In The Studio with Redbeard

Tag: Jonathan Cain

  • John Waite- No Brakes

    John Waite- No Brakes

    Just does not seem possible that John Waite’s June 1984 second solo album, No Brakes, could be marking its fortieth anniversary, because that means its #1 song “Missing You” is similarly dated. And if that is the case, then that means all of those long distance calls, all of those letters, all of those nights parked out on the bluff, all of those indelible memories triggered by that song are four decades in the rearview mirror, too.

    When you aggregate the many high points from the recorded body of work of John Waite over the last four decades of popular music, his well-known world class singing voice is readily on display, but what emerges is a dedicated, well-read, mature songwriting craftsman who has maintained the highest standards over a lengthy career. Whether with  the woulda-coulda-shoulda-been UK band The Babys ( “Isn’t It Time”,”Head First”,”Back on My Feet Again”,”Midnight Rendezvous” ), the late Eighties supergroup Bad English (#1 song “When I See You Smile”,” Straight to Your Heart” ), or solo ( “Change”, “Missing You” #1 again; “Encircled”,”Downtown”, “New York City Girl”,”If You Ever Get Lonely”, which is also a Country hit covered by Love and Theft), John Waite never underestimates the power of a song to tattoo indelibly a memory on your heart forever.

    Waite’s #1 song “Missing You” from No Brakes   in 1984 made such an indelible impact that New York Times  best-selling author Harlan Coben nicked the title for his  novel featuring an almost Blue Velvet   twist. But no one outdid AllMusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlrwine in accurately getting his arms around Waite’s impact with “Missing You” thirty-five June’s in the rearview mirror: ” ‘Missing You’ wasn’t just a hit, either. It was one of those thrilling pop moments where perfection appeared in the last place you expected to hear it…A minor miracle…not just a number one hit, but one of those records that everybody knows, capturing a time yet transcending it to become part of the very fabric of pop culture.” – Redbeard 

  • The Babys- Head First 45th Anniversary- John Waite, Jonathan Cain

    The Babys- Head First 45th Anniversary- John Waite, Jonathan Cain

    In January 1979, their third album, Head First, garnered considerable rock radio airplay for England’s The Babys, peaking at #22 sales and another lucky #13 single,”Every Time I Think of You”, but with keyboard player Michael Corby departing, the three remaining band members Wally Stocker on guitar, Tony Brock on drums, and John Waite on bass guitar and vocals recruited Americans Jonathan Cain and Ricky Phillips to tour in support of red hot Journey. Cain and Phillips actually wrote and played on the 1980 Union Jacks  album which delivered “Back on My Feet Again” and the infectious “Midnight Rendezvous”, and the Journey/Babys double bill that year is recalled as a legendary tour.   This is how the #13 hit “Isn’t It Time?” by British band The Babys was introduced to America in late 1977, coming from their second album in barely six months, Broken Heart: driving home late at night during Autumn 1977 in a 1965 Ford Fairlane with an AM-only radio, a song came on that opened with a melancholy naked piano melody. Then a lush orchestra joined in as a male voice with just a hint of an English accent sang,”Falling in love was the last thing I had on my mind…”. Then a solo trumpet repeated the melody the singer had just sung, but mariachi-like. Then these female backup singers come in prominently on the bridge to this huge hooky chorus. But wait: the lead singer switched places with the girl singers, who then take over belting out the chorus. What??!

    And the song “Give Me Your Love” on Broken Heart really shows their influences, particularly guitarist Wally Stocker, as the song could have fit easily on Free’s Heartbreaker finale five years earlier.

    ( Union Jacks  front l-r Tony Brock, Wally Stocker, John Waite; back Jonathan Cain & Ricky Phillips)

    For this retrospective John Waite and Jonathan Cain put on their big boy pants for a frank conversation about The Babys, a promising band which had some unfortunate breaks which ultimately stunted their growth the first time around. –Redbeard 

  • The Babys- Run to Mexico- NYC 3-23-79

    The Babys- Run to Mexico- NYC 3-23-79

    By the time the English band The Babys took the New York City Bottom Line’s stage in March 1979, they had released their strongest effort to date, Head First, and added up-and-coming American keyboard player Jonathan Cain to the outfit fronted by singer John Waite. Here is a very rare recording of The Babys doing “Run to Mexico”. -Redbeard

  • Journey- Frontiers- Neal Schon, John Cain, Steve Perry

    Journey- Frontiers- Neal Schon, John Cain, Steve Perry

    When you are as talented, top-heavy with songwriters, and as hard working as Journey was from 1978 to 1983, a lot can happen in five years. You see, it was only five years time after their fourth album  Infinity, broke the band until  the deepest part of Winter 1983, when the San Francisco-based American juggernaut Journey released Frontiers amidst intense anticipation.

    The rock world knew that Journey’s preceding album, 1981’s Escape, had spawned three Top Ten hits on its way to stunning #1 sales. Journey had already established itself as a tireless touring enterprise, a real “people’s band”, a perception validated when the national Gallup  Poll determined that the Bay Area quintet was voted America’s favorite band then. That fame in turn prompted the first computer video game named after a rock band. It was no surprise then when that success increased the demand to extend the already lengthy Escape tour, but what we outside the band’s inner circle had no way of knowing is that the extended time away from home was straining several marriages of Journey band members.

    The skyrocketing album, merchandise,  and concert ticket sales were obvious, but  far less apparent were the exceedingly high musical standards to which any new Journey member, such as ex-Babys keyboard player/songwriter Jonathan Cain, would be held. Cain, band co-founder/guitarist Neal Schon, and former singer Steve Perry reveal considerable personal pathos during the Big Payday provided by  “Separate Ways”, “Faithfully”, and two more Journey hits which were inexplicably bumped off of Frontiers, “Only the Young” and “Ask the Lonely”.- Redbeard

  • Journey- Infinity- Gregg Rolie, Neal Schon, Steve Perry

    Journey- Infinity- Gregg Rolie, Neal Schon, Steve Perry

    With their 1978 breakthrough album Infinity, some rock writers  attempted to reduce the remarkable transformation by the San Francisco band Journey  to “talented, veteran, but commercially struggling group hires world-class singer, who anybody would recognize; shortens song arrangements; and instantly becomes the biggest band in America”.

    “Wrong,” laughs Journey lead guitarist/songwriter/co-founder Neal Schon .”Wrong!”

    Even though I had been playing Journey on the radio starting with “Of a Lifetime” from their 1975 debut, 90% of  Journey fans first heard and saw the band because of the songs on their fourth effort Infinity , including “Lights”,”Feeling That Way”,”Anytime”, “Wheel in the Sky”, and “Patiently”. Yet two vital facts seem to elude the rock history revisionists: Journey had already tried, unsuccessfully, to be more commercial by shortening their songs on their third album, Next. And in band co-founder Gregg Rolie, “Journey already had a lead singer,” Steve Perry emphasizes in my classic rock interview, “I wasn’t brought in to replace anyone.” Truth be told, band manager Herbie Herbert had already tried to bring in an outside singer, Robert Fleischman (who even co-wrote “Anytime” and “Wheel in the Sky”) before Perry, so the odds of grafting any new singer onto this well-established quartet were slim and none.

    (From left: Gregg Rolie, Ross Valory, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Steve Perry)journey

    The significant points that seem to be most under-appreciated in the turnaround of Journey is the strong, instantaneous collaborative songwriting that Steve Perry provided, particularly with Neal Schon on “Lights”,”Patiently”, and “Somethin’ to Hide”. Subsequent studio albums Evolution  and Departure  contained hits “Just the Same Way”,”Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’ “, and “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love)”. And as America would soon learn after Infinity‘s 1978 release, Perry was an excellent front man in concert, not anchored behind a bulky Hammond organ like Rolie, energetic and seemingly effortless in singing over 170 shows on the barnstorming Infinity tour.  – Redbeard

  • Journey- Escape- Neal Schon- Jonathan Cain- Steve Perry

    Journey- Escape- Neal Schon- Jonathan Cain- Steve Perry

    Barely eighteen months into the Eighties, the hard-charging San Francisco juggernaut Journey unveiled a defining album for the decade with Escape in July 1981, containing “Don’t Stop Believin’ “,”Stone in Love”, “Who’s Crying Now”,”Open Arms”, and “Mother, Father”. For the fortieth anniversary of this timeless effort, the Journey songwriting triumvirate of Steve Perry, founding guitarist Neal Schon, and new recruit then Jonathan Cain all recall their daring Escape here In the Studio. I first interviewed Chicago-born-and-raised California transplant Jonathan Cain in Memphis in April 1979 after he joined The Babys as keyboard player, one of  two new Americans in the London band fronted by John Waite. When they returned a year later as opening band on the entire 1980 Journey tour, I treated Cain and Waite to dinner at rib palace The Rendezvous immediately following their impressive concert performance earlier that evening. Both Cain and Waite were practically euphoric: they knew that Journey had been on a roll since 1978’s breakthrough Infinity album, giving The Babys a once-in-a-career opportunity to play in front of 10,000 Journey fans every night; and Cain and Waite both felt that their band was kicking the headliner’s butt !

    According to this classic rock interview, apparently this was not going unnoticed by at least several of the members of Journey. You see, rarely do any headliners emerge from their dressing rooms to stand side stage in the shadows to watch a support act perform, but Journey’s co-founding guitarist Neal Schon and impressive lead singer recruit Steve Perry were seeing The Babys in their rear-view mirror on their bumper every night of the tour. So when Journey co-founder keyboard player/singer Gregg Rolie announced that he was calling it quits and would need to be replaced before the next  album Escape,  Journey saw Jonathan Cain as a perfect example of the old adage (slightly modified), “If you can’t beat them…have them join you”. It is no coincidence that Journey’s first #1,”Open Arms”, was co-written by Jon Cain and appeared on Journey’s biggest-selling album to this day. As you will hear from Perry, Schon, and Cain, they responded with “Don’t Stop Believin’”,”Who’s Crying Now”,”Stone in Love”, the symphonic”Mother, Father”, and  the title song ! – Redbeard