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Behind the Music: The Rick Springfield Collection
• Jessie's Girl [3:15]
• I've Done Everything For You [3:17]
• Love is Alright Tonite [3:21]
• Don't Talk to Strangers [2:58]
• What Kind of Fool Am I [3:21]
• I Get Excited [2:33]
• Calling All Girls [3:25]
• Affair of the Heart (Radio Edit) [3:49]
• Human Touch (Extended Mix) [7:15]
• Souls [4:02]
• Living in Oz [3:51]
• Love Somebody [3:35]
• Don't Walk Away [3:41]
• Bop Til You Drop (Radio Edit) [4:20]
• Celebrate Youth [3:54]
• Lio (Previous Unreleased) [3:10]
• State of the Heart [3:52]
• Rock of Life [3:51]
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A teen idol turned soap opera superstar turned stadium filling rocker, Rick Springfield has lived a life that few could imagine, and even fewer could realize. He cranked out an amazing 17 Top 40 hits, and sold more than 15 million records in America alone. He scored four multi-platinum albums in just four years, and won numerous GRAMMYS and American Music Awards. He played a starring role on General Hospital. TV’s top-rated daytime drama. He’s been seen on TV as a vampire, a corrupt FBI agent, a Vietnam vet, a psychotic murderer, a drug-addled film director, a cheating wife-killer, a US senator, a surfing private detective, an android programmed to kill, and Brooke Shields’ love interest (in no particular order, of course). He’s even had his likeness immortalized in cartoon form.
Along the way, Rick Springfield managed to write and record “Jessie’s Girl,” one of the classic pop singles of all time. The song distilled the promise of power-pop groups like 20/20 and the Shoes, then spit it back at the charts as a tasty nectar of desperation, exuberance, and rock guitar ballast. Had “Jessie’s Girl” been the only tune that Rick Springfield ever committed to wax, his place in rock history would be assured. But of course Rick cut far more hits, as this collection gloriously attests. “Love is Alright Tonite,” “Don’t Talk To Strangers,” “Affair of the Heart,” “Love Somebody,” “Rock of Life”: each one a perfect slice of pop heaven, with Springfield’s sturdy rhythm guitar anchoring a serious of melodies wasn’t quite so effortless a task, and a burnt-out Rick withdrew from the pop wars just when things were starting to get interesting. Frozen in time as an “80s artist,” Rick Springfield’s music has never gotten the respect it deserves, associated as it is with mousse and skinny ties, feathered hair and stone-washed jeans. But make no mistake: these songs have stood the test of time better than just about anything else from their era, retaining a freshness and urgency long since lost by many of their more critically acclaimed peers.
Rick Springfield was born Richard Lewis Springthorpe in Sydney, Australia in August 1949. Rick’s father, Norman Springthorpe, made his career as an army colonel, but he was also a music lover and singer, and he passed his passion onto his son. Col. Springthorpe’s work required the family to move every two or three years, and the naturally shy and withdrawn Rick – always the “new kid” in the neighborhood – was frequently teased and beaten up, which did little to bolster his self-confidence. In the early ‘60s Col. Springthorpe and the family briefly relocated to England, where young Rick first heard the Beatles and became enthralled with rock and roll. Springfield told music journalist Irwin Stambler, “I got into music listening to it on the radio and it seemed the most effective form of rebellion against my parents. I used to make guitars out of wood and they finally gave in and bought me a fairly good one. That was the start of a long painful process of trying to be able to do what I wanted to do, which included getting into rock bands along the way.” Performing on stage with early combos including The Jordy Boys, Rockhouse, and Wickedy Wak, Rick was able to overcome his self-consciousness, and music soon took precedence over his schoolwork. He failed out of school in the tenth grade, but achieved a measure of stardom at age 17 in the popular Australian “teenybopper” act Zoot, named for the pink zoot suits that the members favored. Though he wasn’t the lead singer, Springfield wrote the majority of the songs and wowed audience for one of Rick’s Zoot gigs were producers/managers Robie Porter and Steve Binder, who saw the makings of a superstar in the “incredible-looking” teen. Porter and Binder met with Rick after the show and offered to help him launch a solo career. During his time with Zoot, Springfield had stockpiled a backlog of ballads, which were inappropriate for the band but worked well as solo vehicles. In 1971, the first Rick Springfield single, “Speak To The Sky,” was released, reaching the top of the Australian charts.
Soon an American deal with Capitol Records was proffered, and Rick completed his debut album, BEGINNINGS (1972). Springfield was hailed as “the next David Cassidy” by 16 Magazine, and became that magazine’s third most featured heartthrob, after Cassidy and Donny Osmond. A re-recorded “Speak To The Sky,” issued as Rick’s debut Capitol single, quickly shot into the Top 20 and pulled BEGINNINGS to a Top 40 placement on the album charts. “I thought [success] was just around the corner,” Springfield recalled in a VH-1 interview. “I didn’t know it would take another ten years.” But, in what would be the first of many professional disappointments, Rick’s burgeoning career was derailed by an ugly rumor.
American radio DJs could not figure out how “Speak To The Sky,” which received little airplay, had managed to scale the charts so quickly. Word spread that Capitol Records was busing groups of young girls to record store en masse to buy Rick Springfield records. The label strongly denied the charges, but the damage was done. Rick’s success was labeled as hype, and “Speak To The Sky” tumbled from the charts as quickly as it had risen. Capitol dropped him, but he soon inked a deal with Columbia Records. When Rick’s new label attempted to promote COMIC BOOK HEROES (1973), his second solo LP, they discovered just how deeply the anti-Springfield backlash had permeated the radio programming industry. Unable to get his songs on the radio, Columbia too dropped Rick, though a romantic affair with the young actress Linda Blair, fresh off The Exorcist, kept his name in the tabloids.
In 1974, Springfield’s managers concocted a Saturday morning cartoon named Mission Magic as a vehicle for Rick’s talents. He provided the voice of an animated superhero named (what else!) Rick Springfield and debuted a new song in each episode. Initially Mission Magic seemed to be a perfect forum from which to get his music heard, but Rick soon found the songwriting chores to be grueling, and the cartoon did little to burnish his reputation as a serious rock artist. Rick was growing increasingly dissatisfied over the direction his career was taking, and in early 1975, he made the difficult decision to fire his managers, Robie Porter and Steve Binder. Alone in L.A., Springfield was broke, depressed, and unable to work for two years due to legal wrangling over a series of management contracts. His two-year affair with Linda Blair had ended, and the industry considered him a has-been before his 25th birthday. In 1876, he recorded another album, the impressively adult WAIT FOR NIGHT, for Chelsea label. But as Rick’s luck would have it, the label went bankrupt shortly after WAIT FOR NIGHT’s release, leaving the album stranded.
His musical career at a standstill, Rick decided to enroll in acting classes, and quickly discovered that he had a talent for it. He signed a new management contract, and was soon spotted by a talent scout for Universal Studios. Universal hired Rick on as a contract player and, during the latter portion of the ‘70s, he would be seen in cameo stints on The Six Million Dollar Man, The Incredible Hulk, Nancy Drew, The Rockford Files, Wonder Woman, and Battlestar Galactica, achieving a level of success that had thus far eluded him as a musician.
Eventually, Rick’s contract at Universal expired, and he returned to his first love, music. During his years spent acting, Rick had continued to write songs. Having endured his share of disappointment, he held little hope of gaining a new record deal. But restless and wanting to play, Rick hit the clubs, more for his own enjoyment than out of any grand professional designs. While Rick steadily rebuilt a live following, his management tirelessly worked his demos. After three years, Rick Springfield finally landed a deal with RCA Records, which signed him with little fanfare in 1980. Working on a shoestring budget, Rick recorded his label debut, WORKING CLASS DOG (1981), around other artists’ sessions, working late nights and weekends and playing many of the instruments himself. At the studio, he met a pretty young secretary named Barbara Porter, they began dating and would later marry. When he wasn’t working on his album, Rick was auditioning for acting roles. Shortly after completing WORKING CLASS DOG, Rick landed the role of the sexy De. Noah Drake on TV’s hottest soap opera, General Hospital. Rick claimed that he’d never seen a soap opera before, but audiences responded to the hunky doctor and his character was an instant success.
The same could not be said of WORKING CLASS DOG. Rick’s charged cover of Sammy Hagar’s “I’ve Done Everything For You” was released as the first single, and the record initially found little support at radio. It looked as if WORKING CLASS DOG might turn out to be another commercial disappointment until DJs latched onto a catchy album track, “Jessie’s Girl.” Springfield explained the song’s impetus to Entertainment Weekly. “I’d been taking stained-glass classes at the time, and there was a woman there that I fell for. I became friends with her and her boyfriend. They had no idea that I was burning for her.” Rather than pursuing the girl, Rick decided to channel his feelings into a song. Deciding that the real-life beau’s name (Gary) “didn’t sing,” Rick replaced it with “Jessie,” inspired by Los Angeles Ram Ron Jessie. Responding to the rising radio interest, RCA withdrew “I’ve Done Everything For You” and rush-released “Jessie’s Girl” as a single.
As muscular and edge as it was catchy and melodic, “Jessie’s Girl” definitively captured the frustrated desire and existential angst of unrequited love. The single shot to #1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in August 1981, capping a period that Rick recalled as the most thrilling six weeks of his life. In that short time, he achieved his first #1 record, made his debut on General Hospital, and met his future wife. Plucked from obscurity, Rick was suddenly a one-man multi-media phenomenon. The popularity of General Hospital reinforced interest in his records, while his pop success attracted new viewers to the soap. For a time, he had the biggest record in the country, while starring on television’s highest rated daytime drama. In “Jessie’s” wake, WORKING CLASS DOG bounded up the charts; a reissued “I’ve Done Everything For You” broke the Top 10; and a further single, “Love Is Alright Tonite,” made the Top 20. In February 1982, Rick on the GRAMMY for Best Rock Vocal for “Jessie’s Girl,” beating Bruce Springsteen and Rob Stewart. It was a time for celebration, but Rick’s success would be bittersweet. On April 24, 1981, Rick’s father died, just two weeks before “Jessie’s Girl” took off. Rick’s father had instilled his own love of music in his son, and had been Rick’s champion through a decade of struggle and dashed hopes. Rick took his father’s death hard but had little time to mourn. With GH and WORKING CLASS DOG achieving equal and unprecedented levels of success, Rick was forced in to a punishing routine of General Hospital tapings during the week with concerts on the weekends. It was a tough grind, but after years of struggle, Rick had no intention of letting these incredible professional opportunities pass him by. His second RCA album, SUCCESS HASN”T SPOILED MY YET, arrived in May 1982 during the peak of Springfield-mania. Reaching #2 on the album charts, SUCCESS HASN”T SPOILED ME YET launched hit singles with the #2 pop hit “Don’t Talk To Strangers,” the ballad “What Kind Of Fool Am I,” and the hard-charging “Calling All Girls.” But though his records were topping the charts and his concerts were selling out, Rick was beset by a credibility gap. With his boyish good looks still in tact, the teen magazines once again picked him up, even though he was now in his early thirties. Rick fought against the “teen idol” perception, refused to grant interviews to the teen mags, and tried to portray himself as a serious musician. But in a near repeat of his early ‘70s fall from grace, many rock DJs refused to play Rick’s songs, dismissing him as a passing fad.
Desperate to prove his detractors wrong, Rick attempted to overhaul his image. In November of 1982, he left General Hospital after 18 months in order to devote his full energies to his music career. In 1983 he released an ambitious new album, LIVING IN OZ. Where SUCCESS HASN”T SPOILED ME YET had been something of an extension of WORKING CLASS DOG (indeed, SUCCESS’s third single, “I Get Excited” was little more than “Son Of Jessie’s Girl”), LIVING IN OZ would move Rick’s music into bold new areas. The album, which saw Rick experiementing with synthesizers, was simultaneously harder-hitting and more danceable than his previous releases. Fans embraced Rick’s new direction, and LIVING IN OZ was another Platinum success, launching the Top 5 single “Affair of the Heart” and the top 20 “Human Touch.”
With Springfield no longer tied down by the daily grind of General Hospital, film offers came pouring in. Most were for supporting parts in large pictures, but Rick chose Hard to Hold, the one project which offered him the lead role. Used to being the star and not wanting to play second fiddle, he later admitted that the choice was more ego-driven than script-driven. Hard to Hold was a light romantic comedy about a rock star, played by Rick, who falls for a stuffy young woman with no lover for the music world. It was hardly Shakespeare, or even Roger Daltrey, and critics wasted no opportunity in pouncing on the film. Though a shot of Rick’s bare backside ensured that Hard to Hold would find some favor with his legions of female admirers, it provided skeptics with all the ammunitions they needed to confirm their perception that Rick Springfield was a lightweight. In the wake of Hard to Hold, Springfield’s film offers all but dried up. But the project was not entirely a wash. The soundtrack LP, which surrounded seven new Springfield tracks with songs by such “respectable” rock artists as Peter Gabriel, Nona Hendryx, and Graham Parker, was a double Platinum hit, propelled by “Love Somebody,” Rick’s hardest rocking single since “I’ve Done Everything For You.” Two further Top 30 hits were culled from the soundtrack, “Don’t Walk Away” and “Bop ‘Til You Drop,” the latter’s lyrics providing a snapshot of the tensions that had begun to dominate Rick’s thoughts.
As he reached the middle of the decade, Rick Springfield was growing up. He married Barbara Porter in the fall of 1984 and they soon began a family. 1985’s TAO was an album which explored love, religion, family, and death from a distinctly adult viewpoint. It was heady material and the album may have been a bit confusing to Rick’s still-young audience. Despite the presence of two excellent Top 40 singles (“Celebrate Youth,” “Affair of the Heart”), TAO failed to reach the Platinum sales level that had now become customary for new Springfield product (though it still achieved a perfectly respectable Gold certification). Perhaps the album would have achieved greater commercial success had it included “Lio,” and unreleased track from the TAO sessions which makes its debut herein. Coming on like a cross between “Bop ‘Til You Drop” and “Celebrate Youth,” “Lio”now songs like the Great Lost Rick Springfield Single, and almost certainly would have been a hit had it been released at the time of its recording. One questions whey he chose to leave it in the can, but by the mid-80s, Rick Springfield had larger issues on his mind than hit singles. Never truly comfortable in his own following the birth of his son Liam in the fall of 1985. he’d always believed that fame and fortune would make him happy and content, but now that he’d reached the pinnacle of success, Rick continued to feel an inner emptiness. He entered intensive therapy in an effort to uncover the root causes of his repressed pain. For three years, Rick Springfield stepped away from the pop wars; needing to do some work on himself before he could work on another record.
Rick reemerged in 1988 with ROCK OF LIFE, an album that lyrically addressed his depression and growth over the last several years. The title track and lead single, “Rock of Life,” found an enlightened sounding Springfield singing, “there’s new meaning in my life, but there’s pain and confusion / and I’m trying to understand, order the changes…I was caught with my head in the sand when the world came knocking.” The intensely personal single became Rick’s hottest release in years, and it seemed as though his hardest times were behind him. But on the eve of a tour in support of ROCK OF LIFE, Rick was seriously injured after being thrown to the ground while riding his all-terrain vehicle. Although he was lucky not to be paralyzed, doctors inserted a metal plate in his black which prevented Rick from strapping on a guitar, and he was forbidden to tour. Unable to support his new material, Rick watched from the sidelines as ROCK OF LIFE, which had gotten off to a strong start, slide from the charts. His comeback hopes dashed, Rick fell into another depression. But during his convalescence, he came to an important realization. He was happier at home with his wife and children than he ever was as a pop star. Having a #1 hit record wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as witnessing the birth of his second child Joshua, spending quality time with his wife Barbara, or playing with his beloved dog Ron ( the “working class dog” of the LP cover). The accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
What might have been a short recuperation period grew into a decade spent outside the spotlight. No longer driven by a need to work, Rick spend the first half of the 1990’s acting little-seen roles on syndicated programs (Human Target, High Tide). But even in absentia, his classic ’80s hits continued to grow in stature. In 1997, director Paul Thomas Anderson featured “Jessie’s Girl” in his film Boogie Nights in a memorably deranged lip-synch sequence. Entertainment Weekly took up the cause of WORKING CLASS DOG as an overlooked masterpiece, writing “Of all the megahit albums of the early ‘80s – a time when the Oak Ridge Boys and Christopher Cross passed for pop stars – WORKING CLASS DOG remains one of the few still worth barking about.” By mid-decade, Rick started to feel the urge to perform live rock music again. Hitting the road for a low-key tour, Rick discovered that his audience had not forgotten him. Springfield told Billboard, “I was pretty surprised by the reaction when I first went back out. I didn’t know if I’d have the energy for the music or if the fans would. But the energy was still there. Having taken ten years off, it was great to play the [old] songs again.” He’s also releasing new music again, including the band project SAHARA SNOW and the introspective solo album KARMA. It’s good to have Rick Springfield back. Still youthful, and with more vigor than artists half his age, it’s clear that success has yet to spoil Rick Springfield. Here’s hoping it never will. – Jeremy Holiday
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