Player (band)
Encyclopedia
Player is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock band that made their mark during the late 1970s. The group scored a few US Hot 100 hits, three of which went into the Top 40 -two of those single releases went Top 10, including the #1 hit "Baby Come Back". That song was written by group members Peter Beckett and J.C. Crowley.

Career

Player first came together in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. The original members included Peter Beckett
Peter Beckett
Peter Beckett is an English musician and songwriter who has recorded written songs for many prominent recording artists and for several films, as well as produced solo work. He is best known as the lead singer and guitarist for 1970s soft rock group Player, which scored a U.S...

 (lead vocals, guitar), John Charles "J.C." Crowley
JC Crowley
John Charles Crowley is an American musician. In his career, he has been a member of the band Player, has recorded one studio album for RCA Records, and charted several singles on the Billboard country charts.In 1977, Crowley co-founded the rock band Player, and co-wrote their song "Baby Come Back"...

 (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Ronn Moss
Ronn Moss
Ronald Montague "Ronn" Moss is an American actor, musician and singer/songwriter, a member of the band Player, and best known for portraying Ridge Forrester, the dynamic fashion magnate on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful since 1987.- Early life and music career :Ronn Moss was born...

 (bass, vocals) and John Friesen (drums). Beckett, a transplanted Englishman, had been in a group called Skyband with Australian Steve Kipner
Steve Kipner
Steve Kipner is a multi-platinum-selling songwriter and record producer with hits spanning over a 40 year history, including chart-topping songs such as Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", Chicago's Grammy-nominated "Hard Habit to Break", "Genie In A Bottle" by Christina Aguilera, for which he won an...

 (who'd also played with the popular Aussie act Tin Tin). After Skyband broke up in 1975, Beckett was in LA and met Crowley at a party. He and Crowley teamed up in a new band called Riff Raff, which soon changed its name to Bandana and released a single, "Jukebox Saturday Night", on Dennis Lambert & Brian Potter
Brian Potter
Brian Chelsea Potter, one of many fictional characters played by Peter Kay, is the owner of The Phoenix Club in both That Peter Kay Thing and Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights...

's Haven label. When Haven folded soon after, Lambert & Potter brought the guys over to RSO Records
RSO Records
RSO Records was a record label, formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in 1973. The "RSO" stands for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. The company's main headquarters were at 67 Brook Street, in London's Mayfair...

 in 1976 and Beckett & Crowley started anew with Moss & Friesen as Player. Wayne Cook
Wayne Cook
Wayne Cook is an American keyboardist best known for his time with Steppenwolf and Player. He co-wrote the instrumental "Lip Service" and played keyboards on Steppenwolf's 1976 Skullduggery album...

, a keyboardist/session player and former member of Steppenwolf
Steppenwolf (band)
Steppenwolf are a Canadian-American rock group that was prominent in the late 1960s. The group was formed in 1967 in Los Angeles by vocalist John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn and drummer Jerry Edmonton after the dissolution of Toronto group The...

, was an additional bandmember for its live performances; he is the curly-haired keyboardist in the band's videos from the 1970s.

Player gained popularity as a live act during the heyday of the 1970s stadium rock
Arena rock
Arena rock is a term used to describe rock music that utilised large arena venues, particularly sports venues, for concerts or series of concerts linked in tours...

 era. They first went on the road in the fall of 1977 opening for Gino Vannelli
Gino Vannelli
Gino Vannelli is an Italian-Canadian singer, songwriter, musician and composer.-Early years:Born in Montreal, Quebec, Vannelli is one of three sons born to Russ and Delia Vannelli. Russ, his father, was a big band musician. As a child, Gino's greatest passion was music, and he began playing...

, then Boz Scaggs
Boz Scaggs
William Royce "Boz" Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 hit singles in the United States, along with the #2 album, Silk Degrees. Scaggs continues to write, record music and tour.-Early life and career:Scaggs was born in Canton,...

. They began to develop a distinctive, edgy and melodic rock style
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. Their biggest hit, "Baby Come Back", released in late 1977, rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 in January 1978 and was a chart success in other countries. Their follow up single, "This Time I'm In It For Love", also peaked at No. 10 the same year. Among several notable accolades, Player was named Billboards Best New Singles Artist of 1978. Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

 became so impressed with Player that he invited them to open for him during his 1978 North American tour. This further fueled their popularity. Later on in 1978, keyboardist Cook left and was replaced by Bob Wooley (formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders). Eventually the band began to headline their own events, as well as continuing to open shows for artists like Heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

 and Kenny Loggins
Kenny Loggins
During the next decade, Loggins recorded so many successful songs for film soundtracks that he was referred to as, King of the Movie Soundtrack.He began with "I'm Alright" , "Mr. Night", and "Lead the Way" from Caddyshack...

 in the fall of 1978. After playing a show with the latter at Coconut Grove in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, tension among the various group members resulted in a huge blow up. When the smoke finally cleared, Crowley had decided to leave to return to his native Texas, eventually to pursue a career in country music.

Player released three album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

s during their active touring years: Player (RSO Records in 1977), Danger Zone (RSO Records in 1978) and Room With A View (Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...

 in early 1980), the latter without Crowley.

Lineup Changes

Miles Joseph (vocals, guitar) and Gabriel Katona (keyboards) played on the group's third album, Room With a View (1980). But Ronn Moss left Player in 1981 to pursue a full-time acting
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 career. (He continues to play the role of Ridge Forrester
Ridge Forrester
Ridge Forrester is a fictional character from the CBS daytime soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. The character was introduced in the series premiere on March 23, 1987 and has been a regular fixture ever since...

 on the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

, The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS Daytime. It premiered on March 23, 1987....

.) After Moss left, Beckett kept the band going with Friesen, Joseph, Katona and Rusty Buchanan (vocals, bass) and the band released their fourth album, Spies of Life, on RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 in late 1981
1981 in music
See also:* Timeline of musical eventsThis is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1981.-January–April:*January 10 – A revival of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance opens at Broadway's Uris Theatre, starring Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith.*January 24 –...

. The band continued until 1982 and played on the music series Solid Gold
Solid Gold (TV series)
Solid Gold is an American syndicated music television series that debuted on September 13, 1980. Like many other shows of its genre, such as American Bandstand, Solid Gold featured musical performances and various other elements such as music videos...

 that same year with the new lineup.

Peter Beckett went on to be a member of Little River Band
Little River Band
Little River Band is an Australian rock band, formed in Melbourne in early 1975.The group chose the name after passing a road sign leading to the Victorian township of Little River, near Geelong, on the way to a performance. Little River Band enjoyed sustained commercial success in not only...

 from 1989 to 1997 in its latter stages as a club/festival band and played "Baby Come Back" at its performances.

J.C. Crowley (who still occasionally wrote with Beckett) became a Nashville performer and songwriter, recording his only solo album "Beneath The Texas Moon" in 1988. In 1989, he had country hits with "Paint the Town and Hang the Moon Tonight" (No. 13) and "I Know What I've Got" (No. 21), and was named "Best New Male Country Performer". He wrote a number of songs recorded by Nashville artists including Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

 and The Oak Ridge Boys
The Oak Ridge Boys
The Oak Ridge Boys are an American country and gospel vocal quartet.The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular in southern gospel during the 1950s...

. He also won a battle with cancer in the late 1990s and now lives in Topanga, California.

Although Player officially retired as a touring band, Moss and Beckett have partnered on occasion. The duo recorded an additional studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...

 album as Player, released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 1995 entitled Electric Shadow, which was renamed Lost In Reality when put out on River North Records in the U.S. in May 1996. On December 16, 1997, Player played live for the first time in years at the L.A. Music Awards at the Hollywood Palladium
Hollywood Palladium
The Hollywood Palladium is a theater located at 6215 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. It was built in a Streamline Moderne, Art Deco style and includes an 11,200 square foot dance floor with room for up to 4,000 people.-History:...

 with a lineup consisting of Beckett, Moss, Elliot Easton
Elliot Easton
Elliot Easton plays lead guitar and sings backing vocals for The Cars. His guitar solos are integral part of the band's hit singles. He studied music at the Berklee College of Music...

 (of The Cars
The Cars
The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...

) on guitar, Burleigh Drummond of Ambrosia
Ambrosia (band)
Ambrosia is an American rock band formed in southern California in 1970. Ambrosia had five Top Forty hit singles between 1975 and 1980.-Formation and inspiration:...

 on drums and Tony Sciuto of Little River Band
Little River Band
Little River Band is an Australian rock band, formed in Melbourne in early 1975.The group chose the name after passing a road sign leading to the Victorian township of Little River, near Geelong, on the way to a performance. Little River Band enjoyed sustained commercial success in not only...

 on keyboards. A compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

, Best of Player, was released in 1998
1998 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1998.-Events:*January 28 – "Weird Al" Yankovic gets LASIK surgery to cure his myopia...

.

The response to the group's reunion show was so enthusiastic that they had several offers for more concert dates. Unfortunately, River North Records dropped the band and Player tried to buy back the rights to the Lost in Reality CD, but were not successful.

Player hit the road in the spring of 1998 with a lineup of Beckett, Moss, Sciuto, Drummond, guitarist Steve Farris (formerly of Mr. Mister
Mr. Mister
Mr. Mister is an American pop rock band most popular in the 1980s. The band's name came from an inside joke about a Weather Report album called Mr. Gone where they referred to each other as "Mister This" or "Mister That", and eventually selected "Mr. Mister." Mr. Mister may be considered as...

) and percussionist Ron Green---with guitarist Dave Amato
Dave Amato
Dave Amato is an American musician, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band REO Speedwagon.He was born and raised near Framingham, Massachusetts...

 (from REO Speedwagon
REO Speedwagon
REO Speedwagon is an American rock band. Formed in 1967, the band grew in popularity during the 1970s and peaked in the early 1980s. Hi Infidelity is the group's most commercially successful album, selling over ten million copies and charting four Top 40 hits in the US...

) and drummer Ron Wikso (formerly of Foreigner
Foreigner (band)
Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...

) filling in as needed depending on the schedules of the others. A 2000 lineup of Player included drummer Craig Pilo, Michael Hakes (guitar), Ron Green, Tony Sciuto, Moss and Beckett playing more shows across the United States. Michael Hakes died on November 19, 2003 from complications of leukemia. After the death of Hakes, the band stopped touring and concentrated on other projects.

In 2007 Player reunited once again with a lineup of: Beckett, Moss, Craig Pilo, Ron Green, Ricky Zacharaides (guitar) and Ed Roth (keyboards).

By 2009 Rob Math (guitar) and Johnny English (keyboards) had come in to replace Zacharaides and Roth.

Side projects

Moss (with Beckett) has recorded two recent "solo" albums: I'm Your Man (2000) and Uncovered (2005). Both Moss and Beckett continue to play limited concert schedules as solo artists and teamed up to play in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in 2006 in support of Uncovered.

Discography

  • Player (12" LP album
    LP album
    The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

    , RSO Records
    RSO Records
    RSO Records was a record label, formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in 1973. The "RSO" stands for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. The company's main headquarters were at 67 Brook Street, in London's Mayfair...

    , 1977) #26 US
    Billboard 200
    The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

     (34 weeks)
    • "Baby Come Back / Love Is Where You Find It" (7" vinyl single
      Single (music)
      In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

      , RSO Records, 1977) #1 US
      Billboard Hot 100
      The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

       (32 weeks), #32 UK
      UK Singles Chart
      The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

       (7 weeks)
    • "This Time I'm In It For Love / Every Which Way" (7" vinyl single, RSO Records, 1977) #10 US (17 weeks)

  • Danger Zone (12" LP album, RSO Records, 1978) #37 US (23 weeks)
    • "Prisoner Of Your Love / Join The Dance" (7" vinyl single, RSO Records, 1978) #27 US (11 weeks)
    • "Silver Lining / Forever" (7" vinyl single, RSO Records, 1978) #62 US (6 weeks)

  • Silver Lining - AOR Sampler (12" promotional 4-song EP, RSO Records, 1978) For radio programming use only

    • "It's For You / Tip Of The Iceberg" (7" vinyl single, Casablanca Records, 1980) #46 US (8 weeks)
    • "Givin' It All / Tip Of The Iceberg" (7" vinyl single, Casablanca Records, 1980) #105 US
      Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles
      The Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It lists the top 25 singles below number 100 that have not yet charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometimes, however, singles halt their progress on this chart, and never appear on the Hot 100...

       (3 weeks)

  • Room With A View (12" LP album, Casablanca Records
    Casablanca Records
    Casablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...

    , 1980) did not chart
    • "It's For You / Tip Of The Iceberg" (7" vinyl single, Casablanca Records, 1980) #46 US (8 weeks)
    • "Givin' It All / Tip Of The Iceberg" (7" vinyl single, Casablanca Records, 1980) #105 US
      Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles
      The Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It lists the top 25 singles below number 100 that have not yet charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometimes, however, singles halt their progress on this chart, and never appear on the Hot 100...

       (3 weeks)

  • Spies Of Life (12" LP album, RCA Records
    RCA Records
    RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

    , 1981) #152 US (7 weeks)
    • "If Looks Could Kill / Born To Be With You" (7" vinyl single, RCA Records, 1981) #48 US (9 weeks)
    • "I'd Rather Be Gone" (7" vinyl single, RCA Records, 1981) did not chart


Discography Guide
  • album title (original format, original record label, year of release) peak chart placing, country (chart run)
    • "A side title / B side title" (original format, original record label, year of release) peak chart placing, country (chart run)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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