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Platinum & Gold Collection:
The Best of Rick Springfield
• Speak to the Sky [2:42]
• Jessie's Girl [3:13]
• I've Done Everything For You (Single Version) [3:16]
• Don't Talk to Strangers [2:57]
• Take a Hand [2:19]
• Affair of the Heart [3:48]
• Human Touch [3:56]
• State of the Heart [3:52]
• The Language of Love [4:00]
• Celebrate Youth (Dance Mix) [5:22]
• Bop Til You Drop [4:02]
• Souls (live) [4:29]
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Like the comedian Rodney Dangerfield, Rick Springfield gets no respect. “I’m still coming against people that say, ‘You got successful as an actor and then you decided to try music.’ I mean, it makes me cringe. But I think it’s starting t turn around now.”
Wrongly perceived by critics as yet another in a long line of freshly scrubbed disposable teen idols, Rick Springfield is unquestionably the genuine article, a multi-talented singer, songwriter and musician. One of music’s most criminally underrated pop hitmakers, for the past thirty years, Springfield’s remarkable resumè – boasting a whopping 17 top 40 singles – speaks loudly.
Born on August 23, 1949 in Merrylands, Australia, Richard Lewis Springthorpe was weaned on the revolutionary sounds of the British invasion; he was particularly enamored with such bands as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Small Faces and The Move. Presented with his first guitar at age 13, Rick mined his musical chops in such outfits as The Jordy Boys, Rockhouse, Wickedy Wak and the popular Aussie combo, The Zoot.
After Zoot disbanded, Springfield tried his luck Stateside, first gaining prominence in America with the release of his impressive 1972 debut longerplayer, Beginnings, which yielding the top 15 hit “Speak to the Sky.” While the songs on Beginnings dealt with adult themes like divorce (“What Would the Children Think?”) and suicide (“The Unhappy Ending (Lean on Me)”), Springfield’s then-managers, Steve Binder and Robie Porter, unfortunately positioned him for the pre-pubescent crowd, garnering regular features in teen magazines like Tiger Beat and 16. This critical management blunder would prove to be the band of Rick’s career, wrongly immersion into kiddie-land would undermine his desire to be viewed as a legitimate recording artist. Says Springfield: “They were trying to market me as David Cassidy and I wasn’t delivering the bubblegum songs they needed. It was a real drag. The teen magazines were frustrated too,” adds Springfield. “They were saying ‘We’re giving him all this press and he’s not writing songs like (The Partridge Family’s) ‘Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted.’ I think that’s way it didn’t happen and it’s a good thing it didn’t happen then.”
A series of strong album releases followed in the wake of Beginnings: 1973’s Comic Book Heroes and Wait for Night (1976). Both reflected Springfield’s rapidly growing abilities as a songwriter and musician. Each successive album met with even less commercial success, yet Springfield had clearly established himself as a master pop craftsman, equally adept, with a ballad (“Believe in Me”, “Where’s All The Love”) to more rocky fare (“Take A Hand,” “Bruce”).
Seeing his musical career go bust, to make ends meet, Springfield ventured into acting, landing guest roles on such shows as Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files and Wonder Woman. Yet music was still clearly Springfield’s first love.
By the turn of the Eighties, it seemed Springfield’s time had finally come. A pivotal role as “Dr. Noah Drake” on the popular daytime ABC soap opera General Hospital, coupled with the release of his RCA Records debut, Working Class Dog, led to a spectacular synergy of television and music that made Rick an “overnight” superstar. Containing such smash hits as the chart-topping single “Jessie’s Girl,” the Sammy Hagar-penned “I’ve Done Everything For You” and “Love Is Alright Tonight,” 23 years since its release, Working Class Dog is rightly lauded as a quintessential power pop album. “I just wanted to do guitar stuff,” states Springfield. “The whole punk think was turning the attention back to the guitar and I was really inspired by that. I think when I did that album I was trying to copy Elvis Costello.”
From 1980-1985, Springfield could do no wrong. His albums – Working Class Dog, Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet, Living in Oz, Hard to Hold and Tao – were platinum sellers, and his concert tours were instant sell-outs. An appearance at the landmark global music summit, Live-Aid, where he performed two songs found on this collection – “Human Touch” and “State of the Heart” – further cemented Rick’s growing credibility in the music community.
Upon completion of the Tao tour, years of constant touring and recording finally caught up with the artist. Burnt out and disillusioned with the star-making machinery, Springfield finally slowed down the gears of his never ending musical machine. “I lost faith in myself in 1985,” Springfield reveals. “The dreams that I had just weren’t there anymore. I had to go through a lot of looking into myself to clear the way again.”
1988’s Rock of Life, one of Springfield’s most accomplished releases, reflected his growing maturation as an artist and a human being. (Featured on this collection is the rare single B-side, “The Language of Love,” as track which hearkens back to the kinetic guitar pop of Working Class Dog.) Yet as momentum built behind the powerful “Rock of Life” single, fate delivered a cruel blow when a freak accident curtailed Springfield’s touring plans and the album died on the vine.
Retreating from the music scene, Springfield spent much of the Nineties reconnecting with his family and pursuing acting, starring in the series Human Target and High Tide. A profoundly spiritual man, during this time Springfield underwent Jungian analysis, which helped him face and overcome his own personal demons. “Things have definitely changed in my personal life,” asserts Springfield. “The first hit I had over here was ‘Speak To The Sky,’ My stuff has always had a thread of spirituality through it.”
1999 saw the welcome reemergence of Rick Springfield, the musician, with Karma, his first studio album in eleven years. Rediscovering his love for performing, Springfield has returned to the road with a vengeance. Currently finishing a new studio release, the extraordinary musical saga of Rick Springfield continues to inspire and enlighten his loyal legion of followers. – Ken Sharp.
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