Eddie Money – Synonymous with Late 70s Hard Rock.
Diving into the 70s this Friday Lunch with a set from Eddie Money, recorded at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco and broadcast by KSAN-FM on October 8, 1977.
In case you don’t already know, Eddie Money was a singer/songwriter who had his greatest commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s. Money had eleven Top 40 singles, starting with “Baby Hold On” in 1977 and including the Billboard Top 10 hits “Take Me Home Tonight” (1986) and “Walk on Water” (1988). Critic Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times called him a working-class rocker. In 1987, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Take Me Home Tonight”.
At a time when Rock music was in a state of flux (when is it ever not?), there was still a major place for Hard Rock and ballads in the rapidly fracturing scene at the time. Eddie Money fit right in. Although a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, Eddie Money moved to Berkeley in the late 1960s and started getting noticed by Bill Graham who routinely booked him, which led to a number of gigs around the Bay Area. It also led to signing with Columbia Records, and his debt album in 1977 (two months after the date of this gig) was a career definer with “Baby, Hold On To Me” saturating West Coast airplay for months and cementing Eddie Money as an artist with a future.
Coinciding with the birth and howling success of MTV, Eddie Money was a shoe-in and he became a staple of the channel, competing with the Duran-Duran’s, Pet Benatar’s and Men At Work’s for saturation viewing rights.
As the 80s progressed, Eddie Money’s star began to fade by 1983, only to be revived by the late 80s and another string of hits continuing throughout the 90s.
This afternoon it’s back to the early point; two months before things got rolling.
Crank it up and enjoy – it’s Frida and the 70s after all.
