Rock Candy Records [Release date : 27.10.23]

Two more Night Ranger reissues from the house of remasters.

The band’s secret weapons are evident from the off on Dawn Patrol (1982), the debut album.
In Kelly Keaggy and Jack Blades they had two gifted songwriters and vocalists. Most rock bands were lucky to have one of each.

It’s also clear that they were a highly motivated, energetic young band. Their music displays all the emotional urgency and melodic momentum of great AOR on this remarkably assured debut.

The opening tracks, ‘Don’t Tell Me You Love Me’ and ‘Sing Me Away’ are delivered with such singular certainty that you can’t fail to be impressed. Stripped away from the album, both songs made it into the Billboard Top Forty.

They built on that success with Midnight Madness (1983).
This second album delivered three hit singles that remain the most popular songs in the band’s considerable canon to this day.

‘(You Can Still) Rock In America’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ both accelerated past the 10 million streams mark on Spotify a while back. Nothing compared to ‘Sister Christian’s one hundred million hits and counting.

Listening to the album now, you can very much hear echoes of the Glam Rock sound that dominated popular music in the seventies, eventually evolving into the commercially accessible pop metal of Dawn Patrol and more especially, Midnight Madness.

The achingly sentimental ‘Sister Christian’ established the rock ballad as a winning, chart busting formula. Piano intro, slow build, punchy vocal harmonies, climaxing with a wiry, melodic axe solo. Other bands, like REO Speedwagon, successfully adopted this formula.

(Little known fact: Glenn Hughes provided studio backing vocals on ‘(You Can Still) Rock In America’.)

Producer, Pat Glasser knew his way around a mixing desk. He left such a solid foundation behind in the master tapes that the remastering proved to be a relatively straightforward task for the boffins at Rock Candy. ****

Review by Brian McGowan.

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Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.

In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.

Next session: Sunday 1 December

Check out videos here: https://www.facebook.com/getreadytorockradio

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David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 3 November 2024.

UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 29 October 2024.

How to Listen Live?

Click the programming image at the top of the page (top right of page if using desktop)

Listen via Windows Media Player. Click or tap here and “open file”
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Listen in via the Tunein app and search for “Get Ready to ROCK!” and save as favourite.

More information and links at our radio website where you can listen again to shows via the presenter pages: getreadytorockradio.com

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Power Plays w/c 11 November 2024

ARCANE MOON Hello Sun (indie)
S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
KLOGR face The Unknown (Zeta Factory)
BEYOND UNBROKEN Dance With The Dead (FiXT)
REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)

Featured Albums w/c 11 November 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)

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