The Hood Internet specializes in mash-up remixes and has been boiling down “The Year in Music” as YouTube videos, starting with 1979. That’s the latest up above, 1994 condensed to three and a half minutes. Sure, you remember Notorious B.I.G, but MC 900 Ft. Jesus too?
I’d guess your favorite remix will depend on when you graduated high school or found those 4-5 CDs that got you through your early 20s. I guess that’s why I’m partial to 1986.
I’ll confess though that the remixes get smoother as more hip-hop enters the pop charts and there’s more digital production.
If you heard “Call to the Heart” on the radio in 1985, it sure sounded like Journey – those vocals, those keyboards, – but it was actually Giuffria, five guys with big hair and tight pants out of Washington, DC. The first single off Giuffria’s eponymous album, “Call to the Heart” peaked at #15 on Billboard’s Hot 100. That put it three slots higher than “Foolish Heart” from Steve Perry, the guy who was actually in Journey.
Bandleader and keyboardist Gregg Giuffria later formed House of Lords and eventually moved into the casino business. He was even original co-owner of the Biloxi Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Guitarist Craig Goldy joined and left Dio several times. Bassist Chuck Wright had been in Quiet Riot before Giuffira, rejoined a few times, and is in the current touring version of the band. Drummer Alan Krigger toured with Ike Turner and is now in The Hollywood Allstarz with former members of Quiet Riot, Bonham, and Dio.
What about singer David Glen Eisley? He married actress Olivia Hussey in 1991 and has continued working as a singer and actor. In the late 1990’s, Eisley co-wrote and recorded “Sweet Victory,” a rock ballad that was released as part of a royalty-free library music package – songs available for commercials, TV, or movies. That’s how Eisley’s voice ended up in SpongeBob SquarePants’ mouth for the 2001 episode “Band Geeks.”
You won’t find “The Honeythief” on Duran Duran’s “Greatest” because it’s actually Scottish band Hipsway. Those synth stabs always make me think of The Art of Noise, but I can see how there’s bits of “A View to a Kill” or “Notorious” floating around in there.
I should write more about the career of singer and songwriter Dan Hartman, but here’s something quick. Dan’s most famous solo song is “I Can Dream About You” from the “Streets of Fire” soundtrack, hitting #6 in 1984. This is the version you heard on the radio and the video I remember from MTV. That’s Dan’s voice, though in the movie, you’d hear singer Winston Ford. The person who looks like he’s singing isn’t Hartman or Ford. That’s actor Stoney Jackson, who you can also spot in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video and Disney’s 1994 “Angels in the Outfield.” The “back-up singers” are actors Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, and Grand L. Bush.
There’s a second version of the video where you see Hartman’s face. The movie clip is playing on TVs in a bar and Hartman is the bartender.
So that’s the face behind the voice, but there’s also a song you hear on classic rock radio all the time, and never realized it was written and sung by Dan Hartman. That’s because the band is named for someone else. Here’s Dan and The Edgar Winter Group, around 1973 and “Free Ride.”
As a songwriter and producer, Dan Hartman worked with everyone from The Plasmatics to James Brown to Disney, co-writing a song for “Oliver & Company.” Dan Hartman died in 1994, just 43, of an AIDS-related brain tumor.
John Graham is That Guy on TV – an Emmy-winning producer/writer/host and owner of Mosquito County Productions, based in Orlando, FL.
Over the years, John has produced YouTube videos with millions of views, worked with Muppets and Princesses, won two regional Emmys for travel reporting, interviewed celebs from Ariana Grande to Hillbilly Jim, and done thousands of live news broadcasts. (You know it’s me writing this, right?)