Month: October 2018

Another new album on the way!

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There was an exciting announcement this week:

Another new album! I’m so incredibly astonished about the amount of music that my favorite rock star puts out! Since this is a “symphonic album of hits & new songs,” there will be some familiar tunes on this new album (hopefully “Souls” will be one of them – it sounded so beautiful in the clips I saw from his recent symphony concerts). But also some new songs! Whoo-hoo!

If any reporters come across this blog when preparing for an interview to run before the next Rick Springfield show in your town, please ask him about this!

RS orchestra

He explained in one fascinating interview how the process worked with the symphony. Unfortunately, I can’t find where that interview was. If I remember correctly, somebody annotated the music for his songs (is that the right word?) then the talented symphony musicians were able to play it with very little rehearsal. But what about the new songs? Did he still write them the same way he usually does, going  through the same process with the annotator (is that the right word?) or did he have the symphony instrumentation in mind when he wrote it? What are the new songs about? Are they more “Rocket Science” (which he has called his happiest album ever) or “The Snake King” (the opposite of “Rocket Science”)? We’d like some details, please.

A brief recap of the last few albums – all since I started this blog in August 2014:   acoustic (“Stripped Down”), country-influenced (“Rocket Science”) and blues-influenced (“The Snake King.”) And now one with a symphony orchestra. See why I’m so impressed (and why Rick Springfield fans are so incredibly lucky)?

 

Returning to 1980-something in a much different role

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Most Rick Springfield fans have probably already seen his guest appearance as the owner of “Gary-okes” on “The Goldbergs,” which aired on Oct. 10 on ABC. (If not, it’s on Hulu.)

In the show, he played Erica’s new boss and sang “Jessie’s Girl” with Beverly Goldberg.

Here are a few photos I took while watching the show on the night it aired.

The image showing “Gary” talking to “Erica” reminded me of the photo below from “Ricki and the Flash,” although in RATF, he was a boyfriend talking to his girlfriend about their children and during “The Goldbergs,” he was a boss talking to his employee about her mom.

MovieStill11

I liked his Gary character and it would be nice if it was a recurring role. I wonder if the name was intentional or a coincidence. (The real name of “Jessie” in “Jessie’s Girl” was a guy named Gary, in case you weren’t aware.)

Besides the duet of “Jessie’s Girl” between Gary and Beverly, the majority of the song played in the background during part of the show, which is probably a nice royalty hit for RS.

In the future, when I think of Rick Springfield’s appearance on “The Goldbergs,” I’m pretty sure I’ll remember that I saw him in concert the night before he filmed it.

Here’s the real songwriter of “Jessie’s Girl” playing his song at a real concert the night before he played the owner of a karaoke bar singing a karaoke version of the song at a karaoke bar on a TV show.

I prefer the real thing rather than the ’80s TV version (although I loved the authentic ’80s version when it was the ’80s), but it was a fun show to watch and my kids have gotten hooked on “The Goldbergs” so we’ve been catching up on the past three seasons.

According to an Instagram post,the jacket RS wore during part of the show was a replica of the jacket he wore in the “Jessie’s Girl” video back in 1981.

Rachel J Leathers said in her post:

The highlight of my week is to finally show the jacket I made for Rick Springfield for “The Goldbergs”. It was a replication of a jacket he wore in his video, “Jessie’s Girl” (remember that?). I used to drool over Rick in the 70’s, so this was a fun one! The snaps had to be done at the studio as my tools failed me. (Time for a kick press!) Thank you @jennifmarl and the crew!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BozYvevAwUY/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Pretty cool, eh? In interviews about the JG video, RS has said that they filmed it quickly without a permit and weren’t even sure why they were filming it (it was before MTV). Fun fact: “Jessie’s Girl” was the #1 song when MTV started. So it’s pretty funny that 30-something years later somebody is recreating the jacket he wore.

It’s also cool to think that the guy in the “Jessie’s Girl” video who was feeling a bit discouraged that he hadn’t hit it big yet would have his jacket recreated 30-something years later by a designer for a TV show where he would be playing a character named after the guy who became a character in his #1 hit song that he didn’t know would be a hit song when he recorded the demo in his living room using his ottoman as a drum. I know that’s a really long sentence, bur hopefully you get my point. #followyourdreams