Moonlight , which failed to return the group to the top of the charts. Foreigner remained a popular concert attraction, but the band's future was thrust into doubt in when Gramm was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Luckily, the tumor was non-cancerous and was removed shortly thereafter. Gramm 's recovery was slow and painful, but by the singer was well enough for Foreigner to team up with Journey for a summer tour.
The early 21st century saw the release of several archival collections courtesy of the Rhino label: a pair of additional collections, Jukebox Heroes: The Foreigner Anthology and Complete Greatest Hits , as well as reissues of the group's self-titled debut and 4 , both of which included extra bonus tracks. Can't Slow Down , a three-disc set that included a new studio album, a disc of remixed versions of the band's biggest hits, and a DVD documentary, arrived in Foreigner continued to tour throughout the s, releasing the Acoustique album in and celebrating their 40th anniversary in with the aptly titled hits compilation Later that year, the nostalgic career retrospective continued with a series of reunion concerts dubbed Foreigner Then and Now.
The next year, Rhino released Live at the Rainbow '78 which was a recording of their sold-out show at London's Rainbow Theatre. AllMusic relies heavily on JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to use the site fully. Blues Classical Country.
Electronic Folk International. Jazz Latin New Age. Aggressive Bittersweet Druggy. Energetic Happy Hypnotic. I was kind of left in New York With the guidance and financial backing of West's manager, Bud Prager, Jones set about penning material while lining up like-minded musicians for a new band.
Admitting his spark of creativity might have simply stemmed from "desperation," he recalled, "I started writing by myself. Before I knew it, I had two or three songs, and I wondered what to do with them. One of those songs was 'Feels Like the First Time. While the songs were flowing freely, rounding up the right personnel proved a little more problematic. After an early aborted attempt at solidifying a lineup, Jones held on to just one player — keyboardist Al Greenwood — while continuing his search.
Yet even after the slowly solidifying combo auditioned dozens of singers, the right voice failed to surface. As is so often the case with painfully drawn-out searches, the solution was right in front of Jones all along — specifically in his record collection, where he dug out a copy of an album by Black Sheep, a short-lived group whose singer, Lou Gramm , had offered it up when the band crossed paths with Spooky Tooth on the road years before.
Although Jones was less than impressed with Black Sheep's songs, revisiting the LP left him convinced Gramm was his man. Fortunately for Jones, Gramm was at his own career crossroads following the dissolution of Black Sheep, and agreed to travel from Rochester to New York City for an audition.
Now this was a big step for me, because I had very little experience as a producer and had never been to New York before. To be honest, I was scared of the whole deal, so I asked if John Sinclair, also my cousin, could come out with me to do the album. So, how did this quartet work together? I can show you my contract for the album.
John and I are down as the sole producers. But it was a joint effort. I always like to involved people and get a team spirit going, which is what we did here. The two were a bit like Yin and Yang. John came up with the ideas, while Gary made them work. So, there was no real time pressure on us. But what we did have was a lack of budget. Fortunately, we had a good friend in Eddie Germano at the Record Plant, and he gave us a good deal to work in there.
While most of the process was smooth enough, Lyons recalls being unhappy with one song scheduled for inclusion. I had to come back to London to do something with Elton John and Kiki Dee, so I suggested to the band that they should try to write another song to replace it. And in one of those odd twists of coincidence, it turned out to be a very intriguing session.
Everywhere was covered in snow, and we heard on the radio that it had been coldest night in New York on record! Somehow that seemed to be a good omen for the song. One interesting aspect of the album is that Jones actually does lead vocals on two tracks, these being Starrider and Woman Oh Woman. But as it turns out, for Gramm this was no problem. The reason he wanted to do Starrider was because it was a song that was special to him, and he did a great job.
However, when they heard the mix that Lyons and Sinclair sent them of the album, their positive vibes ebbed away. I was effectively an illegal alien, and was expecting to be arrested and deported at any time. Therefore, I had to stay in New York. But Ian did make the trip over to London to listen to what they were doing. But Gary and John were standing there, in the room, when I called Mick.
I had to somehow tell him what I thought of the mix without hurting their feelings. Jones and McDonald took the tapes into Atlantic Studios and worked with engineer Jimmy Douglas on getting a remix done, one that captured the magic of the recordings. These days Lyons is rather sanguine about it all. No problem, because at the end of the day, Mick and Ian were the musicians, and if they were unhappy with what John and I had done, then that was their choice.
And I guess that because they remixed the tapes, the pair of them felt they had the right to have a production credit. Jones recollects being delighted with the final album, but not exactly expecting the stratospheric sales that were to follow.
So, when Feels Like The First Time began to get serious radio airplay, and the album [released in March ] sold huge amounts, it took us all by surprise. We were just not ready for that kind of exposure. But then, I never had any doubts about what we were doing. Even when we got rejected by labels, I knew it would all come together.
There was also one significant Atlantic executive in the UK who was totally won over by what Foreigner had achieved on their self-titled album. Now, Bud strongly urged me to give John my share of the studio for nothing, in exchange for him signing over to me all the production rights on the Foreigner album.
He told me this would make a fortune.
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