Friday, January 7, 2011

Artist: Gary O', Album: Strange Behaviour, Song: Shades Of 45

"Oh she came upon us, I heard them say.  One silver angel, a cloud of grey.  The sky was fallin', future callin'.  Lady Armageddon's here today."  Gary O' was a singer songwriter who started his music career in the mid sixties as part of a number of bands.  He recorded albums as a member of Cat, Aerial and Liverpool.  The latter started out as a Beatles cover band.  Gary decided to pursue a solo career in the early eighties and released his self-titled debut in 1981 with Capitol Records.  It was his follow up in 1984, entitled, Strange Behaviour, that really exposed his talents as a musician and songwriter.  He played almost every instrument on the recording and the album yielded some great singles like Call Of The Wild and this track, Shades Of 45.  A song written for veterans of the Second World War.  This would be Gary's last recording as he began to focus his attention on songwriting.  You might remember the band, .38 Special ("Teacher Teacher"), from the eighties .  Well Gary wrote one of their biggest hits called, Back Where You Belong.  Molly Hatchet and Eddie Money have also recorded his songs.  A long lost Canadian gem!  At the time of this blog, there were only vinyl copies of Strange Behaviour available on Amazon and Ebay trading between $20 and $80.  You can watch the original video for Shades Of 45 on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai6PlftGOIM).  Thanks for reading and enjoy!