from the Cats, including one that stands out as a forgotten but near classic take on … Read more

On this episode of Rock Pop and Roll, we focus on the peculiar history of Rod Stewart. Some Good and a Little Bit of the Bad: Rod Stewart In the 1980’s. Rod Stewart is nearing 60 years in the music business, right up there with the Rolling Stones and The Who.  He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, inducted in 1994. He released 32 solo albums, not counting live and greatest hits compilations. During the 1960s, Rod Stewart was a part of the Jeff Beck Group. In 1969, he joined The Faces.  If you don’t know The Faces, … Read more

RockPopandRoll / Episode 12 • A legendary – maybe the most legendary Australian rocker  – who couldn’t break through in the US• An influential Cowpunk band that had big names push them • A rock band from the United Kingdom that had millions of fans and only one American sorta hit. This week on RockPopandRoll, our show is: “3 Underrated, Under the Radar Rock Bands that Never Hit the Top 40” Host Rob Nichols, a radio vet and longtime music writer, revisits rock and roll and pop music from the playlist of the decade of the 80s The Alarm Originally a … Read more

RockPopandRoll / Episode 11 Remember Jessie’s Girl? #1 in 1981?  It is the iconic power pop song that threw musician Rick Springfield, a musician on lean times, back into the music game. He’d been in music since the late 60’s in Australia. A rocker, blessed and cursed. Great looking dude, with the “I’m on a TV show albatross” to carry.  He was a career songwriter and guitar guy who had already waded through the teen idol swamp and come out OK.  Mostly. This week on RockPopandRoll, our show is: Power Pop and Rick Springfield: Here’s 6 Songs You’ll Love if … Read more

Their debut album was “Get the Knack”.  It had one monster song, a lesser follow-up single and then the band rode the wave of success as best they could, before breaking up, reforming, and never duplicating the initial explosion.  But how could they, right? The rest of their albums?  Nothing as good.  Or even close.  But they kept the idea alive that you could be a band that takes the tropes of 60s rock and roll and 70s power pop, blend them, and make a sound that was their own.    Thanks for listening to the podcast Subscribe to RockPopandRoll … Read more

You ask me what is the greatest rock/pop guitar album of the 1980s and I say Reckless from Bryan Adams.  Lyrically, it’s mostly sophomoric.  No deep thoughts.  But that was never the strength of Bryan Adams.  His reason for being was that he made straight-ahead rock and roll music that never ventured into pop-metal – though his 1991 album Can’t Stop This Thing We Started – produced by Mutt Lange – did make him sound like Def Leppard.  Bryan Adams was radio rock for the 80s. Other than “Heaven”, it was guitar and drums, shouts and rasps, stops and starts. … Read more

Sports isn’t fancy. It’s rock music played tightly and with enthusiasm by the band, recorded cleanly. The songs are first-listen friendly and held up after the set became a monster hit, spending more than a year all over Top 40 and rock radio.  It ultimately ranks as one of the great pop-rock band albums of the 80s. Huey Lewis and The News earned themselves lots of hits singles, with a couple really good album tracks.  It is bar band rock and roll with a shine, as they made a radio-ready album with really great harmonies, and big, fat sugar smack hooks … Read more