It’s always good to take a peek back at our early beginnings to remind us where we came from and how precious each step along the way was to determining who we eventually became.
I find it quite perplexing why some people would try to disconnect themselves from their past, fearing that it may make them look less cool, not tied into the current modern trends or seem totally irrelevant. In my case, while I loved every kind of music growing up and dance music was my passion and I am grateful every day for how wonderful that John Waite has treated me and the incredible men and women it has allowed me to connect with over my lifetime as friends, peers and great artists.
However, I find that if you put the same work in today, giving the same effort you did the day you began in this industry, you will never be irrelevant or displaced and in fact you have a great advantage because you bring the knowledge of what’s going on with a historical perspective you have lived through. That is quite a powerful combination for anyone who wants to be great and stay in this business for perpetuity. So, with that being the case, I offer you this picture looking back at how we used to receive new music for consideration at the Radio and club levels as well.
Those of you who are fans of this great industry will recognize right off that this became one of the top groups of the day but early on needed to start to their career which this release gave to them. The music did not come in an MP3 or wave, it did not come on a CD or deck it was delivered to us on a real to real analog tape containing the one song and the telephone number we could call for the promotion person or record label that sent it to us if we were interested in playing the song in finding out more about the group. Here is a little reflection from our early days to show you that everyone had to start somewhere and in this case this duo came out with their amazing song on a newer growing label formed by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss called A&M Records. Here is the 1978 original 7 1/2 IPS analog reel to reel tape are Bell and James with their very first effort which blew up at radio with a little song called Living It Up (Friday Night)!
I guess you might say my ears were pretty good because I kept this tape, lol, all these years after I had written about it, made my copies for a play at the clubs and distribution through the Boston Record Pool.
Especially at this time of year, it’s important to be grateful for everything you have and all the opportunities you were given by others growing up.