Monday, May 1, 2017

Tom Scott feat. Richard Page - Sure Enough (1982)

Sure Enough
Tom Scott feat. Richard Page

Written by: Richard Page, Steve George, John Lang & Tom Scott
Produced by: Jeffrey Weber
Album: Desire (Elektra/Musician, 1982)



Not sure if this qualifies as a "deep album cut" as it was apparently released as a single, but I can't find that it charted anywhere.


Tom Scott is a prolific jazz fusion recording artist, TV show theme composer (Starsky and Hutch, Family Ties) and was a first call session musician for pop musicians back when pop songs had saxophone solos (that's him on McCartney's "Listen to What the Man Said" for example).  I started enjoying his work with his 1981 live album Apple Juice and bought the Desire album when it was released in 1982.  As if he didn't have enough to do, I think Scott was the opening act/backing band for Olivia Newton-John while also in the Blues Brothers band at the time.

While most of Scott's music is instrumental, track two of Desire, "Sure Enough," includes vocals from Richard Page of the band Pages. In fact, it's written by three members of Pages (plus Scott) and Steve George sings backup. Let's just admit it: this is essentially a lost Pages track and as such, it's smooth AOR/West Coast goodness with an average verse but a chorus that's catchy as all get-out.

The track gets more impressive when you consider it was recorded in one take: no overdubs, no editing between takes, etc.:


Would this have been better with some Jay Graydon prodcution? Sure, but then Graydon would have fought Scott over who got the solo. This is just fine the way it is and Scott scorches his solo, so I won't pick at nits here.





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