Nanci Griffith & James Hooker – Gulf Coast Highway
Great Songs A beautiful, wistful portrait of enduring love clinging to a small piece of Texas coast. For those of us who came of age with the gentle, literate strains of what…
Secret Service – Flash In The Night
An Enduring Synth-Pop Ghost Story, Echoing the Melancholy of the Early Eighties. Ah, “Flash In The Night.” Just the name itself, with its metallic echo and urgent rhythm, instantly transports…
Secret Service – Ten O’clock Postman
An Irreplaceable Reminder of Anxious Hope in the Pre-Digital Age Oh, the memories this song evokes! It is a shimmering, perfectly crafted slice of late 70s/early 80s Euro Disco-Pop that…
Shaun Cassidy – Hard Love
The Echoes of a Hard-Won Heart: When Teen Idol Shaun Cassidy Dared to Bare His Soul Hard Love is an earnest rock ballad about the painful necessity of letting go…
Shaun Cassidy – Be My Baby
Shaun Cassidy and the Timeless Charm of Be My Baby In the late 1970s, few young performers captured the spirit of teen pop culture as successfully as Shaun Cassidy. Among…
Sheryl Crow & Emmylou Harris – Juanita
A Pilgrimage to the Cosmic American Soul: Sheryl Crow & Emmylou Harris’s “Juanita” The collaboration between Sheryl Crow and the queen of Cosmic American Music, Emmylou Harris, on the song…
Ted Nugent – Stranglehold
An Anthem of Pure Signal: The Clash Between Art and Commerce on the Airwaves For a generation raised on the sprawling, conceptual soundscapes of progressive rock, Rush’s “The Spirit of…
Cliff Richard – Wired for Sound
That Joyous Isolation: The Personal Soundtrack of a New Decade The infectious synth-pop pulse of “Wired for Sound,” released by the evergreen Cliff Richard in August 1981, perfectly captured a…
Shaun Cassidy – Cool Fire
When The Teen Dream Fades: The Electric Attempt to Catch a New Wave The burning realization that pure passion is needed to survive, in an era where past fame is…
Shaun Cassidy – It’s Like Heaven
Whispers of the Coast: The Unlikely Serenity of a Teen Idol’s Dream The ethereal, sun-drenched euphoria of young love, framed by the unmistakable, melodic touch of a pop genius. For…