SATURDAY NIGHT THE SOUND, LEO SAYER.

The Sound with Unwritten Law. From the album Jeopardy (1980). I got to know the band via my good friend John D., and I actually bought the album from him. Utter fool that I am, somewhere in the mid-nineties I loaned it to some new wave bloke who never bothered to give it back and whose trace I lost subsequently.




The Sound formed in South London in 1979, and the original lineup consisted of (from left to right on the photo) Graham Bailey (bass guitar), Adrian Borland (vocals, guitar), Benita "Bi" Marshall (keyboard, saxophone, clarinet) and Mike Dudley (drums). This is actually the photo on Jeopardy's back cover:




You've got real successful bands which can regularly produce hits for two decades. You've got moderately successful bands - they may dominate for half a decade. You've got one hit wonders. And then there's bands like The Sound or Third Eye Blind. Very promising debuts, members who seem to have "it"... but after a couple of years they somehow fail to provide. They lack just that little bit that could propel them into stardom. It's probably this frustration at being stuck just an inch short of a breakthrough which caused The Sound's frontman to commit suicide in 1999. Adrian Borland, RIP.


Leo Sayer with Thunder in my Heart. From the 1977 album with the same name.




Quintessentially seventies music. One of the iconic sounds of that age.


Goede nacht.



MFBB.