Soon As I Find Myself…
All over the country there are bands that are big dogs in their own corners of the universe but not really well known or known at all outside of their home town or perhaps a part of their state or a few counties here and there. These are the day to day working dog musicians.
They almost always have a day job, or at least friends and family to mooch off of as they try to make it big as a singer, guitar player, bassist, take your pick. The vast majority of these quite often great artists will never be heard by people living much more than a few miles away from their hometown. That is all too often the life of a musician.
Some decide to take the plunge and head off to New York, Los Angeles or Nashville where the odds are better for success, so they think, until they realize that everybody else who is serious about making it had already done the same thing. So now your surrounded by large groups of really talented people and it, perversely, is even more difficult to stand out. So now what?
Sometimes it’s just better to stay home and become really great at what you do and the rest will attend to itself.
In 1961 the seeds of what would become one of the most popular and successful bands of the 70′s were planted. Three of the members were there from the start. Another joined in 1969 after becoming friends in college and the fifth would join shortly thereafter. Now a quintet, they would remain in that formation through the early years of playing local clubs and pretty much anywhere else that would hire them all the way to playing the biggest stadiums in the country.
After all those years of local popularity and even a record contract with a minor label releasing four albums, they still hadn’t “made it.” That did start to change when a single from their second album started to get airplay some two years after it’s release. This exposure led to a new album contract with a major label and an album with their first real opportunity to be heard outside of their native Chicago.
Just when the band was reaching more people then ever before John Curulewski, the friend from college and one of the guitarists, left the band on the eve of their first major tour. In the mad dash to find a replacement they remembered a young guitarist from Alabama they had met a few years before while he was playing with another band on tour in Chicago. Now with the addition of Tommy Shaw to the line-up, Styx formed a combination that would become one of the biggest bands in history.
“Crystal Ball”, the title song of Styx’s sixth album, was written by Tommy Shaw. I have always found it pretty impressive that the band chose to name the album after a song written by the new guy.
It’s also a very good indicator of where Styx was heading musically as they solidified their own mix of progressive rock with Shaw’s bluesy guitars. That guitar combination of Shaw’s melodic blues style and James Young’s in your face rock thrashing has always been a major draw for me. When you add in Chuck Panozzo’s solid and surprisingly intricate bass-lines and his brother, John Panozzo’s powerful but neatly elegant drums the music is beautifully full and alive with energy. Dennis DeYoung’s versatile piano, keyboards, synthesizer and organ add the musical cherry to the top keeping Styx true to the progressive rock beginnings of the band.
The follow up album to Crystal Ball would be a lifetime career maker for Styx. The Grand Illusion would go Platinum three times over and help to make Styx a fixture in rock music to this day.
Categories: Cheese Wizardry
Comments Off
« Make Love Disappear | Home | Where was your star? »
