Eddie Money- No Control

Before his death in September 2019, Eddie Money was always a delightful conversationalist, a real pleasure to interview. Because he loved people, he loved to tell stories, and Eddie had a million of ’em. As I prepared dual anniversaries for two of the late Eddie Money’s best selling albums, Eddie Money debut in October 1977 and the big breakthrough, No Control five years later in June 1982, it occurred that one of the less recognized aspects of the brief but all-important Punk Rock trend in the latter half of the Seventies is how it aided and abetted countless upstart bands at the same time, some of whom  were not necessarily a part of that CBGB Club New York City punk scene.

Regardless of whether you  liked The Ramones, Television, New York Dolls, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Iggy and the Stooges, Dead Boys et al enough to actually buy their records and see their live shows, there is no doubt that the stirring of the rock crock pot by the Punks in the mid-Seventies caused a lot of interest in new bands in general, particularly for the New York City-based record labels and rock press.  Singer/songwriter Eddie Money may have been in San Francisco when he convinced legendary concert promoter Bill Graham to manage him, but both Money and his mentor were Big Apple natives, which didn’t hurt when Columbia Records offered Eddie a deal for his self-titled debut in 1977. The often hilarious, sometimes harrowing, always colorful rags-to-riches-to-rehab story of Eddie Money’s first four albums, with several stops at the top of the charts including the 1982 million-seller fourth album No Control  , includes “Two Tickets to Paradise”, “Baby Hold On”, and “I Wanna Be a Rock’n’Roll Star” from Eddie’s unadorned yet impressive 1977 debut Eddie Money. – Redbeard