Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GPACt4

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3ifqm2O

1

If you want to know what it was like to be alive in 1965, you must listen to the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ album “Live at the Fillmore 1997.”

Now let me state right up front this 72 track package only embellishes Tom and the band’s image. This is not detritus, this is not the milking of the Hendrix vaults, one listen and you’ll marvel that these tracks weren’t released previously, when Tom was still alive.

It’s tough to be in a classic rock act. Because the people paying high prices for tickets only want to hear the hits, you end up becoming a human jukebox, thinking about doing your laundry while you sing well-worn numbers. You’re playing your instrument, but you’re no longer a musician, certainly not an artist, you’re just a nostalgia vessel. Set in amber. The music is more for the audience than yourself.

But not Tom Petty’s string of dates at the Fillmore back in ’97.

One wonders whether Tom could have sold out arenas at that point. The band had put out an album the year before, but its success was impeded by the fact that it was the soundtrack to a stiff movie, “She’s the One,” even if Ed Burns had credibility and a track record. Never hitch your wagon to a movie by cutting a soundtrack, best example is Wang Chung and William Friedkin’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” Possibly Wang Chung’s best work, the actually pretty good movie went almost unseen, even though it featured Willem Dafoe, but this was before most people knew his name. Wang Chung had had two big, credible hits with “Don’t Let Go” and most especially “Dance Hall Days,” but the band lost momentum with the soundtrack and when they ultimately returned to the charts with “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” they were seen as a disposable pop band playing to the audience and the act was done, there was one more album, but it made no waves, it didn’t radiate. (Sure, the act reunited decades later, but who doesn’t?) And I recommend “To Live and Die in L.A.” for the freeway chase and for the music, but… I’m just saying that Tom Petty was in a lull and it being the beginning of the internet era aficionados knew the band played for weeks at the Fillmore, but they never heard the music.

Until now.

Tom Petty is showing his roots.

This is how it worked. We were all listening to the radio before the Beatles hit, but when the lads from Liverpool broke we grew our hair, bought instruments and tried to replicate their sound and success. And most eventually gave up, but some soldiered on and succeeded, like Tom Petty. But those songs are embedded in all of our brains. Even more we have memories. Of school dances. Of bar mitzvahs. Where the local bands played the hits of the day. If you were there, you remember this vividly. And when listening to “Fillmore, 1997,” one thing is for sure, Tom Petty was there too.

2

Most people did not know Van Morrison wrote “Gloria,” never mind releasing the initial version with his band Them on Parrot records. It got no airplay in America, maybe Tom knew it, after all he had that radio show about buried treasure, but the rest of us first heard the number in its cover version by the Shadows of Knight in the aforementioned ’65. And not only was the track infectious, it was simple, you could play its indelible riff at home, AND WE ALL DID!

Yes, the Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”… There were certain staples, and “Gloria” was one of them. Listen today and the Shadows of Knight version sounds like garage rock, something Lenny Kaye would feature in a compilation album, but back then it sounded positively modern.

And dark.

That’s one thing that’s been lost in this century. The darkness. Actually, Tom Petty has a song “Straight Into Darkness.” Our influences were English. A country which hadn’t quite switched from black and white to color. Where it rained. A land that was more cerebral than physical. And we are living in a physical era today. For all the glorification of tech thinkers, it’s got more to do with how you look, just check out social media.

And this darkness was a feature of Tom and the Heartbreakers from the very beginning, “American Girl” might be the song people remember most from the debut, but it’s the quieter numbers that reached me, like “The Wild One, Forever,” which is on this “Fillmore” set, and “Luna.” The debut is less about a star and more about a fan with confidence making his statement.

Not that I want to minimize the contributions of the band. That’s one thing about the mix, Benmont Tench really shines, and the dearly departed Howie Epstein too. As for Mike Campbell, without him is there a Tom Petty?

Now if you know your Petty history, the band broke first in the U.K. The debut made barely a dent in the U.S. until…the live version of “Breakdown.” It started on the west coast, on the free format KROQ, and then spread to the traditional AORs, and then, eventually across the country. Let me put this in focus. The initial LP was released in November of ’76 and I saw the band at the Whisky in August of the following summer and I had no problem getting a ticket. As a matter of fact, the mania didn’t really hit until “Damn the Torpedoes.”

Anyway, if you remember that live version of “Breakdown,” it had an incredible groove, but it was the way Tom talked in the middle that put it over the top.

Like in “Gloria.”

3

There are a ton of covers on “Fillmore, 1997.” As a matter of fact, the set opens with a version of “Around and Around.” Chuck Berry wrote it, but released it in 1958, and therefore many baby boomers had never been exposed to it, the first they heard it was on the second Rolling Stones album. And then there was that version that David Bowie did live at the end of the “Ziggy Stardust” shows. There’s a movie and an album, but believe me when Bowie came out and sang the song with the houselights up at the Boston Music Hall…that’s the definitive version for me.

The next cover is Little Richard’s “Lucille,” but I prefer the number that comes after it, “Call Me the Breeze.” Sure, it was written by J.J. Cale, but the version most people heard first was the cover that closed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Second Helping” back in 1974. Skynyrd may have been based in Jacksonville as opposed to Gainesville, but be sure Tom was aware of their cover, everybody who listened to the radio was, the performance here is an homage to his Florida compatriots.

And there’s a cover of “Time Is on My Side.” And even “You Are My Sunshine” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Even an almost unrecognizable at first version of “Friend of the Devil.” The band kills on “You Really Got Me,” almost as good as the Kinks’ original, and that’s saying something. And listening you wonder…how many times did Tom play this coming up?

And then GOLDFINGER?

James Bond is a joke now. Sure, Daniel Craig returned some gravitas, but you’ve got to know the real breakthrough was “Goldfinger.” Almost nobody saw “Dr. No,” “From Russia With Love” more and then…”Goldfinger” was a phenomenon! You sat in the theatre mouth agape, you took the film totally seriously, you weren’t laughing, you could barely eat your popcorn, after all we were still in the cold war.

And speaking of instrumentals (there are no vocals on this version of “Goldfinger”), there’s a take on “Green Onions,” one thing is for sure, Tom Petty was addicted to the radio, that transistor we all possessed, the iPhone of its day.

But it’s the run at the end of the package that is the piece-de-resistance. Starting with “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” anything but a throwaway single from the greatest hits package.

Well, we can go back even further, “Shakin’ All Over” and “Free Fallin'” precede “Mary Jane”…

But let’s just start with the track after “Mary Jane,” “Johnny B. Goode.” EVERYBODY knew this number, if for no other reason than the Beach Boys’ cover!

And then comes “SATISFACTION!” I’d like to tell you it’s better than the Stones’ version, but it’s not. But it’s so energetic and brief it leaves you wanting more.

And then a cover of the Stones’ cover of the Bobby Womack song “It’s All Over Now,” even though for me the definitive version is Rod Stewart’s on “Gasoline Alley.”

The band is in the moment. It’s not studied. They’re playing on instinct. These numbers are in their DNA. And if you were conscious back in the mid-sixties they’re in yours too.

In any event, as much energy has been expended previously, the band is building to a climax, and the following number is…

LOUIE LOUIE! Two songs that everybody played… “Wipe Out” on the drums, or the table at school, and “Louie Louie,” which everybody was convinced had bad words that were slurred and buried so the track wouldn’t be banned, there was no internet to verify this rumor back then. But everybody with a guitar played the chords to “Louie Louie” and…

“Gloria.”

4

“Want to tell you about my baby

You know she come around”

The guitar is so right, so in the groove, you’re jetted right back to then.

“About five feet four

From her head to the ground”

Today she’d be 5’10”. Tall and skinny is everything. But most women are not skyscrapers, and most women are not that thin, the ideal was different back then, well, there was Twiggy, but not everybody wanted to be a model and if you were normal…you were desirable. (I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, you still are. Diet for your girlfriends, not the boys.)

And her name is…

G

L

O

R

I

A

GLORIA!

Eventually the audience sings along, but after this first rendition of the chorus the track breaks down, this is when Tom starts to tell the story. And it’s not brief. And the audience is fully engaged. There’s call and response vocals. You’re just pissed that you’re not there.

And she ignores him.

And now Tom is Tom, he’s no longer in the Shadows of Knight, never mind in Belfast with Van Morrison.

And then Tom starts to pursue her, he’s testing the limits, he keeps asking for her name. Gloria starts running away, but he won’t let go, he keeps calling out to her. And twenty five years later all that’s going through your brain is you can’t get away with this anymore.

And then Gloria turns around and calls him a fool. Which blew my mind, because we never used this term up north, but my girlfriend from Tallahassee used it ALL THE TIME!

And now there’s a conversation. She wants nothing to do with Tom, she wants a man with career opportunities, not a scruffy guy in sneakers.

And then Gloria busts him, asks him if he knows how politically incorrect it is to chase a woman down the street for her name. And Tom sheepishly admits he knows this, but he testifies as to being so overcome by her beauty and presence that he thought they could get something going on.

And now Gloria is in charge, she has the upper hand. She’s got places to go and things to do, and certainly doesn’t want a man who lays around the house all day playing cards. She continues to put him down. And then…

Tom regains his confidence, talks about having this rock and roll thing. He’s got money coming in. As a matter of fact, he’s got a show down at the Fillmore.

And then everything changed. She started to look at him in a different way.

That’s the power of rock and roll. Not anymore, but back then. Before the internet. Before the billionaires. When rock stars were as rich as anybody, but even better they hewed to their own inner tuning fork and made their own rules, they were the essence of freedom, and they were artists, singing their songs.

And this is when the audience starts singing GLORIA! GLORIA! GLORIA!

It feels so good.

The band comes back in…

GLORIA…G-L-O-R-I-A!

And then there’s that legendary riff, the one that closed the original record, albeit a bit extended, and then the song is over, WHEW!

The track ends and Tom Petty ascends into the stratosphere. He’s no longer a seventies rocker, in the shadow of those from the sixties, rather he’s a part of the firmament, their equal, with his face chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of rock.

5

I only found out about “Live at the Fillmore, 1997” Monday. It was not jammed down my throat. It’s almost a stealth release. And it’s made for the fans, not the gatekeepers. It’s not about picking a single and promoting it to radio, it’s about fans playing it and then continuing to play it when friends are over the house and the infection spreading like Covid. Only with music the infection never fades away.

“Live at the Fillmore, 1997” is really something, it’s an achievement.

Trust me!

Thank you for shining a light on the great Paul Davis. My mother Ilene Berns signed Paul to my father’s Bang Records label shortly after his death in 1967, presiding over a decade of hits that included “Ride ‘Em Cowboy,” “Sweet Life” and “I Go Crazy,” which once held the record for the longest chart run on the Billboard Hot 100. “Cool Night” and “65 Love Affair’ were his last releases as a pop artist, after which he moved to Nashville and wrote a number of country hits for the likes of Tanya Tucker and Dan Seals. Paul was a true father figure to my siblings and I, and a musical genius the world knows little about.

Born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1948, Paul had a regional hit with “Mississippi River” in 1969 that caught my mother’s attention. She had inherited a label with no artists, as Van Morrison and Neil Diamond left Bang immediately after my father’s death, and brought Paul up to New York City to record my dad’s first hit, “A Little Bit of Soap,” using the same studio musicians that my father worked with during his epic 7-year run. Too broke to pay Paul a signing bonus, she gave him my dad’s convertible Jaguar XKE. Not long afterward, we moved south to Atlanta where my mother relocated Bang Records, built the legendary WEB IV Studios, and brought Paul to Georgia. The rest is history. Paul Davis would become one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his time.

Unfortunately, Paul’s legacy is also among the most obscure of that era. Due to a fear of flying, he never properly toured. And a deep shyness kept him out of the public spotlight. Paul’s sudden death a day after his 60th birthday put stop to his extraordinary musical output. But to those in the know, Paul Davis’ expansive body of work is as rich and diverse as any of his peers. And like my father, who has been left out of the Song Hall, Paul Davis deserves to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Brett Berns

Director

BANG! The Bert Berns Story

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Thank you for remembering the genius that was Paul Davis.

“I Go Crazy”, “Ride ‘em Cowboy”, “65 Love Affair”, “Cool Night”………..lot of hits there.

I had the pleasure of working “65 Love Affair”…………IF my memory is correct, it was originally “55 Love Affair”…..Clive got him to change it to 65.

Mike Bone

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So great to remember Paul Davis.

Paul was an incredibly generous and kind person. At the time in the late 70s and early 80s Atlanta was struggling to find its mark in the music recording business, but Paul and engineer/producer Ed Seay at Web IV Studios we’re making a real go of it.

Web was just a few doors down from the studio I worked at, and it was a real treat to be able to ring the bell and be let, no matter what time of night it was.

Later on I worked on some songs with his backing band. Paul came in to do some backing vocals and the vibe was just so incredibly pure, peaceful and REAL!

He passed away too early in 2008, but his influence was so perfect.

Will Eggleston

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Paul was a quiet and shy guy. He is gone before his time.

We sat in his Atlanta basement studio with Ed Seay, his friend and producer, and marveled at their artistry.

Thanks for this, Bob.

Jon Sinton

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Here here Bob! I’ve been a songwriter/working musician for 40 years and there is something about
‘Cool Night’ that has always pulled me in…Like when it’s 3:30 pm and your driving and you just have to have a Big Mac..you pull into the Mac drive through in your own guilty pleasure world, sit in the parking lot savouring every bite.  I never bought the record..I don’t know anyone who did, but that song never gets switched when it comes on the radio…It has a secret sauce in it that is irresistible.  Most of my musician friends agree.  Simple soft rock genius.
Thanks for the piece
Geoff Gibbons
Vancouver BC

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Today’s message really struck me. In 1981, I was an “air personality” on an Indiana radio station (they didn’t like the term “disc jockey” as all the music was on carts). I was thunderstruck by a woman I met at an event and we married just ten weeks later. “Cool Night” was in heavy rotation then. I worked my air shift on Friday and every listener knew I was getting married that night. As I came out of “Cool Night,” I called my soon-to-be wife on the air to tell her the weather forecast for our honeymoon the next few days in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

 

Unfortunately, I had “Cool Night” on so loud over the studio speakers, she didn’t hear me say, “We’re going on the air…” and when I told her what the weather was going to be, she responded…live on air…”Honey, how much time are you planning to spend outside, anyway?”

 

I heard about that – and lines like “How ‘cool’ were your nights in Tennessee?” — for the first year of our marriage!

 

Life changes. Paul Davis is gone, as you mentioned. My wife passed from cancer 25 years after our wedding. “I Go Crazy” is a Paul Davis song that helped get me through that.

 

We will all deal with loss. You don’t “get over” it…you will “go crazy” from time to time…but you have to move forward. And music will help you do just that.

 

Scott McKain

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Wow. What a flashback, Bob.

My parents would go out to dinner on Saturday nights, leaving kid me with a babysitter and a night of junk tv…

(CHiPs, Love Boat, Fantasy Island)…

Except “Solid Gold,” which gave a suburban, budding musician in the making a listen to the current pop hits, and a peek at the coolest new keyboard gear.

(“Who cared if they were lip-synching? Did you see that Prophet-5?” I would say in protest to my friends).

I remember this video like it was yesterday. It’s still a great song. And he died way too soon.

Jon Regen

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All of this is spot on!…particularly Steely Dan not being Yacht Rock (not a chance how did they ever get lumped into that) I’ll fight people over this …lol

Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” a song I may have despised in my youth, is in fact a Masterpiece upon reflection

And album budgets!…back in my major label days we would send a band into the studio for months or at least a month, now as a label owner myself, we’re lucky if we can do 7-10 days in the studio, but thanks to pre-production and home studios these days, sometimes that’s enough…but to your point, no one is going in making Pet Sounds or or spending a day on the cymbal sounds anymore.

Best

Brian Hetherman

Cerberus Mgmt / Curve Music

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For those of us born in the late 60’s to early 70’s, soft rock/yacht rock music was a staple of our youth. We were trapped in the back of our parent’s station wagon and we were constantly subjected to Ambrosia, Little River Band, Bread, and yes Paul Davis. We hated it at the time but it sunk in to our brains and it stuck. It stuck so well that now we subject our children to those same songs and they (begrudgingly) love them too. Songs like “Cool Night” are best enjoyed on a Sunday morning with fresh coffee and the New York Times. It’s like a warm blanket.

For your consideration this Sunday morning, I have this playlist that I made which is in the top 1% of the most popular on Spotify. It only has 500 likes which says something about user generated playlists on Spotify but I’m proud of it nonetheless.

Thanks for a great post about the greatest guilty pleasure music ever.

Alex Cobb

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So you made me listen to I Go Crazy back to back with Same Old Lang Syne. It could be the same piano on both songs. They are as mushy as it gets but perfect nonetheless. Both Paul Davis and Dan Fogelberg died too young.

Merck Mercuriadis

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I grew up near Salem, Mass in the late 70s where there was nothing to do at night except cruise around with my friends and do bong hits. I drove a real s..tbox, but — bizarrely — it came with a Blaupunkt radio and quad speakers. My friends and I would drive to nowhere and back, going up and down the radio dial from WBCN to WAAF (I think those were the call letters), singing to Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Humble Pie, Ten Years After. But when Toto came on the radio, we’d get quiet, hopefully we’d be driving on some country back road, and we’d all sing to ourselves.

‘Cool Night’ … I couldn’t place it. Then I got to the lyrics at end of your email and I started singing out loud. I don’t know why but it made me think of ‘Guitar Man’ by Bread, a song I used to sing while spinning in circles in a Big Wheel before I learned how to ride a bike.

What a nice way to wake up. Thank you Bob.

Pamela Harris

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Wow man…

46 + years in as a professional musician and you think I have thin skin and I am weak?? Like i cant stand the fire? Come the f..k on…..

Thanks for making me sound like a little baby dick.

Steve Lukather

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Can you imagine Paul Davis’ career if he was not on Bang Records?
Stan Goman

You think about politics all the time but you don’t want to.

No matter how much money you make you feel like you’re falling behind because of inflation.

You like that you can Google everybody you’ve ever known to find out what they’re up to, but you don’t want to contact them and you don’t want them to contact you.

You watched so much streaming TV during lockdown that you’re scrounging for quality new stuff but not finding it.

You cannot trust people’s streaming TV recommendations. They’ve seen little, and what they’ve seen they always say they loved.

If you haven’t seen “Game of Thrones” you’re considered defective. I know, because I haven’t.

You can’t wait for driverless cars, even more you can’t wait to not own a car at all, to just have one show up at your doorstep when you need to go somewhere.

Want more human contact, but don’t want to leave the house to get it.

Are addicted to something online that you don’t want to tell anybody about.

Keep going back to the old and familiar because life today is just too complicated, with too many offerings and choices.

You not only ignore the advertising by the big companies, but the advertising of the online influencers. Your most trusted source on products is Amazon reviews.

Hate the airlines, the whole experience of flying, from gate to gate.

Are worried about speaking your truth to an unknown person for fear they might become violent.

Have thought about not going someplace because of potential crime.

Hear most about climate change from polluters.

Wish there was a musician who you could follow for insight and advice but can’t find one. The rock musicians of yore were sages. The pop musicians of today are empty vessels whoring themselves out to the highest bidder.

Have the history of recorded music at your fingertips, but find it nearly impossible to discover new music that you like. 

Are worried to say you have anything and have gone anywhere for fear you’ll be criticized by those who have not. Unless you’re super-wealthy and live in a bubble where you never encounter those without.

Are sick of hearing what the billionaires think.

Don’t want to get Covid, even though you think you’ll survive.

Are sick of ignorance, or are ignorant. Furthermore those most confident in their opinions are those who know the least.

Keep being told to buy new tech products when the old still work just fine.

Are on backlash against the health nuts. As my doctor told me, is life worth living if you can’t eat a donut?

You feel inadequate.

You crave humanity yet hate humanity.

You live for the unexpected.

Are sick of hearing about people’s pedigrees, where they went to college, who their friends are, their advantages…what has that got to do with who you really are?

Everybody wants to be famous, but you can be famous and not rich and fame lasts for a shorter period of time than ever before.

The company does not want you on its payroll. They want you to be an independent contractor, yet pledge undying fealty when in truth they’ll axe your ass on a whim.

The financialization of everything drives you wild. Wall Street owns the parking meters, the residential market, it seems like everybody’s getting rich from everyday things except you.

You’re sick of the Luddites. Life has been moving at warp speed for thirty years yet there are people still wanting to go back to the past, which is never returning.

You’re sick of people criticizing online addiction/behavior when in truth these oldsters, and they’re all oldsters, would have been addicted to these same gadgets if they were young themselves.

There are so many concerts in your city that it’s all just become a blur. You used to want to see all of them, now you wonder if you should see any of them.

Are sick of people telling you how to improve yourself…what to eat, what to think, as if everybody on earth is a therapist and what works for one person will work for another when this is patently untrue.

Love that you never have to be bored, a plethora of stimulation is at your fingertips. However, you might be one of only a few consuming it. So if you want to talk about it with your friends…

Don’t understand why people still go to the movies, unless they’re young and need to get out of the house and/or are on a date. We live in an on demand culture and movies have specific starting times that never fit into your schedule and if you do go you end up wasting so much time in the process.

Realize that time is the only true commodity and you don’t want to waste it.

You feel priced out of something.

There is a club, but you feel like you’re not in it, and no matter what you do you will never become a member.

Are told there’s always something better around the corner, to be nimble and move on when in truth there is so much power in perseverance, staying the course, it’s just that it’s not sexy.

You know that almost all actors are empty vessels. The internet has revealed this.

Are unaware of who the people in the gossip columns are, and it’s not only the oldsters, the youngsters don’t know who they are either.

Hear everybody talking about SNL but you don’t even know who the host is. Oh, you read their name, but then ask yourself WHO?

Credibility is expendable. This is the head-scratching part of politics, elected officials with no backbone who will say and do whatever is expedient.

You know more people than ever, are in contact with more people than ever, but are constantly worried about who you can trust.

Are either smoking marijuana and have bought into the cannabis is king and will solve all your problems mania or have not, there’s no in between.

Have friends giving you crackpot medical theories, as if medical school teaches you falsehoods. And the wealthier and more educated they are, the crazier the theories.

Don’t have a CD player in the house.

Probably don’t have a DVD player either.

Check your smartphone first thing when you wake up in the morning.

You keep being told what to do and you don’t do it.

Love to disconnect, but it’s harder than ever to do.

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3XtsPXv

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F1uo7U

1

I’m trying to remember where I heard “’65 Love Affair.” I mean it was a pop hit, and I never listened to AM radio. And then I remembered, back in the early eighties, when MTV broke, there was a new phenomenon, Top Forty on FM radio. Actually, it was a masterstroke, because the AOR stations were long in the tooth, set in their ways, and people were ready for something different, ergo KROQ, the ROQ of the Eighties, and I’m trying to remember the call letters, which I can’t, but I’m pretty sure the number was 100.3. And in the days of old you used to drive in your car pushing the buttons looking for music, something you wanted to stay on, something you didn’t want to instantly push away from. Sure, I had cassettes in the glovebox, but there was an immediacy of radio, back when we were all kind of on the same page and you could feel plugged in, now you listen to a podcast and don’t worry about anybody else.

“You sang do wop diddy wop diddy wop doo”

There used to be nonsense lyrics, especially in the early sixties, but even “The Boxer” had “lie-la-lie,” I always thought I just wasn’t catching the words, the single came out before the track appeared on the album “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

And then there’s the Beach Boys records and…

There was a sunniness to sixties AM stuff, before we all switched to FM and album rock at the end of the decade. And sure, there were some mindless tracks, but there were also some meaningful ones too.

“If I could go back again

Well I know I’d never let you go

Back with some of my friends

To that wonderful

’65 love affair”

Actually, those days weren’t so great. I don’t want to go back, whether it be with Eddie Money or anybody else. But there are some flashes, some memorable moments that come back when I hear songs like “’65 Love Affair.” I did have a ’65 love affair, with Jill at Camp Laurelwood. I looked her up online decades ago. She was instantly recognizable, she still looks the same. Not that I’m gonna make contact. This was long before Facebook, when everybody came out of the woodwork, became available, in the late nineties and early part of this century the internet was still new, not everybody was findable, but I still looked for all of ’em. But never made contact with any of them.

“If I could go back in time

Well, I know somehow you’d still be mine”

Actually, I doubt it. I stole her from Jimmy, and it wasn’t long after camp closed that she went back to him. But she’s part of my history.

Anyway, you know how it is with records, certain ones infect you and others do not, and we’re always looking for those that do, and it’s got little to do with expectations, little to do with what others say, we just know it when we hear it, like porn, like that old, and he was old, Supreme Court Justice said.

But Paul Davis… Wasn’t he some smooth popster? Could I really like a record by Paul Davis? But then I saw the album in the promo bin, one of the advantages of living in Los Angeles, and I bought it, and I’d play the track and it would always make me feel good.

2

“It’s gonna be a cool night”

You know, the kind of night when they’re playing tennis in “Goodbye Columbus,” during the summer, maybe late spring, when you might need a light jacket, if that, when the evening is full of possibilities.

So we were driving back from Thanksgiving at Monica’s listening to Yacht Rock Radio on SiriusXM. Felice leans towards the soft rock sound, but I dig it too. I quibble with some of the choices, I thought the term was supposed to be a pejorative, Steely Dan yacht rock? I don’t think so.

But if you do hear Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” you’d be stunned how good it sounds today.

And Felice was driving, and she switches stations if she doesn’t like something, and I saw in the readout that the next song was “Cool Night” and I immediately said I LOVE THIS SONG, both excited it was playing and sending a subconscious message not to change the channel.

“Come on over tonight

Come on over”

I realized they don’t cut music like this anymore, we haven’t only lost the classic rock sound, but soft rock, and despite all the put-downs, a lot of soft rock is damn good. I know Steve Lukather has a thin skin, so many people laying hate on on Toto, but in truth I turn the same station up every time I hear “99,” and that’s not the only one.

And yacht rock was never about slumming, the obligatory hair ballad on a hard rock record, the legendary example being Extreme and “More Than Words,” rather these were soft rock artists, this was their oeuvre.

Now one thing about soft rock, it was never cut on a budget. It took money and expertise to make the sound smooth, this was not a one take enterprise, labor was involved. So soft rock does not have the edge of Nirvana, never mind the sixties acts, but it was an outgrowth, a progression from what came before. The acts had grown up with the Beatles, they knew you had to write your own songs, so people would believe what you were singing, and you’d should be able to play too, if it was a studio concoction we were not interested, there was still some of that, but don’t confuse that was the soft rock sound, which had a place in the firmament, even its own station in L.A., KNX, 93.1.

“Come on over tonight

Come on over”

Tonight these words resonated like they never have before. No one comes over anymore, certainly not unannounced. And I’m no longer in my twenties or early thirties, with those love affairs you thought might be something more, urging or being urged to come over. And that feeling, of nascent love, that’s a cool night, that’s soft rock.

“And now summer’s come and gone

And the nights they seem so long”

This is a late fall/winter song. The light is fading and so is your mood, you start reminiscing about the past.

“Oh, I won’t talk about the past

How love’s supposed to last forever”

Wait, this is a set-up.

“And you don’t have to take a stand

Lay out any plans

Come on over tonight

Come on over”

This is a booty call song! That’s not the way I’ve always heard it. Like I wrote above, I always thought it was about possibilities, the future, but really it’s about one last go-round before you part forever, or do it once again some time in the indeterminate future.

So what we’ve got here is desire.

And really, that’s the feel of the song.

And whether that desire is consummated or not does not matter, it’s all about how the record affects you. And when I was listening to “Cool Night” tonight it set me free, the layers of frustration, that feeling of the world pressing in, all faded away. It was palpable. I started singing along. It made me think of the aforementioned possibilities, which is an optimism people my age have a hard time embracing, they’re on the downhill slide, their lives are set in stone, they’re just waiting to die.

And Paul Davis is dead, of a heart attack, long before his time. But “Cool Night” is positively alive, still ready to soothe and inspire. And when it does that it makes you happy, and it doesn’t matter how anybody else feels, you’re in your own mental bubble, nothing can go wrong in your world.

“It’s gonna be a cool night

Just let me hold you by the firelight

If it don’t feel right, you can go”

Yes, my mood is good. I don’t want you to impinge upon my trip. But if you want to join in, bond and have fun, I’m here to welcome you. Cast aside all your prejudices, your judgments, no one is watching, you might wear leather and studs outside, but inside, especially with your honey, by the firelight, this music just makes you feel good.

“It’s gonna be a cool night…”

P.S. I looked it up, it was KIQQ, 100.3.