West Coast Sundown: Yacht Rock, Late Night Pop & Sunset Soul

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Enjoy the soundtrack to a West Coast sundown! 😊 The closing track by Matt Duncan is brand new, by the way. It sounds like a lost recording from The Nightfly sessions by Donald Fagen.

At the time critics sometimes called David Cassidy’s music bubblegum pop. That was simply defined  music manufactured to sell as much records as possible and it was mostly aimed at a very young audience. Bubblegum's classic period ran from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. At that point disco music took over the single market. However, David Cassidy certainly made some very good records, although in later years he found it difficult to shake off his teen idol image.

“His wispiest, breathiest hit was called ‘I Am A Clown’. Poor, sweet, forlorn sexy David – marshmallows could’ve bruised this sound.“

(Bob Stanley in his book Yeah Yeah Yeah)

 Midas Shadow by Al Stewart is from his classic 1976 album The Year Of The Cat. The message of this song is that when a successful businessman stops making money or when the money runs out, he wants to know the reasons. "That's the Midas Shadow," Stewart told biographer Neville Judd.

."You're looking down on the tropical trees
While the Spanish maids pick up the sheets"

Stewart was staying at the Continental Hyatt House in Hollywood, which inspired this line. "It was a crazy place," he said on an interview for the CD version of the album. "Led Zeppelin were running around and all the rock and roll bands of the day were there. The Spanish maids, as I refer to them in the song, would make up your bed in the morning, and they had absolutely no idea who all these crazy people were. It was just the dichotomy between the laboring poor and the gilded rock and roll stars that caused me to write this song."

A few years before Eddie Van Halen played a guitar solo on Michael Jackson's Beat It, record company Arista had the same idea to help Phyllis Hyman crossover to the pop market. Unfortunately, his solo sounded a bit out of place on her version of Larry John McNally's Sleep On It and the track ultimately did not appear on the album Can't We Fall In Love Again. Years later, Ralph Tee took out the solo, which turned out to be a huge improvement.

Willie “Junei” Lee spent the first half of the 1970s playing guitar with his older brother Robert Lee in the self-contained band Lost Weekend, recording a handful of singles and a still unreleased LP. The second half of the decade was spent touring with Albert King, Curtis Mayfield, and The Emotions, before returning home to Gary, Indiana, to focus on his own sound. In 1985, Junei’s girlfriend brought home a suite of Fostex home studio gear, including a 12 channel board, 8-track tape machine, and a halftrack for mix downs. He added a Yamaha drum machine and a Maestro echoplex and started his solo project. It resulted in You Must Go On, the b-side of Let’s Ride, a one-off single on Pharaohs Records.

Tracklist:

Amy Holland – Don’t Kid Yourself (1980)
Martie Echito – You Better Believe It (1980s)
Jackie DeShannon – Don't Let The Flame Burn Out (1977)
Dan Hartman – Lighthouse (1976)
Erik Tagg – The Love I Gave (1977)
Lynsey De Paul – Sugar Shuffle (1975)
Al Stewart – Midas Shadow (1976)
David Cassidy ‎– Get It Up For Love (1975)
Innovations – Seabird (1977)
Christopher William Ward – Imagine A Song (1978)
Steve Kipner – The Beginning (1979)
Nielsen/Pearson – Got Me Where You Want Me (1983)
Pages – Come On Home (1981)
Ian Matthews – Survival (1979)
Ned Doheny – I Know Sorrow (1973)
Con Funk Shun – California 1 (1981)
Splendor – Special Lady (1979)
Alessi – Wait For Me (1979)
Junei’ – You Must Go On (1987)
Phyllis Hyman (Feat. Jean Carn) – Sleep On It (1980)
Lani Hall – Es Fácil Amar (1985)
Matt Duncan – NYC Kids (2023)