Can you believe it’s time for another year-end wrap-up? It seems like just yesterday that RS was donning a cowboy hat and letting his hair go gray for a role that never came to be. But that was already a year ago!
Not only are we as the world wrapping up a year, we’re also wrapping up a decade. Bye to the teens and hello to the 20s. I don’t know why, but 2020 seems like it’s going to be a good year. Just the sound of it – 2020. That number seems to evoke clarity and wisdom (20/20 vision and 20/20 hindsight). Hopefully that will be the case. Wouldn’t it be great if we could learn from the past and not repeat the same stupid things over and over again?
Anyway, soon we say farewell to 2019 and welcome 2020.
Here’s a look at the past year, as it pertains to the subject of this blog.
As mentioned above, 2019 started with a cowboy hat and gray hair. He soon went back to dark brown, but not before the sophisticated and debonair cover photo for “Orchestrating My Life,” the CD release this year of Rick Springfield hits performed with a symphony orchestra.
January also included a performance at Graceland and the addition of “Jailhouse Rock” to the set list.
“Orchestrating My Life” came out in April. This album brought “World Start Turning” to the set list which is such a beautiful song that I wasn’t familiar with back in the day.
In May, his parents’ former home in Australia was one of the stops on a public art bus tour that included a group of singers dressed like Ron on the cover of “Working Class Dog” and lots of bull terriers.
This year RS also continued speaking about depression, participating in the #MyYoungerSelf campaign for the Child Mind Institute. This was also a year where I was told that my youngest child potentially may have a tendency for depression so RS speaking out about it has been helpful for me on a personal level as well.
June was a nice RS month for me, as I got to see him in concert (#14) from the second row (“A spritz of happiness at Wild Horse Pass“) and heard “Souls” live for the first time I could remember. (It’s possible I heard it back way back when, but I don’t recall.)
This year brought a milestone birthday for the rock star – the big 7-0. (And my big 5-0). The fans behind the Rick Springfield Birthday Campaign did a great job celebrating and raised $34,170 for the Linda Blair Worldheart Foundation, which helps rescue dogs. (And I won a calendar of fantastic concert photos and an EFX prize packet – thank you to those who gave those prizes!)
Rick Springfield 2020 calendar 
August pics ‘cuz it’s my birthday that month 
EFX package
Mr. Springthorpe also became an ordained minister so he could marry off his guitarist. (His youngest son also got married this year, but I’m not sure if he also officiated at that wedding.)
And here we are already in December, when him playing piano was added to the Stripped Down set list “Sing us a song, piano man“).
What’s coming in 2020? I can’t say for sure, but we’ve heard things in the works include a sequel to “Magnificent Vibration” and another novel and that he’s been working on more new songs. Plus there’s the fan trip in Cancun in May that was the postponed trip from November this year in Punta Cana and a summer tour with the band Chicago.
(In case there is anybody out there that has even an iota of interest, I’ve written lots of new songs this past year and even spent an afternoon in a recording studio, which was pretty exciting even if it wasn’t the Black Lagoon in Malibu.)
To go with the end-of-the-year theme, here’s the blog recap, as of 10 a.m. on Dec. 31: In 2019, there were 11,384 views from 7,165 visitors (All-time stats are 49,523 views by 29,641 visitors and this is post #403, the 34th post of 2019.)
Why do I include these numbers? Partly because they’re there and if somebody took the time to figure out how to measure them I thought I’d share since nobody else will so I don’t want to let that person’s efforts go to waste. And also partly in wonder because only one person read my ramblings in my high school notebook journals (me) so it’s kinda fun to know that there are people out there actually reading this.
Happy 2020! May it be a great year!
My Rick Springfield crush 