After years of struggle as the undercard rock palooka who could take a punch and never go down, in 1982 Sammy Hagar answered the bell and came out swinging, scoring a technical knockout with his first mainstream hit, “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” from his seventh solo album, Three Lock Box. Then in 1987 Sammy won by a knockout with his solo album I Never Said Goodbye, at #14 his highest charting album ever, and that while being newly installed as Van Halen’s lead singer. Hagar reveals some deeply held intensely personal insights into what has driven him to this day as the leader of the superstar bands Chickenfoot and now Sammy Hagar & the Circle.- Redbeard
(Sammy Hagar at Las Vegas residency May 2025; photo Lee Palmer)
After years of struggle as the undercard rock palooka who could take a punch and never go down, Sammy Hagar answered the bell in 1984 and came out swinging, scoring a technical knockout with his mainstream hit “I Can’t Drive 55” from his eighth (!) solo album, VOA. Then in 1987 Sammy won by a knockout with his solo album I Never Said Goodbye, at #14 his highest charting album ever, and that while being newly installed as Van Halen’s lead singer.
For five decades, Sammy Hagar has punched way above his weight, from co-writing and belting out the songs on that first classic Montrose album in 1973, to a decade of undercard matches night after night as a solo bandleader. Finally breaking through to an arena headliner in the mid-Eighties with million sellersThree Lock Box and VOA in 1984, Hagar got the high risk/high reward job of fronting one of America’s biggest bands then, Van Halen. But Sammy Hagar had to provide a new solo album to his former record company to make the deal palatable. Simply titled Sammy Hagar upon release that Summer 1987, it has since been re-titled I Never Said Goodbye, but the songs remain the same: the plea for the Red Rocker’s Golden Rule, “Give to Live”; Top Gun training soundtrack “Eagles Fly”; and the affirmation of “Returning Home”. Hagar reveals some deeply held, intensely personal insights into what has driven him to this day as the leader of the superstar bands Chickenfoot and now Sammy Hagar & the Circle.- Redbeard
“It took me sixteen hours to get to Dallas Texas today!”, sings Sammy Hagar to the huge crowd near the end of this legendary free concert in the blocked off streets of downtown Dallas Texas that sunny December afternoon during the performance with Van Halen of his anthem, “I Can’t Drive 55”. But in actual fact, this covert free concert had been over three years in the making since Sammy Hagar, plagued not once but twice in mid-Eighties appearances by notorious North Texas pollen-induced laryngitis, promised a free make-up concert to a Texxas Jam audience. That magical day made it all seem worth it. –Redbeard
(Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, still inseparable, in Nashville August 2024- photo Lee Palmer)
Here is a smoking medley of “Marching to Mars/ There’s Only One Way to Rock” from the Sammy Hagar Cabo Wabo Cantina in May 1997. –Redbeard ( Sammy Hagar, Kenny Aronoff in Nashville 2024- photo Lee Palmer)
After years of struggle as the undercard rock palooka who could take a punch and never go down, in 1982 Sammy Hagar answered the bell and came out swinging, scoring a technical knockout with his first mainstream hit, “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” from his seventh solo album, Three Lock Box. Then in 1987 Sammy won by a knockout with his solo album I Never Said Goodbye, at #14 his highest charting album ever, and that while being newly installed as Van Halen’s lead singer. Hagar reveals some deeply held intensely personal insights into what has driven him to this day as the leader of the superstar bands Chickenfoot and now Sammy Hagar & the Circle.- Redbeard
(Sammy Hagar at Las Vegas residency May 2025; photo Lee Palmer)
