Foreigner: The "Hot Blooded" Hitmakers Of "I Want To Know What Love Is" Fame
Written: May 01 '03 (Updated Jun 28 '05)
Product Rating:
Pros: 18 Top 40 hits:"I Want To Know What Love Is,""Cold As Ice,""Hot Blooded,"more...
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: Outstanding collection with appeal to anyone who enjoyed Top 40 radio's during the past three decades. Includes 18 Top 40 hits: 16 by Foreigner and 2 by Lou Gramm.
Don_Krider's Full Review: Jukebox Heroes: The Foreigner Anthology by Foreign...
Foreigner scored a string of hit singles in the 1970s and 1980s. The band was driven in part by the lead vocals of Lou Gramm (alias Lou Grammatico from Rochester, New York).
The band's other main driver was Mick Jones, a veteran of numerous rock acts, including Spooky Tooth (Gary Wright's old outfit). Jones was the band's founder and the man who hired Gramm after rejecting more than 50 other Foreigner lead singer wanna-bes for the position.
Among the band's Top 40 hits: "Feels Like The First Time," "Long, Long Way From Home," "Cold As Ice," "Double Vision," "Blue Morning, Blue Day," "Hot Blooded," "Dirty White Boy," "Head Games," "Break It Up," "Juke Box Hero," "Urgent," "Waiting For A Girl Like You," "I Want To Know What Love Is," "That Was Yesterday," "I Don't Want To Live Without You" and "Say You Will."
The band also scored additional Hot 100 hits (including "Women," which peaked at # 41, just short of the Top 40). Gramm also scored solo Top 10 hits with "Midnight Blue" and "Just Between You And Me."
All the hits (with three solo tracks from Gramm, two solo tracks Jones (including his MTV airplay hit "Just Wanna Hold," a track featuring backup from Ian Hunter and Billy Joel) and two tracks from Jones time as a member of Spooky Tooth) are included in this 39-track, two-CD set entitled "Foreigner Anthology: Jukebox Heroes" from Rhino Records.
Gramm and Jones co-produced the new compilation with David McLees.
The Foreigner story:
Mick Jones meets The Beatles:
Jones had been knocking around music for a long time, including time as a member of the backup groups for French pop idols Sylvie Vartan and her husband, Johnny Hallyday.
In January 1964, Vartan, with Jones on guitar, opened for The Beatles in France for several nights at Paris' Olympic Theatre. The 19-year-old Jones was able to spend two weeks hanging out with John, Paul, George and Ringo playing guitar and riding "in the big car," he recalls in the CD's liner notes. "It really had a big effect on me. It still does."
After Vartan's band, the England-born Jones joined Hallyday, aka "The French Elvis." At one point, according to the CD booklet, Jones even joined pre-Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones for session work on Hallyday recordings.
Then he returned to England, formed a band called Wonderwheel with former Spooky Tooth keyboardist Gary Wright (who later had a pair of # 2 solo hits with "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive" in 1976). Wonderwheel recorded an album that remains unreleased.
Looking for success, Wright and Jones then teamed to reform Spooky Tooth, recording three albums together in the early '70s. Jones had replaced original Spooky Tooth member lead guitarist Luther Grosvenor (who in turn had changed his name to Ariel Bender and joined singer Ian Hunter in the band Mott The Hoople).
Spooky Tooth developed cavities in its direction and Jones exited, this time joining former Mountain guitarist Leslie West in The Leslie West Band. His stay there was brief, due to personal differences with West.
Ian Lloyd:
Jones then hooked up with singer Ian Lloyd, lead singer of Stories (they hit # 1 in 1973 with "Brother Louie," a soul tune that was out-of-place with Stories' power pop music leanings). Lloyd was recording a solo album (his self-titled 1976 LP) and his backup musicians included future members of Foreigner in Jones and guitarist/keyboardist Ian McDonald (formerly of King Crimson).
The Lloyd-Foreigner connection doesn't end there. After Jones and McDonald formed Foreigner, Jones returned for a second Lloyd solo album, 1979's "Goosebumps" (which also features Gramm and Dennis Elliott, both from Foreigner, and The Cars' members Ben Orr and Ric Ocasek, with one-time Aerosmith guitarist Jimmy Crespo and Bryan Adams songwriting partner Jim Vallance added to the mix) --- one fine piece of vinyl never released on CD.
Lloyd, in turn, does backup vocals on numerous Foreigner albums. He also sang backup for Billy Joel, Peter Frampton, Yes, Fotomaker and others.
The formation of Foreigner:
Jones and McDonald left Lloyd's studio band to form Foreigner. They soon added Gramm on lead vocals. The lineup grew to a six-man unit with the addition of three further players: keyboardist Al Greenwood, bassist Ed Gagliardi and drummer Dennis Elliott.
According to Jones, the band's name, "Foreigner," was decided upon because half the band was British (Jones, McDonald and Elliott) and half the band was American (Gramm, Greenwood and Gagliardi). With the lineup established in 1976, the band attempted to get a label deal.
According to the CD booklet, Jones says, "We got turned down by most record companies." Even their eventual label, Atlantic, passed on them until John Kalodner, then a lowly press department worker (currently one of the hottest A&R guys in the music business, who helped break AC/DC and other acts in the U. S.), showed absolute belief in the band.
Kalodner both staked his reputation on the line to get the band signed and made his reputation by making the band a huge success. He understood the industry and opened doors for the band --- very cool guy often seen in a white suit, very long hair, a very long beard and wearing John Lennon round eyeglasses in VH-1 cable TV music documentaries.
Success:
Foreigner's debut album was released in March 1977. Critical reviews were mixed, as they always would be for the band, but the public loved them.
That first album rose to # 4 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, quickly selling four million copies during an amazing 113-week stay on the charts. It produced three Top 20 singles in 1977: "Feels Like The First Time" hit # 4, followed by "Cold As Ice," which peaked at # 6, and "Long, Long Way From Home," which reached # 20.
Greater success:
Foreigner continued to roll along, playing to sellout crowds worldwide, earning gold album awards (500,000 units sold; at the time, a single required one million units to earn the same gold award an album received for selling half as much) and platinum album awards (one million units sold).
Their second album, "Double Vision" in 1978, rose to # 3 and also sold four million copies during its 88 weeks on the charts. The first two singles from it, "Hot Blooded" and "Double Vision," each sold one million copies (both earning Gold Single Awards).
"Double Vision" reached # 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, while "Hot Blooded" hit # 3. A third single from the album, "Blue Morning, Blue Day," peaked at # 15.
The band's first two albums had both reached the Top 5 on the album charts. Both albums each produced three Top 20 singles.
The band splinters:
Rick Wills was brought in to the band on bass, replacing Gagliardi. Wills was a veteran of Roxy Music and The Small Faces.
With its new lineup in place, Foreigner's third album, "Head Games," was released in 1979 and reached # 5 on the album charts in the U. S. during a 91-week chart run. It produced three Hot 100 hits, but no Top 10 singles ("Dirty White Boy" peaked at # 12, followed by "Head Games" at # 14 and "Women" at # 41).
The album sold well, but did only two million copies --- great by most band's standards, but only half the sales of each of their previous two albums. There was controversy, too, in the U. S. midwest "Bible belt" over the depiction of a teenage girl wearing little clothing writing messages on the wall of a men's room --- leading to distribution problems with some retail outlets.
There are but 4 Foreigners:
Further personnel problems resulted in Jones cutting the band's lineup to just four members. Exiting the group were McDonald and Greenwood, who formed the group called Spys. Spys cut an album (the self-titled album hit # 138 in 1982) and they had a minor hit in 1982 when their "Don't Run My Life" hit # 82.
Jones, Gramm, Elliott and Wills then recorded the aptly titled "4", produced by Jones and "Mutt" Lange (famed (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for his work with Def Leppard and Shania Twain; Lange is currently Twain's husband).
Superstardom:
The release of "4" in the summer of 1981 saw the streamlined band's greatest success, with the album rocketing to # 1 for 10 weeks of its 81-week chart presence.
The group returned to the Top 10 on the singles charts with "Urgent" reaching # 4 and "Waiting For A Girl Like You" hitting # 2 (it spent 10 weeks at # 2 while selling a million copies --- released two weeks before Christmas of 1981, its timing in a season of love was perfect for sales). Each single spent 23 weeks on the pop charts.
The "4" album continued to produce hit singles into 1982: "Juke Box Hero" hitting # 26, followed by "Break It Up" at # 26 and "Luanne" at # 75. The "4" album itself went on to sell six million copies.
I saw the band perform live during this tour (the first of three concerts I've seen by them) on December 12, 1981, my ex-wife's 21st birthday. The opening act in Louisville was The Michael Stanley Band (aka MSB) from Cleveland (one of my favorite acts; their greatest hits CD "Right Back At Ya" is worth seeking out and was reviewed by me at http://www.epinions.com/musc-review-52E6-1054DCA6-38F4AC7F-prod5) and MSB was fabulous.
Then Foreigner took the stage. It was a truly great rock 'n' roll show --- but a show with the corny touch (the crowd loved it, but I thought it was kind of silly) of a giant, inflatable Juke Box rising from the stage behind the band as they played, you guessed it, "Juke Box Hero."
They were at the peak of their stardom, which is the time to see a band --- the music is fresh and the group hasn't yet tired of playing the same songs over-and-over again. The sell-out crowd at Louisville's Freedom Hall (some 20,000 people) loved them.
More success:
By Christmas 1982, Atlantic Records released the band's greatest hits LP, "Records," which hit # 10 on the charts, their fifth Top 10 album.
The band sat idle from its studio work for a while --- lots of money to be made from touring behind the success of a hugely successful album. They cut an instrumental track, "Street Thunder," for the 1984 Olympic Games soundtrack.
The band, with Jones producing the album with Alex Sadkin, then returned to the studio and recorded their 1985 release, "Agent Provocateur."
"Agent Provocateur" rose to # 4 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart (their sixth Top 10 album). It also produced their only # 1 single in "I Want To Know What Love Is," a ballad that, like Cheap Trick's "The Flame," changed the public's image of the band from that of a hard rock outfit to that of being the singers of power ballads.
The band also scored with additional singles from the multi-platinum album: "That Was Yesterday" hit # 12, followed by "Reaction To Action" and "Down On Love," both of which peaked at # 54 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles charts.
The band stayed together, but Gramm recorded his first of two studio solo albums in 1987, an LP called "Ready Or Not" which hit # 27. Gramm's solo album also yielded a # 5 single with "Midnight Blue."
Jones was producing other acts --- including Van Halen's "5150" album (their first album with Sammy Hagar replacing David Lee Roth as lead singer).
Declining sales:
Foreigner reunited for the Jones-produced album "Inside Information." The 1987 release peaked at # 15, their first album not to reach the Top 10. They continued to produce hit singles however: "Say You Will" reached # 6 in 1987, followed in 1988 by "I Don't Want To Live Without Your Love" at # 5 and "Heart Turns To Stone" at # 56.
Jones released his own self-titled solo album in 1989, but scored no Hot 100 singles. The album peaked at # 184, despite backing musicians such as Billy Joel, Ian Hunter, Joe Lynn Turner and Ian Lloyd. The video for the single "Just Wanna Hold" did get a good amount of airplay on MTV at the time (co-written by Jones, Hunter and M. Phillips).
Gramm, however, released his second solo album two months after Jones solo effort in 1989, "Long Hard Look," which rose to # 85 and scored a # 6 hit single with "Just Between You And Me" (backed by guitarist Nils Lofgren). He exited Foreigner, for a time.
The new Foreigner:
Jones replaced Gramm in Foreigner with Johnny Edwards, a Louisville, Ky., native and a great singer with "more of a blues influence," according to Jones.
With Edwards singing lead, the band couldn't break the top half of the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, peaking at # 117 in 1991. They also scored no hit singles. Edwards has a Paul Rodgers'/Bad Company vocal style that just didn't fit in with fans love of Gramm's Foreigner vocal style.
Meanwhile, Gramm had formed a new band called Shadow King with Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell. They released one album that also went nowhere on the charts.
The new, improved, old Foreigner:
Jones and Gramm decided to become partners again, so Gramm was brought in to replace Edwards. The rest of the band was also replaced.
The Jones-Gramm Foreigner recorded new tracks that were included in a new greatest hits collection for Atlantic Records entitled "The Very Best... And Beyond," with backup from folks such as Sheryl Crow and Cheap Trick's Robin Zander.
"The Very Best..." peaked at # 123 in 1992 and the single, "Soul Doctor," failed to crack the Hot 100 chart. Foreigner then ended its relationship with Atlantic Records.
Their next, BMG-distributed album, "Mr. Moonlight," peaked at # 136 in 1995, and produced a minor hit with "Until The End Of Time" (with lead guitar by Duane Eddy) which peaked at # 42.
Currently:
Further plans were put on hold after 1997 when Gramm had successful surgery for a benign brain tumor. In a 2002 VH-1 "Behind The Music" episode, Gramm and Jones discussed how the tumor surgery made them even closer friends and made them open their eyes to the more important things in life.
Today, Foreigner is back in action, launching their successful 25th anniversary tour in 2002. They appeared on the "CBS Early Morning" show and on VH-1's "Guilty Pleasures."
In May, 2003, their live 1993 performance at Noblesville, Indiana, is released on DVD as "Live At Deer Creek." The DVD will include live concert footage, as well as interviews with Gramm and Jones, according to the band's website.
This CD:
Two CDs containing 39 total tracks: 32 by Foreigner (one, "Lowdown And Dirty," with Johnny Edwards as lead singer), two by Spooky Tooth (featuring Jones), three solo tracks by Gramm and two solo tracks by Jones.
The CD's are in seperate trays in a four section (one section for the large CD booklet, two sections for the CDs, and one empty section to allow the package to fold back together), gatefold-opening box, which in turn is kept inside a hard cardboard box for addtional protection of the contents (like inserting a valued book into a protective cover).
Included is a wonderful, well-illustrated, informative 48-page booklet written by Jerry McCulley (the booklet has a strong book-like binding, unlike most stapled together CD booklets). The booklet features extensive quoted commentary from Foreigner's Mick Jones about the songs and the band's history.
The tracks:
"Feels Like The First Time," "Long, Long Way From Home," "Cold As Ice," "Headknocker," "Starrider," "At War With The World," "Double Vision," "Blue Morning, Blue Day," "Hot Blooded," "I Have Waited So Long," "Dirty White Boy" and "Head Games."
Also, "Women," "Rev On The Red Line," ""Break It Up," "Juke Box Hero," "Luanne," "Urgent," "Waiting For A Girl Like You," "I Want To Know What Love Is," "Down On Love," "Street Thunder" (instrumental), "Reaction To Action," "That Was Yesterday," "Heart Turns To Stone," "I Don't Want To Live Without You," "Say You Will," "Can't Wait," "Lowdown And Dirty," "Soul Doctor," "Until The End Of Time" and "Under The Gun."
Also, "All Sewn Up" by Spooky Tooth (written by Jones and Gary Wright), "The Hoofer" by Spooky Tooth," "Ready Or Not" by Lou Gramm, "Midnight Blue" by Lou Gramm, "Just Between You And Me" by Lou Gramm, "Just Wanna Hold" (the songwriters includes Jones and Ian Hunter) by Mick Jones and "Everything That Comes Around" by Mick Jones.
Recommendation:
Outstanding collection of ballads and rockers by one of the most popular groups of the last three decades. This collection should have huge fan appeal due to the included tracks by members from their solo careers and of Jones work with Spooky Tooth. Fans of British-inspired rock, The Beatles, Creedence, The Rolling Stones and classic rock music should enjoy this set.
My favorite tracks:
"Feels Like The First Time":
From its bombastic keyboards/drums/bass/guitar opening, the future Foreigner sound was established on American Top 40 radio by this # 4 chart hit. Composed by Jones (his first song written with the band in mind), the lyrics are simple and to the point about a guy's first true romance:
"I would climb any mountain / sail across the stormy sea / if that's what it takes me, baby / to show how much you mean to me / and I guess that it's just the woman in you / that brings out the man in me / I know I can't help myself / you're all in the world to me / it feels like the first time..."
"Cold As Ice":
Written by Gramm and Jones, Jones says it's "the first song I'd written on piano." "Cold As Ice" is driven by the piano melody, but it gets lost at times in the production amid the orchestration, the heavy drum sound and the multi-part vocal harmonies. Great little rock tune that was even better on a car radio, it reached # 6 on the charts in the summer of 1977. The girl in this song isn't so nice:
"You're as cold as ice / you're willing to sacrifice our love / you never take advice / someday you'll pay the price..."
"Headknocker":
A popular album rock track on FM radio, "Headknocker" (written by Gramm and Jones) could be the theme of angry men everywhere --- it's still a cool rock tune, despite the lyrical subject matter, full of crunching guitar sounds, throbbing bass and a well-pounded drum kit:
"...he's a backseat mauler / a barroom brawler / I think he's gonna blacken your eye / if that don't teach you a lesson / might show you his Smith & Wesson..."
"Double Vision":
With a great lead guitar riff, the band sounds a bit like Thin Lizzy (circa "Jailbreak") on this track. Again written by the Gramm-Jones team, the track peaked at # 3 on the pop charts.
Gramm's agonized vocal scream tells of a guy trying to live a long life in a short time (somewhat touching here in view of his later battle with a brain tumor):
"...never do more than I really need / my mind is racing but my body's in the lead / tonight's the night / I'm gonna push it to the limit / I'll live all my years in a single minute / fill my eyes with that double vision..."
"Hot Blooded":
Gramm and Jones did it again, with this glorious rocker that hit # 3. Another macho male fantasy about a guy whose blood is boiling as he pursues the girl of his current dream ("current conquest" sounds so much less romantic). As the drum beat swells, the ringing guitars swing into play, as Gramm sings:
"Well, I'm hot blooded / check it and see / I've got a fever of a hundred and three / come on, baby, do you do more than dance? / I'm hot blooded..."
"Dirty White Boy"
Gramm and Jones rock out again, reaching # 12 on the charts with this rocker full of driving guitars and sweat-filled drum beats. Gramm sings of a guy who is not rich, but really wants a girlfriend. I remember the tune more because I had a friend in college who went around singing the tune because his last name was "White":
"...I've been in trouble since I don't know when / I'm in trouble now and I know somehow I'll find trouble again / I'm a loner, but I'm never alone / every night I get one step closer to the danger zone / 'cause I'm a dirty white boy..."
"Luanne":
Gramm and Jones go power pop (melodic, ringing guitar sounds and harmonies over a gorgeous peace of romantic pop heaven) on "Luanne," Jones' answer to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" about a girl he liked a lot. The Raspberries could do a marvelous version of this (this has been your daily Raspberries reminder, dear reader). I still can't figure out why this peaked at only # 75 on the charts:
"...I write letters that I never send / I keep the words to whisper to you someday / I don't know where and I don't know when / Luanne, I'm gonna get to you someway / I want to feel your love so close to me / give me just half a chance / to prove myself, I need to / Luanne, Luanne, why do you run and hide? / Luanne, Luanne, don't keep your love inside / these days true love is so hard to find..."
"Urgent":
Written by Jones, "Urgent" hit # 4 in the summer of 1981, with a slow guitar intro and its pulsating bass line. There's also some great sax work by Jr. Walker and lovely synthesizer work by Thomas Dolby (of "She Blinded Me With Science" fame):
"You're not shy / you get around / you wanna fly / don't want your feet on the ground / you stay up / you won't come down / you wanna live / you wanna move to the sound / got fire in your veins / burnin' hot but you don't feel the pain / your desire is insane / ... / you say it's urgent - so urgent / u-u-u-urgent - just you wait and see / how urgent our love can be - it's urgent..."
"Waiting For A Girl Like You":
There wasn't a more romantic ballad in the Fall of 1981 than this Gramm and Jones song, a sweet ballad that really set the stage for "I Want To Know What Love Is" a few years later. "Waiting For A Girl Like You," soaked in strings and a swirling keyboard arrangement, is iced with sweet vocal harmonies, with Gramm singing:
"So long, I've been looking too hard, I've been waiting too long / sometimes I don't know what I will find, I only know it's a matter of time / when you love someone, when you love someone / it feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too / maybe I'm wrong, won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong? / this heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure / I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life..."
"I Want To Know What Love Is":
The band's sole # 1 single, vastly over-played on radio and music television to the point that many people began to overlook the song's true quality and began to tire of hearing it, Jones wrote this as a slow, soulful, gospel-inspired ballad.
Jones, according to his comments in the CD booklet, wrote this one night in London as a deeply personal tune. Jones then decided to make the tune have a broader appeal --- purchasing gospel recordings until he found the right vocal sound he was looking for to add to the record to sing duet-style with Gramm's lead vocal:
The resulting "duet" between Gramm and The New Jersey Mass Choir is a very spiritual thing, like a confessional of love, beautiful and from the heart:
"I've gotta take a little time / a little time to think things over / I better read between the lines / in case I need it when I'm older / now this mountain I must climb / feels like the world upon my shoulders / through the clouds I see love shine / it keeps me warm as life grows colder / In my life there's been heartache and pain / I don't know if I can face it again / can't stop now / I've travelled so far to change this lonely life / I want to know what love is / I want you to show me / I want to feel what love is / I know you can show me..."
"Midnight Blue"
Not to be confused with The Electric Light Orchestra song of the same name, Gramm's # 5 solo hit from 1987 (written by Gramm and Bruce Turgon) has the classic, early hard-driving Foreigner rock sound, with guitar work by Nils Lofgren and Eddie Martinez:
"...I remember when my father said / 'son, life is simple / it's either cherry red / or it's midnight blue' / ..."
"Just Wanna Hold"
Mick Jones solo single from 1989 should have been a hit, with Ian Hunter (famed lead singer of Mott The Hoople's "All The Young Dudes" and his solo hit "Cleveland Rocks") on piano and vocals, and keyboard work by Billy Joel (Jones co-produced Joel's "Storm Front" album).
For trivia buffs: The video for the tune featured Joel, his then-wife Christie Brinkley, members of Foreigner and John Lennon's youngest son, Sean.
On "Just Wanna Hold," Jones opens the track with some searing lead guitar, before progressing into a vocal bombardment by the lead vocalists and backup singers of "I just wanna hold, I just wanna hold ya" before singing (sounding like a cross between The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and J. Geil's Band's Peter Wolf):
"...permission to speak / the time we have is running out / there's a fire in my heart / and I don't wanna put it out / because I just wanna hold / I just wanna hold you..."
Another catchy tune that AM Top 40 didn't catch on to, sadly, despite its massive video play on MTV.
"Just Between You And Me":
Gramm's ability as a solo artist and as a songwriter was proven again in 1989 with this # 6 hit, an uptempo pop tune with just enough of a rock edge to keep me happy. The lyrics on the bridge and chorus are outstanding (that's Peter Wolf on keyboards, by the way):
"...Don't you know that one cold word is going to lead to another / and then we'll have nowhere to go / even if heaven and earth collide tonight / we'll be all alone in a different light / I don't care what the world can't see / it's just between you and me..."
On the web:
The official Foreigner website: http://www.foreigneronline.com
Mick Jones official website: http://www.somersetsongs.com
A Foreigner links site (not official): http://home.earthlink.net/~paws2purr/Links/4NRlinks.html
The Rhino Records website (neat contests): http://www.rhinorecords.com
The website of John Kalodner (very cool): http://www.johnkalodner.com/
An Ian Lloyd fan site (for fans of Foreigner's backup singer and former lead singer of Stories): http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/kidlloyd/myhomepage/
The American Brain Tumor Association website: http://www.abta.org/
You might also enjoy:
Capitol/EMI's 20-track 24-bit digitally remastered CD "Greatest" by Raspberries (the original lineup --- Eric Carmen, Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley and Jim Bonfanti --- who sang the million-seller "Go All The Way" reunited in 2004-2005) was released in May of 2005 in the U. S. and Europe. It features all 7 of Raspberries Hot 100 singles, has 20 tracks and runs 78:53 minutes: http://www.epinions.com/content_186044681860
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