I recall fondly when I was a young pup of a lad and bugged the holy crap out of my parents for a stereo and then record albums. My first albums were Bonnie Tyler's "Its A Heartache" and Nick Gilder's "City Nights." Shows ya what was hot on the radio at the time: Its a Heartache and Hot Child in the City obviously hit a chord with me. When I was in the midst of rounding out my CD collection, I had no problem locating a copy of the Bonnie Tyler release, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, City Nights never warranted a CD re-release ... till now. EMI Columbia have announced plans to release the part B of my musical roots on CD. At long last, I can get those tunes omitted erroneously from the Greatest Hits CD. When I first discovered the new age of email, I first set out to get in touch with someone who could update me on Nick's whereabouts. I had an email addy for what appeared to be the great Nick himself, and it turned out to be him, indeed. Actually got a reply from him, too. That still ranks as one of the coolest things I've ever had happen. He's still hitting the circuit up in Canada, so little chance I'll ever get to see that one last Nick Gilder show ... but when I get to hear my fave song back in the day (21st Century), I'll be on cloud nine for a brief while. Side A of that album was a classic for me ... where's the fast forward button for my calendar?
MP3.com tunes
Nick's site ... under construction at press time.
3 Comments
Jesus H. Crist... where were we in 1978? Gilder put out "Hot Child" that year; what strongly affected the rest of you at that time? Were you even BORN?
Most pop fans seem to have bought things like
STAYIN' ALIVE The Bee Gees
MACHO MAN The Village People
THREE TIMES A LADY - The Commodores
COPACABANA -Barry Manilow
HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU - Oliva Newton-John
TASTE OF HONEY - "Boogie Oogie Oogie"
DUST IN THE WIND -Kansas
... all at least a bit problematic with me. There was always the more palatable tunes like
Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty
We Are The Champions-Queen
Baby Hold On - Eddie Money
Who Are You - The Who
Come Sail Away - Styx
although personally I followed Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Zappa most closely. Honorable mention goes to Kate Bush for naming a song "Hammer Horror".
Ah, but Pete, you left one out. In rediscovering the joy of this CD, I realize that much of what I dug was the heavy guitar playing (well, this side of Black Sabbath, anyways). I would argue that Gilder could have had a more successful career if it weren't for the fact that the heavier side of rock was about to be forever changed by what came out later in the year: Van Halen's first album!!!
And life as we know it was forever changed.
I seem to recall "Jamie's Cryin'" coming out in spring of '77... but although I recognized it as being distinctive in sound, I was moving in other directions (obviously from the above testimony) that included jazz (Gato Barbiere and Bill Watrous in '76) and soundtracks, classical, etc. Some of you will be horrified to learn of the new Seals and Crofts website; they were and are a stylistic (NOT a religious) interest of mine and I guess Uber and myself will defend that flag against the rest of you. Oh, yes - and there was TROUT MASK REPLICA by Capt. Beefheart; got into that about '78. Too ornery even for me.