Where we left off:
REO Speedwagon's second album with lead singer Michael Murphy (and fourth overall), Lost in a Dream, found them in a collaborative spirit. Though it didn't contain any hits, it was their highest charting record to date.
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This Time We Mean It was a brave title for a record. REO drummer Alan Gratzer says it was a born of frustration, a plea for people to pay attention and start buying their records. But it's very easy to misinterpret as they band saying they were just kind of goofing around up to this point, which we know wasn't the case.
At any rate, the band's fifth album was released just 9 months after their previous record, a clear attempt to build some commercial momentum. . Not surprising since the two groups played shows together and shared a manager in Irving Azoff, REO here seem to be reaching to become the midwest's answer to the Eagles. They brought on Eagles producers Allan Blazek and Bill Szymczyk to record the album. They even covered an Eagles song, "Out of Control" from 1973's Desperado.
As with Lost in a Dream, songwriting was split fairly evenly between singer Michael Murphy (four songs) and guitarist Gary Richrath (five songs), with the latter leaning hard into Eaglesish country rock on tunes like "Headed for a Fall" and "Candelera." Both are appealing tunes that feature twangy electric guitars and soaring harmony vocals on their choruses. Murphy gets in on the act, too, with his "You Better Realize" sporting a stuttering guitar line and falsetto vocals that bring to mind "One of These Nights." In fact, that song (and its parent album of the same title) was released nearly simultanously with This Time We Mean It, both arriving in stores in July 1975. And the energetic cover of "Out of Control" is mostly faithful to the original, only deviating in its addition of some gospely background vocals and punchy horns.
That's not to say the whole record is a glorified Eagles tribute. The rest of the songs are in the then-trademark REO honky tonk blues style. Opener "Reelin'," written by Murphy, shows off the band's rhythmic chops in a cautionary tale about drinking too much wine. Richrath's "Dance," on which he also sings lead, is this record's song-about-the-band. Like "Find My Fortune" and "They're on the Road" before, it "Dance" finds Richrath reflecting on his choice to pursue rock 'n' roll as a career. And while it's as defiant as those earlier songs, "Dance" also acknowledges that maybe things aren't going to work out with an opening line that goes, "Well, we have one foot stuck in the graves we're diggin'." But it also points out the connection they have with their audience: "But when the band plays the song so strong," he sings in his nasally Mick Jagger twang, "I know that some people just wanna get up and dance."
One oddity of the record is that it features a Richrath song called "Dream Weaver" that has nothing to do with way more famous #2 hit by Gary Wright. Even odder is the fact that REO's song predates Wright's by a mere five months. I wonder how many bonus sales REO got from careless buyers who thought they were getting the "Dream Weaver" they heard on the radio. Richrath's song is a nice little number, but it's not the synthy spacy masterpiece that Wright's song is.
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This Time We Mean It was not the hit the band were desperate for, but it did continue their upward sales trajectory, topping out at number 74 on Billboard 200. Unfortunately for Michael Murphy, that wasn't enough to convince the band to stay the course. Like they had with singers Terry Luttrell and Kevin Cronin before, they decided to let Murphy go.
The band now say it was mostly an issue of musical fit, and that Murphy's bluesy songs weren't quite right for REO. This does track somewhat, as his songs on This Time We Mean It do sometimes seem to be their own separate thing. But just a year before everything had been working pretty seamlessly, so it seems like with time it might have worked out. It's also a bit of a shame because Murphy's vocals were beginning to show a bit more range and adaptability on this record.
At any rate, REO Speedwagon's Michael Murphy era ended here, and the band were once again the familiar position of having to find a frontman. Tune in next time for their surprising solution to that conundrum.
*
Burning Questions:
What happened to Mike Murphy?
Mike stayed in the music business, at first working with a band from New York called Faith. He also worked in the studio, doing a little bit of everything on an eclectic group of releases from the time of his REO departure through the 1980s. Most notably, he co-wrote "Second Hand Store" on Joe Walsh's 1978 album But Seriously, Folks.... He later played piano/organ/keys for Chuck E. Weiss & the Goddamn Liars, Billy Vera & the Beaters, and the Blue Hawaiians.
REO Speedwagon's second album with lead singer Michael Murphy (and fourth overall), Lost in a Dream, found them in a collaborative spirit. Though it didn't contain any hits, it was their highest charting record to date.
*
At any rate, the band's fifth album was released just 9 months after their previous record, a clear attempt to build some commercial momentum. . Not surprising since the two groups played shows together and shared a manager in Irving Azoff, REO here seem to be reaching to become the midwest's answer to the Eagles. They brought on Eagles producers Allan Blazek and Bill Szymczyk to record the album. They even covered an Eagles song, "Out of Control" from 1973's Desperado.
As with Lost in a Dream, songwriting was split fairly evenly between singer Michael Murphy (four songs) and guitarist Gary Richrath (five songs), with the latter leaning hard into Eaglesish country rock on tunes like "Headed for a Fall" and "Candelera." Both are appealing tunes that feature twangy electric guitars and soaring harmony vocals on their choruses. Murphy gets in on the act, too, with his "You Better Realize" sporting a stuttering guitar line and falsetto vocals that bring to mind "One of These Nights." In fact, that song (and its parent album of the same title) was released nearly simultanously with This Time We Mean It, both arriving in stores in July 1975. And the energetic cover of "Out of Control" is mostly faithful to the original, only deviating in its addition of some gospely background vocals and punchy horns.
That's not to say the whole record is a glorified Eagles tribute. The rest of the songs are in the then-trademark REO honky tonk blues style. Opener "Reelin'," written by Murphy, shows off the band's rhythmic chops in a cautionary tale about drinking too much wine. Richrath's "Dance," on which he also sings lead, is this record's song-about-the-band. Like "Find My Fortune" and "They're on the Road" before, it "Dance" finds Richrath reflecting on his choice to pursue rock 'n' roll as a career. And while it's as defiant as those earlier songs, "Dance" also acknowledges that maybe things aren't going to work out with an opening line that goes, "Well, we have one foot stuck in the graves we're diggin'." But it also points out the connection they have with their audience: "But when the band plays the song so strong," he sings in his nasally Mick Jagger twang, "I know that some people just wanna get up and dance."
One oddity of the record is that it features a Richrath song called "Dream Weaver" that has nothing to do with way more famous #2 hit by Gary Wright. Even odder is the fact that REO's song predates Wright's by a mere five months. I wonder how many bonus sales REO got from careless buyers who thought they were getting the "Dream Weaver" they heard on the radio. Richrath's song is a nice little number, but it's not the synthy spacy masterpiece that Wright's song is.*
This Time We Mean It was not the hit the band were desperate for, but it did continue their upward sales trajectory, topping out at number 74 on Billboard 200. Unfortunately for Michael Murphy, that wasn't enough to convince the band to stay the course. Like they had with singers Terry Luttrell and Kevin Cronin before, they decided to let Murphy go.
The band now say it was mostly an issue of musical fit, and that Murphy's bluesy songs weren't quite right for REO. This does track somewhat, as his songs on This Time We Mean It do sometimes seem to be their own separate thing. But just a year before everything had been working pretty seamlessly, so it seems like with time it might have worked out. It's also a bit of a shame because Murphy's vocals were beginning to show a bit more range and adaptability on this record.
At any rate, REO Speedwagon's Michael Murphy era ended here, and the band were once again the familiar position of having to find a frontman. Tune in next time for their surprising solution to that conundrum.
*
Burning Questions:
What happened to Mike Murphy?
Mike stayed in the music business, at first working with a band from New York called Faith. He also worked in the studio, doing a little bit of everything on an eclectic group of releases from the time of his REO departure through the 1980s. Most notably, he co-wrote "Second Hand Store" on Joe Walsh's 1978 album But Seriously, Folks.... He later played piano/organ/keys for Chuck E. Weiss & the Goddamn Liars, Billy Vera & the Beaters, and the Blue Hawaiians.
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