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Five record industry rookies who call themselves Player have homered their first time at the bat in the big leagues. Less than three months after the release of their first single, this California based rock quintet is at the top of the national record charts with "Baby Come Back", an r&b laced love lament which has already sold more than one million copies. Instant top ten is no longer the fairy tale phenomenon it once was. Witness the sudden emergence of groups like Foreigner and Boston, or the growing list of saccharine soloists like Debby Boone, Andy Gibb, Shaun Cassidy, and the barely pubescent Leif Garrett. In any case, Player's is still a Cinderella story, albeit a carefully crafted one. More than 18 months were spent in the production of the group's debut album, aptly entitiled Player, on the RSO label. Best described by Todd Rungren, as a platter of tasty but non-nutritional "ear snacks", the album sounds like a collection of potential singles. The songs are short and sweet, most of them featuring a repetitive refrain which is relentlessly driven into your memory banks. Several steps above Muziak but just as insidious, these are the kind of tunes that dentists pipe into their waiting rooms to keep America blissfully humming. Listening to "Come On Out", "Every Which Way", or "This Time I'm In It For Love"-any of which could follow up their current smash-is the kind of pleasant, marginally involving experience which drives Frank Zappa berserk. This winning sound is a hybrid of various influences. More than two years ago, Liverpudliansinger-songwriter Peter Beckett met transplanted Texan J.C. Crowley at a party. Peter remembers, "J.C. came out to my place with a bunch of songs and I had some, too, and we liked each other's stuff. he was some what jazzy and I was more rockish. We both were influenced by the Beach Boys and the Beatles. When we put it all together, the results were surprisingly good. So the nucleous of Player was formed." The rhythm section materialized when Ronn Moss, a flamboyant bassist with compatible voice, and former Ice Follies drummer John Friesen joined in succession. Angeleno keyboardist Wayne Cook performed so well during recording sessions, that he was asked to join the group, finalizing the present lineup. Currently busy in the studio preparing their second album, Player hooked into a tour with RSO stablemate Eric Clapton, but they seem destined to become headliners before the year is out. Their recent showcase at L.A.'s trendy nightclub The Roxy proved that they are more compelling in person than on vinyl and that their new material is just as broadly palatable as the songs now available. In contrast to the spate of acne-plagued pint size performers who exercise their Napoleonic complexes on stage, the members of Player are visually appealing to mothers as well as daughters. No one in the band needs platform boots to see over the microphones, and their well scrubbed complexions have never seen a Stridex pad. "It's great", grins Beckett infectiously. "We're not only taller, we're smarter too. We're really quite straight, and we try to stay healthy, which is rather unusual for a rock band. We're probably the straightest band you'll ever meet." One feminine pop aficionado dubs Beckett "the best looking thing in rock 'n' roll since Paul McCartney/" Other smitten fans cute Crowley's sensitive eyes or Moss's chiseled features as fuel for rock dreams. If this group has any problems, it would be sudden success without sacrificing their personal image. "We'd like to come across as close as possible to what we are," says J.C. "Obviously we don't have the hype. We're not trying to hype you. We think it would be nice to be appreciated by a wide range of people. So we're not going to limit ourselves to a pop audience or a teen audience ot an elderly audience... We're going for the whole thing." |
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Rollingstone Magazine April 6, 1978 "Walking into a room that Player is in is an experience", Player's press release gushes. "They seem to vibrate the air with their presence." I don't know about the experience part, but the air is determinedly upbeat in this Santa Monica hotel room, where the five members of Player, in town as the warmup act for Eric Clapton, have gathered for an interview. There aren't even grimaces in fact, when Hall And Oates are mentioned. Player has been labeled a copycat because of its Hall-And-Oates-sounding Top ten single, "Baby Come Back". "If you're going to get compared to someone, it's nice to get compared to someone good", says a smiling Peter Beckett, guitarist/vocalist. Adds keyboard player/vocalist J.C. Crowley, "It's flattering because so far no one's said we sound like the Kingsmen". They do sound alternately like the Eagles, Steely Dan, The Young Rascals, the Bee Gees and who knows who else on their debut album, Player. Perhaps that's why Player has come so far so fast. Instead of sending tapes to land a record deal, Beckett, Crowley, and Moss made the rounds in person, lugging their acoustic guitars and electric bass and amp with them. "A tape can get shoved away", Moss explains. "Yeah", chortles Friesen, "and you need a big shelf for three guys". Producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter (who had worked with such acts as the Righteous Brothers and The Four Tops) didn't mind the intrusion and signed Player to their Haven Records. The label folded shortly after the group was signed, but Lambert and Potter subsequently helped Player land a deal with RSO and produced the group's first album last fall. Player went into the studio as a four-man unit, only to be so pleased with the keyboard work of L.A. session man Wayne Cook, that he was invited to join The cover art had already been shot however, hence, only four faces. Though "Baby Come Back" had been in the Top Ten charts for a few weeks, Crowley admits that the member's financial status is "lower-middle class at the moment", sparking Friesen to add " Just two nights ago I had the shit embarrassed out of me. Twelve relatives sitting around me and the bill comes. They all just look at me and smile. I had three dollars in my pocket." Then, perhaps thinking ahead to the royalty checks due to start streaming in, Crowley begins pointing around the room. "I'll be a wealthy man. He will be. He will be. He will be, and he will be. We'll all be rich... someday." |
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Circus Magazine November 14, 1978 |
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Super Seventies
www.superseventies.com "Baby Come Back" Player
In 1976, Peter slipped on his jeans and attended a classy Hollywood party. To his surprise, everyone there was wearing white except for one other guest, who had also come in Levi's. Peter figured the other guy had to be a musician, so they sat down together and began to talk. As it turned out, he was John Charles Crowley, a singer/songwriter from Galveston Bay, Texas. The two hit it off, and made a date to listen to each other's material.
A few days later, Peter and J.C. held a jam session, and afterward decided to form a band. They added Ron Moss, a bass player from L.A., and veteran of two bands: Punk Rock and Count Zeppelin and his Fabled Airship. Ron brought along a high school friend, John Friesden, who, at one time, had toured the world as the assistant producer and drummer with the Ice Follies. Keyboard man Wayne Cook came abroad just a little too late; he missed being included in the photo used on their first album cover. The boys were spotted by the production team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, and signed to their company, Haven. Lambert and Potter then negotiated a deal with RSO. A debut album was planned, which one critic was to call "a ten-song exercise in straightforward, romantic pop." One of those tunes was "Baby Come Back." We wrote that pretty quickly," recalled Peter. "It took about three hours one night, and then we spent about an hour the next night polishing it up. J.C. and I had just broken up with our girlfriends, and we were still feeling the sting. When we sat down to write, our moods just blended, and it came out as 'Baby Come Back.'
"Baby Come Back" broke on the radio in October 1977 and reached number one early in January. It spent three weeks at the top -- more than seven months on the charts. During that time, over two million copies were sold. This infuriated some critics, who felt that the boys' style was a "blatant carbon" of several other groups. However, reviewers couldn't seem to agree as to the source of their familiar sound. Various writers claimed that "Baby Come Back" was an imitation of Hall and Oates' "She's Gone," while others insisted the band copied Foreigner, the Bee Gees, Steely Dan, the Eagles, Journey, and even Andy Gibb. "Just call it rock 'n' soul," said Ron Moss. "We pull from the best of both worlds." Player didn't perform live until November 1977, when they appeared as the opening act for Gino Vanelli. Later, they toured with Heart, Boz Scaggs, Kenny Loggins, and Eric Clapton. Their second single, "This Time I'm in it for Love," was a Top 10 hit in the spring of 1978. "Prisoner Of Your Love" was a Top 40 hit in November of that year. Their last charting singles were for Casablanca in 1980 and RCA in 1982. And their name? "We saw the word on television when the players from the show were listed," Peter explained. "We knocked off the 's' and went with it. I think the word holds a certain ambiguity." "And also, people can hold up our album, point to it, and say, 'That's a great record, Player'." |
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eter Beckett grew up in Liverpool, England, where he spent four years playing in a band called Palladin. He quit to come to America and join another group, Friends, which recorded for MGM. After a short time, they evolved into Skyband, which released one album on the RCA label. Skyband lasted long enough to play one concert in L.A. and tour abroad before breaking up. 
