In lieu of an editorial I’m going to reminisce and show off a bit. It’s hard for me to believe that it was 45 years ago that I played on this record by Pages: Future Street. This was my first day trial by fire as a session player in L.A. Here are my two favorite tracks from the album.
This first cut, “Chemistry” was pretty daring; not commercial at all: a pop/funk/fusion album cut that had a long instrumental section in it and a drum “soli” at the end. I was playing very “on top of the beat” on this one. If I remember correctly this was a second or third take.
The second one, “Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong” was a simple love ballad that was the single. It charted on Billboard at #30 and has become a staple on L.A. adult oriented rock and “yacht rock” stations in recent years. This was a “fatback” groove. I was laying it on the backside of the beat, or as I like to characterize it, “pushing the band from behind”.
The band was songwriters Richard Page, vocals and keys, Steve George vocals and keys, and Jerry Manfredi on bass. Charlie “Icarus” Johnson was the new guy on guitar. I was familiar with his playing on the Stanley Clarke School Days album. Other studio cats on these two songs were Michael Brecker on sax, Tim May on guitar and Claudio Slon on Timbales. Here are the YouTube Videos. If you can listen on a higher fidelity streaming service, it’s worth doing. I was inspired, in the hot seat and firing on all cylinders on this record.
Pages; Charlie Johnson, Steve George, Jerry Manfredi, Richard Page, George Lawrence
These two particular cuts show the diverse writing and playing chops of this band. I got a call from producer Bobby Colomby, former drummer for Blood Sweat and Tears, to play on this recording in L.A. in 1979. He had heard me play in Northern California with a band that I was in there, Uncle Rainbow. So, I literally walked off the plane and straight in to my first session in L.A. with this band that was signed to Epic Records. I had heard their first album and it was very progressive. We’d never met until that first day. We were all in our early twenties. We cut two songs that day and it clicked instantly. We did some other sessions at other major studios in town to finish the album. I was asked to join the band and the record deal and move to L.A. We played a few concerts around L.A. The band was supposed to go on a world tour with Kenny Loggins, who cowrote “Who’s Right Who’s Wrong”, but some downturn happened in the record industry, budgets were cut, and the tour didn’t happen for us. I moved on to Santa Barbara and other bands and sessions. I practiced a couple of times after that with them but couldn’t commit to doing the third album. They hired session drummers Jeff Porcaro, Vinnie Colaiuta, Mike Baird and Ralph Humphreys to play on the record. Vinnie was hired to be in the band but, after the failure of the third album, Page and George decided to disband so Vinnie kind of went through the same disappointment I did. Richard and Steve formed “Mr. Mister” soon after. They had some radio hits and toured with Tina Turner and others. Besides releasing his own solo albums, Richard has been in Ringo’s band for a few years now, playing bass and singing the Mr. Mister hits.
album back cover, shot in Century City parking garage.
There is a very good Wikipedia article on the history of Pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pages_%28band%29