Professor of Rock

In rock, the voice is just as important as any other instrument in the band. But what happens when those vocals begin to fade or even fail? It’s a singer’s worst nightmare. Well, on today’s episode, we’re calling attention to three singers who have had an incredible run, but it may be time to ride off into the sunset. In the words of The Clash… It’s time to ask Should I Stay or Should I Go? On the flip side, we’ve also got three singers who we wish would come back out of retirement… because they called it quits too soon. On this countdown, we’ve got a legendary frontman, David Lee Roth, who fronted Van Halen, who actually retired a few years ago, but then came back… and it hasn’t gone so well. Then there’s Motley Crue, who signed a formal agreement back in 2014 to never tour again… So why are they back on the road? And can anyone even understand what their lead singer, Vince Neil, is singing? You need a translator because the lyrics we all know so well sound like…well, you’ll see! Plus, there’s the iconic frontwoman Kate Bush, who refused to come out of retirement even after her 37-year-old song topped the charts a few years ago. Is there anything we can do to get her back on stage?
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Coming up, we’re telling the stories of songs that shaped one of the best years in popular music, songs that define today's year more than any other... including Icehouse's Electric Blue that was inspired while an artist was nervously walking along a topless beach. Plus, the breakout song Wishing Well by Terrance Trent D'Arby, who thought the industry was conspiring against him so that he wouldn’t become bigger than Michael Jackson… Then one bad interview was the last straw and killed his career virtually overnight. Also, a wishful smash by Richard Marx, an artist who broke the record for consecutive top 5 hits, even though every record label had initially passed on him… Plus, Gloria Estefan, the legendary artist everyone forgets about, even though this icon had sold 100 million records and had 2 dozen hits. And finally, the Foreigner song that Lou Gramm despised so much, he tried to sabotage it by delivering a lukewarm, uninspired performance. But everyone praised it, and it was a major hit… Let's do it.

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We're bringing it back!
Standing at the crossroads of her career, Stevie Nicks traded in the surefire success of Fleetwood Mac after Rumors and Tusk for a shot to prove she could do it on her own. But solo success wouldn’t come easy. Especially when two tragedies affected the progress of her album. The first of these would shake us all. The death of Beatle John Lennon The other was more personal, but still just as devastating. Stevie wrote and recorded Bella Donna with two duets… Stop Draggin My Heart Around with Tom Petty and Leather and Lace with the Eagles Don Henley but the breakout was Edge of Seventeen that came from a misheard phrase and a an inflight menu…The story is… NEXT on the Professor of Rock.
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Sometimes the most powerful voices in music stay silent for years and decades… never getting their due until after they’ve left this planet. You could call them post-mortem hitmakers. Today, we’re covering 5 artists who poured their hearts into their craft only to face rejection and obscurity while they were alive… but then their music went viral after their deaths. We’ve got a singer Chris Rainbow who was dubbed the "one-man Beach Boys” when he put out several records in the 70s, but his songs went nowhere. He passed away in 2015 from Parkinson’s with zero hits to his name, but now, a decade later, his obscure 1979 song has taken over the charts because of its popularity on TikTok. Plus, there is the California frontman Bradley Nowell,who passed just before his band’s self-titled masterpiece conquered the airwaves. There’s also the tragic tale of a vocal virtuoso, Jeff Buckley, who had an otherworldly range, who, in a freak accident, drowned in a treacherous river after a tugboat sailed past him. His 1994 cover song Hallelujah later went to #1, 14 years after its original release, and 11 years after his death. Add to that a folk poet Nick Drake who lived in silence and died believing he was a failure, only to be rediscovered when a car commercial featured one of his songs decades later. You gotta see this one.

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How about this for an amazing rock story? So The Rascals coming off a big #1, in Good Lovin’ the band wrote Groovin', they truly believed it would be another hit for them. But one of the most famous record men in history, Jerry Wexler, didn’t like it at all. So he discouraged Atlantic Records from releasing it. Well, the famous DJ Murray the K was STUNNED because he knew Groovin' was a #1. So he cornered the iconic label head and said 'Are you crazy? This is a friggin' #1 record.' And he was right… Get the story from the singer Felix Cavaliere and co-writer Eddie Brigati next on Professor of Rock.
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