For years, a friend kept telling John Waite to work with Matchbox Twenty guitarist Kyle Cook.

“I had been burned working with people I didn’t know, and I just said I wasn’t going to do it anymore,” the songwriter said.

Then Waite heard Cook’s solo material — and liked it.

“We met cold in Nashville and hit it off immediately. We wrote something as we said hello, really,” Waite said.

The two penned four of the songs on Waite’s disc, “Rough and Tumble,” which was released in February.

john Waite.

“Working with Kyle Cook was pretty stimulating because he’s really fast on his feet, as I am,” said the former front man of The Babys and Bad English. “So it was like finding out you can run really fast again.”

They collaborated on the single, “If You Ever Get Lonely.” Waite’s manager found the ballad, but the singer wasn’t sold on it as written.

“The original was about some girl going to Hollywood and some guy more or less saying he’d wait until she got back,” Waite said. “I wouldn’t do that; I thought it was more interesting having sort of an emotional outburst and then trying to be cool.”

The rocker “Rough and Tumble” opens the disc.

“My manager was in the bathroom of the Russian Tea Room in New York City with Keith Richards, and Keith learned over and said, ‘All we’ve got to do is stick together.’ That was about the music business. And my manager told me that story and I was home thinking about that,” Waite said.

“And I thought how that thing about sticking together stuck in my mind and what life is, and how rough and tumble life is. And I thought that was a great title for what was happening in my life; I thought it was a cool title for the album.”

With those piercing eyes and that scowl, the native of Lancaster, England, helped define “cool” in the early days of the video age.

“The Babys got signed for making a video. We were the first band ever on the planet to do that; we haven’t gotten credit for it, but we were the first band ever to get signed for making a video,” Waite said.

From 1977 until its breakup in 1980, The Babys had a string of hits: “Isn’t It Time,” “Every Time I Think of You,” “Head First,” “Back on My Feet Again,” “Midnight Rendezvous” and “Turn and Walk Away.”

Waite’s solo career took off thanks to MTV. Some may remember him from the videos for “Change” when he played a reporter or for “Missing You” when he smashed that pay phone.

“When MTV came along, the two things were just made for each other: me and them,” he said. “It kicked in with ‘Change’ in heavy rotation; it was huge because they only had so many videos they could play. I think they only had 12, so I’m on six or seven times a day.

“By the time ‘Missing You’ got there a year and a half later, the song had as much punch as the video, which was great.”

The songwriter recorded a new version of “Missing You” with Alison Krauss for 2007’s “Downtown: Journey of a Heart.”

“I approached her, and I got a ‘yes’ in about 24 hours,” Waite said. “I’ve always loved country, and it was nice to meet a lot of the country greats through Alison and hang out backstage at the Ryman [Auditorium].”

Waite will be at the Ritz Theatre in Tiffin for a 7:30 p.m. show Aug. 20. Tickets range from $5 to $35.

Tags: Bad English, John Waite, RItz Theatre, The Babys, Tiffin

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2011 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, In Concert.
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A few years ago, Nelson was in Japan to play a concert for the troops during the holidays. The base commander was a big fan of Gunnar and Matthew Nelson’s father, Ricky Nelson.

The twins hadn’t played their father’s music at their concerts.

“We thought, OK, we’ll do this for the first time,” Gunnar said. “And what really struck us was … the kids that were filling the dance floor and just getting off to this music did not grow up with Ozzie and Harriet, did not grow up with Ricky Nelson music, they just loved the songs for what they were.”

Nelson

The duo decided to put together a tribute show for their dad.

During his career, Ricky Nelson charted with more than 50 songs, including “Hello Mary Lou,” “Never Be Anyone Else But You,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Poor Little Fool,” “It’s Late” and “Just a Little Too Much.” Millions listened and watched as he grew up on radio and TV shows starring his parents, big-band artists Ozzie and Harriet. In 1985, he died in a plane crash at age 45; two years later, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“We actually argue that he was the most televised rock star in history. With the 435 episodes of ‘The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet’ to choose from, we put together a show that’s a full multimedia experience,” Gunnar said during a call from his Nashville home.

Gunnar and Matthew will perform “Ricky Nelson Remembered” at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 22 at the Ritz Theatre in Tiffin. Tickets range from $10 to $35.

“[The tribute show] really accomplishes what I think the family was best at which was connecting with the fans. And the fans feel connected not only with our dad’s music and with [the Nelson] heritage in entertainment, but also with their place in Americana,” Gunnar said. “The Nelson family was just notified a couple weeks ago that we’re being inducted into the Smithsonian Institution for cultural impact on American history, which I thought was pretty cool.”

Gunnar does have his favorites to play during the concert.

“The first one is ‘Lonesome Town’ because I get to sing that one and it’s so elegantly simple; it’s just an acoustic guitar and a voice. And I think our dad really sang ballads better than anyone back in the day,” he said.

“And the second song, of course, is ‘Garden Party’ because it was a statement of his motto of life. It was his experience to get booed off the stage at Madison Square Garden for not being an oldies act, and he just wanted to let everybody know that you can’t please everyone, he’s got to please himself.”

While Gunnar and Matthew keep their Nelson and tribute shows separate, the brothers are ready to rock with a new disc, “Lightning Strikes Twice,” due out in February.

“This record, even though it’s 20 years later, it’s a seamless follow-up to our first album, ‘After the Rain,’ which sold five million copies,” Gunnar said. “It was a record I’ve always wanted to make … [Grunge] was the single largest paradigm shift in music history; it was no fault of our own, but we went home after doing that monster tour, and everything had changed. In America, they were not playing any of our kind of music anymore.”

Tags: Gunnar Nelson, Matthew Nelson, Nelson, Ricky Nelson, RItz Theatre, Tiffin, Vicki L. Kroll

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, In Concert, Music.
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