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Chapter Seventeen: Late Again (1989-1990)
1989 Press Photo (No Record Label)
In early 1989, Air Supply rehearsed at AIV studio in Los Angeles in preparation for a lengthy tour of South America and the U.S. Graham had completed several new songs and was anxious to see what sort of reaction they would get. The future looked bright because Air Supply had just signed a contract with Enigma Records to release their next album, for which recording was to begin in late February. “Yeah, we have obviously incurred a few stumbling blocks getting this record together but we are set to go,” said Russell. “We’ve got a lot of new material and we have just signed to a new record company called Enigma. They are a very progressive company. The two guys who run the company are very young and forward thinking. They have a great track record in the business now as they are masters of distribution and getting records played on radio, which is obviously a couple of things we have suffered from over the last few years. It’s a new company, new people, new energy and we are looking forward to getting this record made and out to the fans. The whole thing has changed around for us now. We are very positive about the future.”
Enigma Records was an American label that specialized in rock and alternative music. They achieved significant success in the 80s after signing Stryper, the first Christian rock band to achieve mainstream recognition when their 1986 album, ‘To Hell With The Devil,’ achieved platinum status. Enigma was owned by two brothers, William and Wesley Hein, and a partner named Jim Martone. Unbeknownst to Air Supply, Enigma Records was on the verge of restructuring and would soon sell its rights to Capitol Records and EMI Group. Enigma struggled financially over the next two years and the situation was made worse when they signed glam metal band Poison. It is rumoured that the excesses of Poison eventually bankrupted the label in 1991.
Ednita Nazario - Fuerza De Gravedad
Russell ventured out on his own again to record a duet with Puerto Rican-born singer Ednita Nazario for her 1989 album titled ‘Fuerza De Gravedad’ (Force of Gravity). Ednita was first signed to a record label at the young age of six and was a popular artist in South America by the late 80s. The song, ‘De Todos Modos,’ was recorded in Spanish and was a big hit in Latin America. It was the first Spanish recording for Russell and it helped establish the Air Supply sound internationally. ‘De Todos Modos’ was also included on Nazario's 1991 greatest hits CD (Super Exitos).
The Air Supply live music video was nearing completion and was being edited and mixed in Los Angeles. “It will be an hour long and it is completely live with no overdubs or anything like that,” said Graham. “It was shot at the Ventura Theatre in 1988.”
In late May, Air Supply began a five week tour of South America with performances in nine countries, where they recorded additional concert footage for the forthcoming music video. They returned for a tour of the States in late July. “Florida will be the final stop of the U.S. tour and will have another fan club convention,” said Graham. “We are in the process of putting that together with our manager Barry Siegel. The day after the convention we go home to record our new album. We really are going to record it this time! We are working again with Harry Maslin who produced all of our hits in the 80s. This album will be out late January, without fail. It will be the first time in three years that we will have an album out. Russell and I are committed to bringing the band back to its 80s status. We want to do it all over again.”
Greg Hilfman left Air Supply in late 1988 to tour with the Bangles, leaving David Young and Michael Sherwood as the keyboard players for the summer tour. The band experienced a major overhaul in a span of just two years, but Graham and Russell were confident in their talent and were planning to utilize the touring band in the recording studio, something they had not done on the two previous Air Supply records.
1989 Summer Tour Setlist
1.The Power Of Love 10. She’s Got The Answer
2. Two Less Lonely People 11. All Out Of Love
3. Never Fade Away 12. The Earth Is...
4. Lost In Love 13. Dancing With The Mountain
5. Sweet Dreams 14. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All
6. Stronger Than The Night 15. Stand Up
7. Great Pioneer 16. Late Again
8. The One That You Love 17. My Best Friend
9. Here I Am
The summer tour of 1989 was an impressive two hour-long set that included a variety of new material, plus their biggest hits from the Arista catalogue:
The duo from Australia started the show off with ‘The Power of Love,’ a ballad highlighted by Hitchcock’s soaring vocals and the right lighting effect. At the slow beginning of the song, the stage was batted in blue lighting. And just when the song reaches a high note at the chorus, the stage is lit up with the normal white lighting. Hitchcock and Russell are two different personalities that blend together well. Hitchcock has a powerful voice with great range and was the target of many flowers from the audience. Russell has a softer tone to his voice and used mime-like body movements to add a soulful touch to the music. At the end of ‘Great Pioneer,’ a song about the men that founded Australia, Russell gave a salute and took off his guitar like a soldier would his rifle. ‘Stronger Than The Night’ is a song that has all the makings of another hit. But the crowd-pleaser of the night was ‘Making Love Out Of Nothing At All.’ The rendering of this touching song brought the crowd out of their seats which led in perfectly to the finale ‘Stand and Be Counted.’ - Cleveland Chronicle-Telegram
BMG/Victor CD - Japan 1989
There were no greatest hits or compilation albums released in 1989, likely because Air Supply was transitioning between labels. ‘The Christmas Album’ was reissued in Japan by a relatively new label called BMG Victor. BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group) was part owner of Arista Records and Victor previously operated as a record label under RCA. When BMG purchased RCA in 1988, the BMG Victor label was created. The Japan Christmas Album featured the same song list to all previous versions but had a new CD cover.
As promised, the second North American fan club convention took place on August 13 in Clearwater, Florida. It was the last concert of the summer for Air Supply and a block of tickets was reserved for fan club attendees. A fan gathering took place at a local park the following day and featured softball and volleyball matches involving fans and band members.
Arista 15th Anniversary
1990 marked the fifteenth anniversary for Air Supply. It should have been a time to celebrate, but the band was in a state of flux because their recording contract with Enigma fell apart. It was another setback for the band’s next album. To make matters worse, very little was happening for Graham and his Robin Hood-inspired rock opera, and Russell’s solo album was a commercial flop. Regardless, Air Supply felt they had new music to share with the world and would persevere despite the setbacks.
On March 17, Arista Records was celebrating its own fifteenth anniversary and hosted an AIDS benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The event featured an impressive gathering of current and past Arista artists including Air Supply, Barry Manilow, Milli Vanilli, Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston. Air Supply performed ‘All Out Of Love.’ The benefit concert was aired by CBS a month later in a two-hour television special.
Puyallup Fair - 1990 (Courtesy of Lisa Rowland)
Graham and Russell wanted to do something different to celebrate their first 15 years, so they embarked on an acoustic tour in Canada and the States. The tour began in March and took the band to nine cities, in what was essentially a warm-up for a major tour starting in May. The larger summer tour was planned around the arrival of the bands new album, ‘The Earth Is,’ which was to be released on their own newly-formed label called Roundtable Records.
The acoustic tour featured just four performers, with Graham using an amplified 6- and 12-string guitar, Larry Antonino on upright electric and acoustic bass, Guy Allison on grand piano and Russell on lead vocal. All four musicians wore black suits, white shirts and no ties, giving them a stark appearance. The tour offered a chronological program that spanned the 15-year partnership of Graham and Russell, and the set list included early tracks such as ‘Old Habits Die Hard,’ ‘Do It Again,’ ‘I Want To Give It All’ and ‘It’s Not Easy.’ They also paid tribute to their most significant influence, the Beatles, with an acappella version of ‘She’s Leaving Home.’ A large screen behind the performers displayed photographs of Graham and Russell from when they were babies. Guy Allison joined the tour on the advice of Jimmy Haun. He had a tremendous amount of experience, including stints with The Moody Blues from 1987 to 1989 and a short time with progressive rock band World Trade. Allison said that he jumped at the opportunity to play piano on the acoustic tour because he felt it could be similar to Elton John’s live 1971 album titled ‘11/17/70.’
The mini-tour got mixed reviews. Music critics heard that a new Air Supply album was on the horizon, so they were curious to hear new material:
The tour was sparse this time, and the duo whom [Russell and Graham] brought along on bass and grand piano exuded great talent and taste and gave a few of their hits a more subtle approach. Russell Hitchcock has a remarkable voice that sounds even better live than on record. But the concert only had one dimension, and that was the accessible-emotion angle. When not playing their many hits, the duo had a chance to change things a little, try a new fabric, push a different emotional button. They didn’t do that, and it made the show flat. Another problem was some particularly bad production aspects. The audience was left in the dark for more than five minutes before anything happened on stage. An often embarrassingly amateurish slide show accompanied the music. Lighting, trying to follow the quartet on the revolving stage, occasionally looked frantic. Presumably most of that will be taken care of when the duo sets out in earnest upon the release of their new album. - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The acoustic summer tour began in May but was cut short and eventually canceled due to medical reasons. The highly anticipated new album was not released during the tour, leaving fans to wonder if it would ever see the light of day. But the shortened tour was still considered a success, with most of the venues filled to capacity. A concert at the 2,700 seat Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix was almost completely sold out, and according to theatre spokesman Phil Taylor, tickets sold faster than any other date in recent memory. “That was one of our most successful tours,” said Graham. “If we decide to do it again, we’ll wait until [unplugged] dies down.”
In July, Russell appeared on the soundtrack from the movie Arachnophobia. The movie was a success at the box office and the Hollywood Records soundtrack featured several big names in the music business such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Jimmy Buffett. A song written by Diane Warren and sung by Russell, called ‘Caught In Your Web (Swear To Your Heart),’ was considered one of the better songs on the soundtrack. After the song earned high praise, Hollywood Records released ‘Swear To Your Heart’ as a single in late 1990. It was Russell’s second solo single to chart, reaching #9 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart on March 10, 1991.
‘Swear To Your Heart’ - Promotional CD Single
Air Supply wrapped up the year with a brief tour of South America, including their first visit to Argentina. They toured in places that other bands neglected. They played large cities in South America and Asia but they also traveled off the beaten path, bringing their music to towns and villages that were not accustomed to hosting world class bands. It was this hard work and dedication that would soon turn Air Supply into international superstars. “We had an instance with Latin America several years ago, and we had only played a few shows there, when we played a music festival (Vina del Mar) in Chile with people from all over Latin America,” recalls Russell. “After the show we had three or four people say to us, ‘Why haven’t you played in Bolivia or Columbia or Venezuela?’ So we told them that no one had asked us to and it’s that simple. So after that incident we got in touch with people who handled tours in Latin America and went everywhere over the next three years. For people who had heard our records but had never seen you, the fact that you even show up is a big plus. They appreciate the effort that it takes to get there and put up with technical conditions that may not be what you like.” |
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