Sad.
The first two Foreigner albums were staples of my formative years as a bassist. Saw them live on the Double Vision tour as well.
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ed-gagliardi-dies/
RIP Ed
RIP Ed. I played the crap out of the first two Foreigner albums as a teen.
Saw the first tour; played the Rainbow in London and introduced a new song called Hot Blooded... ;)
rip Ed...
Technically, Ed was the second bassist in Foreigner. The first guy was a kid I knew named Toby, also from the Rochester area like Lou Gramm. A decent bassist but a pothead. We both dated the same girl singer and were friends from that, both also being bass players.
He got booted out of the band when they were recording the early stuff and rehearsing....for blowing all his per diem cash on pot and then constantly bumming more from band members to eat on. DUH!
I was always surprised Lou didn't use his brother Dick/Richard to play bass. He was a guitarist first but also a decent bassist and easy to work with. He'd been on Capitol Records in Black Sheep with Lou pre Foreigner, played on Lou's solo stuff and then with Lou post Foreigner...
Maybe Mick Jones was afraid two brothers in the band might tip band control away from him?
Wasn't he in the Spys too? I always found that first Foreigner line up had a certain charm (also with that keyboarder) they never recaptured with later line ups. Those first two albums had still a bit of Prog in them - they lost that from the third album onwards and they dumbed/stripped down their music kind of like AC/DC. Of course, Foreigner 4 validated that approach commercially.
I saw them in November 1979 in Charlotte. I was really disappointed that Ed was not in the band. It was the Head Games tour and they had already replaced him with Rick Wills. Blackfoot opened. Very cool that he was right handed but learned to play lefty because of Paul McCartney.
Quote from: uwe on May 20, 2014, 03:23:19 PM
Wasn't he in the Spys too? I always found that first Foreigner line up had a certain charm (also with that keyboarder) they never recaptured with later line ups. Those first two albums had still a bit of Prog in them - they lost that from the third album onwards and they dumbed/stripped down their music kind of like AC/DC. Of course, Foreigner 4 validated that approach commercially.
You are correct....along with fellow booted out ex-Foreignner, keyboardist Al Greenwood.
Foreigner doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves, possibly due to the many member changes. It sold an incredible amount of records. The band had strong radio rock songwriting, good musicianship and one of the best rock vocalists ever. Lou Gramm definitely came from a Paul Rodgers influence but was, technically, a much better singer than Rodgers IMO. Actually, the first time I heard Lou Gramm sing live was at an outdoor local three-band show IN A CORNFIELD near Rochester, NY when he was still in his pre-Foreigner band Black Sheep....and the band did at least one Free cover tunes to round out the set.
Quote from: mc2NY on May 23, 2014, 03:50:58 AM
Foreigner doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves, possibly due to the many member changes. It sold an incredible amount of records. The band had strong radio rock songwriting, good musicianship and one of the best rock vocalists ever. Lou Gramm definitely came from a Paul Rodgers influence but was, technically, a much better singer than Rodgers IMO.
+1...
- georgestrings
Quote from: mc2NY on May 23, 2014, 03:50:58 AM
Foreigner doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves, possibly due to the many member changes.
It's not the member changes. They were unfairly branded "corporate rock" by the time "Head Games" was released, along with acts like Styx and REO. The punk and new wave movement was trying to claim high moral ground with that label, but the fact of the matter is that if you've got a multi-album deal with a major label, you're "corporate" too - even if you're The Clash.
I liked Foreigner a lot on high school but didn't hear any of the early stuff. As far as The Clash, I always thought they were overrated, though I liked some of the reggae stuff they would do.
I liked some of their songs, but live they weren't exactly a spectacle to watch - I saw them around the IV album, it didn't grip me (there was also zero improvisation to or deviation from the well-trodden studio tracks) and I believe I left before the encore (they played a festival as headliners with, inter alia, BÖC and Di Anno era-Iron Maiden, Kansas might have been there too). Possibly the first line up was more entertaining visually as both Gagliardi and Greenwood threw more shapes.
That said, Lou Gramm has had accolades heaped on him as a singer and Mick Jones can write a tune or two. And "Urgent" is probably the most played early eighties song. I remember Pete Goalby of Uriah Heep - himself no slouch as regards singing - saying in an interview that Gramm is his favorite singer because "nobody can sing as high as him without beginning to sound girlish. Steve Perry is good too of course, but when he hits those very high notes, he begins to sound a bit like a woman to me".
I sometimes think that if Bad Co was a black and white picture of Free, then Foreigner was a black and white pic of Bad Co. Each formation narrowed down the musical scope of its predecessor to be yet even more accessible.
I saw Lou Gramm solo comparatively recently. He can still sing though his voice has lost that helium quality - given his health issues (brain tumor treatment) it's a wonder that he is still alive, much less that he is back singing again. All luck to him.
I think the new guy singing in Foreigner does an excellent job and seems to be genuinely enthused to be in that band. Better hairline too, Lou had a touch of Marty Feldman about him. 8)
Of the "Great Four" late seventies/early eighties AOR bands, Journey is my favorite (that West Coast ingredient in their music, the soulishness of Perry's vocals) followed by Styx (though De Young's "broadway musical" voice is an acquired taste, it sometimes ventured in Barry Manilow territory) and Foreigner and lastly REO (a band with a good groove and instrumentalists, but Cronin's voice is even more an acquired taste for me than De Young's). But all those bands could play and wrote some real anthems - plus they are all still working entities.
But don't listen to me. I even like Loverboy. And Night Ranger. And just bought two Ambrosia CDs plus the two SPYS remasters (one of those albums always started out with some disco funk beefore the band launched into a faster rock track - I though that was kind of good-humored). I'm really despicable that way. :-\
Quote from: Denis on May 23, 2014, 05:49:24 AM
I liked Foreigner a lot on high school but didn't hear any of the early stuff. As far as The Clash, I always thought they were overrated, though I liked some of the reggae stuff they would do.
Clash as a band looked ultra-cool, all four of them. The production of their albums, however, left much to be desired. All too often tinny affairs.
A thought on Gagliardi - I always liked his proggish bass playing, but of course it got in the way of the sparse neo-Bad Co sound Mick Jones had in mind. Rick Willis - himself not a bad bassist at all, but more disciplined than Gagliardi - did what was required and not a note more. He was a lot more inventive with Roxy Music, David Gilmour and Steve Marriot/Humble Pie and God knows where he has played.
Quote from: uwe on May 23, 2014, 05:58:28 AMfollowed by Styx (though De Young's "broadway musical" voice is an acquired taste
Then you might love this...
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/former-queensryche-singer-geoff-tates-rock-and-vaudeville-performance-captured-on-video/
I still have this vision of a picture of Foreigner I saw in Circus magazine. Big stage (some multi-band outdoor thing). There was an extra drum kit for Gramm, and Ed was playing a lefty, greenburst Ric copy. RIP sir...
I don't know if Foreigner ever really WAS a "band", but if they were, that definitely ended before their third record came out. It basically became the Jones/Gramm project. Gramm was a phenomenal singer, but I think I might have been born with an allergy to AOR. I remember being 13, having just started playing bass, when Foreigner and Journey suddenly hit the airwaves. Even as a little know-nothing, something didn't sound right to me. It just seemed totally contrived. I think "commercial" was the word I used. Then I had to live through it all in high school with REO, Loverboy, Billy Squire... Hated it all at the time, as I was digging back into old 70s prog. 8) No offense meant, I'm just telling the story of a teenage kid! Looking back, I have MUCH more appreciation for a lot of that stuff now. Some really good songwriting and production going on. And now that I'm 50, I don't have to apologize for sounding like a grumpy old man - popular music in the new millennium BLOWS! I'd like to fire bomb Max Martin's place (kidding...). I'm kind of enjoying the new trend of re-hashed 70s rock and roll - Rival Sons, Winery Dogs, California Breed, Moonkings...
You're in good company, when AOR was in its heyday, I was always derisive about it. But it has more musical longevity than I thought back then.
Funny how as time goes by, things you thought weren't so good start to sound a lot better by comparison to what's new. I have so much more appreciation now for bass lines like on the first Boston album for example than I did when I wanted everything to be trebly and mixed way loud.
Quote from: gearHed289 on May 27, 2014, 09:22:14 AM
Funny how as time goes by, things you thought weren't so good start to sound a lot better by comparison to what's new. I have so much more appreciation now for bass lines like on the first Boston album for example than I did when I wanted everything to be trebly and mixed way loud.
Tom Scholz and his EB-0 thank you.