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How Kansas Created “Leftoverture”: The Story Behind the Masterpiece
In the winter of 1975, six musicians from Topeka drove a rental truck full of equipment into a Louisiana swamp, carrying with them the last hope of their career. Their record label had given them an ultimatum: make a hit, or go home. Their lead singer had writer’s block. Their new album existed mostly as…
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Styx: The Heart Behind the Grand Illusion
Styx sang about grand illusions — the masks people wear, the lives people pretend to live. But the most powerful illusion in the band’s story was not in any lyric. It was the secret carried for decades by the quiet man at the back of the stage: the bassist who played on every classic Styx…
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How Styx Created “Come Sail Away”: The Story Behind the Masterpiece
It begins with a piano, alone in the dark — a single voice singing about sailing away. And then, halfway through, the whole thing explodes: drums like cannon fire, synthesizers like starships, a choir of voices reaching for the sky. “Come Sail Away” is the most gloriously excessive single in the Styx catalog, a six-minute…
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REO Speedwagon: The Heart Behind the Heartland Anthems
REO Speedwagon always sang about feelings too big to fight — love that would not quit, hearts that would not heal, engines that would not stop rolling. But the most powerful story the band ever lived was not in any lyric. It was the story of two men who made magic together, broke apart, and…
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How REO Speedwagon Created “Can’t Fight This Feeling”: The Story Behind the Masterpiece
Some songs are written. Others escape. “Can’t Fight This Feeling” — REO Speedwagon’s soaring, aching, three-weeks-at-number-one power ballad from 1985 — belongs firmly in the second category. Its writer carried it around unfinished for years, could not find a title for it, tried to hand it off to another songwriter, faked an illness to get…
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America: The Brotherhood Behind the Harmonies
Every great harmony group is, at its heart, a story about friendship — about voices that fit together because the lives behind them fit together. America, the trio that gave the seventies some of its most beloved songs, was built on one of the most unusual friendships in rock history: three sons of American servicemen,…
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How America Created “Sister Golden Hair”: The Story Behind the Masterpiece
There is a particular kind of magic in a song that tells the truth by making things up. “Sister Golden Hair” — America’s shimmering, bittersweet number-one hit from the summer of 1975 — sounds like a confession. It sounds like a man singing about one specific woman, one specific Sunday, one specific heartbreak. And for…
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Christopher Cross: The Gentle Heart Behind the Grammy Gold
When Christopher Cross swept the Grammy Awards in 1981 — winning all four of the top prizes in a single night, a feat no artist had ever accomplished — the world saw a golden boy. Smooth voice, gentle smile, songs like moonlight on water. What the world did not see was the man underneath the…
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How Christopher Cross Created “Arthur’s Theme”: The Oscar-Winning Song Born in a Holding Pattern
Every few years, a song arrives that seems to have been written by fate itself — a song whose chorus was literally floating in the sky before anyone knew it belonged to anyone. “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” is that song. It won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and three weeks at…
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The Man Behind the Whiteface: Leo Sayer’s Real Life of Love, Loss, and Second Chances
Take away the Pierrot makeup, the halo of curls, the Muppet Show birds, and the disco falsetto, and who is Leo Sayer? The answer is more interesting than the act: a devout Catholic boy from Sussex who became a pop star by accident, lost millions to the man who made him, was saved from drowning…