So, what have you been listening to lately?

[uwe]

This has been my favorite song by 38 Special for years.  I couldn't find a live version I liked.  So I just decided to post this. 

Great tune, co-written by the Survivor guy*** for the Southern Boys to finally have a hit and sung not by lead vocalist Donnie Van Zant, but one of the guitarists (also co-writers) for his more AORish voice (Don Barnes). How could you not post the official vid, a jewel of early 80ies cheese and All-American blondes**** in knotted blouses and (presumably) sprayed-on jeans?



I never grow tired of that song and its lovely chord descension. It's utterly bland AND brilliant! The guitar solo by the Explorer-wielding guy (Jeff Carlisi) is a master class in sleek US AOR melodicism with a Southern Rock twist.


***Jim Peterik, who also wrote Vehicle for The Ides of March (originally offered to Blood, Sweat & Tears, but inexplicably turned down by them) and, of course, Eye Of The Tiger.

****Shari Shattuck, who can still wear jeans and is these days a book author after a modeling and acting career.

[Dave W]

Jim Peterik, age 73 and still running around with purple hair.

[uwe]

True, his look is a bit on the unsettling Phil Spector side of things.

[uwe]

Four (-1) Non-Blondes doing a song I would not want to genre-categorize here ...

[gearHed289]

Not that it matters, but I never cared for 38 Special. I always felt they just had the Van Zant guy in the band to add some sort of "Southern street cred". And two drummers (ala Allman Bros)? For THAT kind of music???

[gearHed289]

I had a hard time with Graham's image, but he sure sounds great here. Love this tune. Guitarist and bassist seem familiar? 

[Pilgrim]

I don't know if he's playing gigs any more, he's at least semi-retired and living in Colorado. He was selling some of his vast fiddle collection one by one on eBay a few years ago, signed upon request.

But he was still moving around while playing as late as 2016. It's just his style.

There was a restaurant with his name on Highway 85 about 40 miles north of Denver for years.  (85 was the old N-S highway, I-25 made it a secondary highway) I noticed the name changed about 5 years ago.  I don't know how close his connection to it was.

[westen44]

From Jim Peterik:

"There was a lot of resentment that I was writing songs not only for Survivor, but I was writing them with .38 Special too. I'm talking about resentment from my own band, Survivor. What I tried to explain to them, which fell on deaf ears, was that the .38 songs would never have been right for Survivor. They came from another place in me and were very much a product of the synergy of Don Barnes, Jim Peterik and Jeff Carlisi. All they could see was competition on the charts from someone who wrote the songs for both bands. When .38 Special came in to write for the next record, I was kind of sneaking around. Survivor didn't even know .38 Special was in town. We had to find places to write songs. We couldn't go to the band house, and at my house, what if one of the guys stopped over? So we went to my mother's house and wrote in the basement. We were writing 'Caught Up In You' in this gloomy room in my mother's basement all dark and dank, and we're writing this hit song. I was feeling like the bad kid playing hooky or something." (Jim is author of the book Songwriting For Dummies.)

End of quote

Personally, I've got to say I'm not much of a fan of Survivor and really not much of 38 Special, either.  But I do very much like "Caught Up in You."  I guess the video to it is okay, but kind of out-of-place in today's world.  But that particular song always resonated with me a lot. 

[uwe]

I had a hard time with Graham's image, but he sure sounds great here. Love this tune. Guitarist and bassist seem familiar? 

I think they both played with Led Zeppelin once.

Graham's short hair and lounge lizard attire was an issue for me like for 10 seconds, his vocals, though high, were so manly. And I liked his laddishness and devil may care attitude on stage. I it was all new to him, he had never really toured for extended periods before and had never heard of Rainbow nor did he like hard rock.

I saw him win over a belligerent audience of Rainbow fans raised on their beloved Dio when he toured Germany with Rainbow for the first time. As he appeared on stage with his James Dean haircut, the dinner jacket, a Hawaii shirt and red trousers, they gasped for air, but he had them eating from his hand by the end of the first song (Eyes of the World).

But for you, Tom, here's the long hair version ...



Re .38 Special, yup, they weren't the most credible proponents of Southern Rock (but those tunes!), true, and very much a US phenomenon. Germany preferred Molly Hatchet at the time:



And Blackfoot!

[westen44]

I decided to buy the deluxe edition of Special Forces by .38 Special on CD.  I had never got any of their music before.  But it looks like it may be hard to get at some point.  Once you see used CDs selling for what you'd expect to pay for new, you know things may be starting to get scarce.  I got that one new.  I hate buying used but will if it's the only choice.  With some of these second-tier bands like .38 Special, you can't be sure how easy it will be to keep finding their music. 

[4stringer77]

Not that it matters, but I never cared for 38 Special. I always felt they just had the Van Zant guy in the band to add some sort of "Southern street cred". And two drummers (ala Allman Bros)? For THAT kind of music???

Larry Junstrom, the bass player, was the original bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd before Leon Wilkeson. He did great work on the song "Rockin' into the night". YouTube won't let me post because I have an adblocker on my desktop at work. Anybody else dealing with the same issue? Any solutions?

[westen44]

Here are live and studio versions of the song. 

[westen44]

.38 Special playing "Around and Around" at Winterland 1977.  No, they were never on the Allman Brothers level to be sure.  Or Lynyrd Skynyrd.  But I would definitely put them ahead of the Marshall Tucker band.  I sure wish I could have seen them at Winterland instead of the Marshall Tucker concert I once went to because of friends insisting on it.  (I mentioned this years ago on another thread.)

[Dave W]

That's more than enough .38 Special for me, thanks.

Aside from all his other big country hits, Don Gibson's songwriting royalties from I Can't Stop Loving You and Sweet Dreams were enough to make him wealthy.

[westen44]

Underrated Canadian guitarist Frank Marino.  Unfortunately, Marino is too ill to play in public anymore.