The late Gregg Fulkerson was a talented rock songwriter collaborating with various record companies, artists, and movie soundtracks. His own vehicle to show his melodic hard rock passion was BLUE TEARS, the band Gregg founded in the ’80s.
Actually Blue Tears managed to release a self-titled album back in 1990 on a major company, but unfortunately the label (MCA) dropped the band, as they did with most of this type of acts from their rooster – in 1991.
Well, Greeg was a prolific dude, and BLUE TEARS already had the songs for that sophomore CD that never was. A bunch of songs in fact, all professionaly recorded in pre-production quality – really good indeed.
Fortunately an Aussie label finally released in 2005 all these late ’80s / early 90s BLUE TEARS recordings into two separate volumes. As requested, here we have “Dancin’ On The Back Streets“, packing some terrific tunes for all classic Melodic Hard Rock fans rejoice.
BLUE TEARS is pure, clean n’ polished melodic rocking bliss, not afraid for occasional harder things, rich in harmonies and awesome choruses. Oh yeah, BLUE TEARS presents here some of the best songs Bon Jovi or Def Leppard never wrote.
Lovers of the genre > you can’t go wrong here: “Mad, Bad & Dangerous” is a melodic paradise.
Musically speaking, ”Dancin’ on the Backstreets” is very similar to the self titled debut album. Furthermore, I would say that the quality of the songs meets, or perhaps exceeds that debut by a tad. This album and ”Mad, Bad, & Dangerous” are a collection of both previously unreleased, non-album tracks and tracks that were intended for the second Blue Tears album – some of these taped in the late ’80s.
The songs are built around thick, catchy chorus lines, not far removed at all from Def Leppard. Keyboards help to give the music an upbeat feel to them. Still, the guitar work and the excellent lead vocals of Gregg Fulkerson are the most important components of the music, and are at the forefront of the sound.
And yes, Fulkerson could easily be mistaken for Jon Bon Jovi during several of these songs.
The music of Blue Tears is your textbook definition of straight forward, fun, anthemic melodic hard rock from the 1980’s. Having said that, there are a fair number of flashy, yet well done guitar solos scattered throughout the songs. Kiss and Tell, All Cried Out, and Slip and Fall sound strangely similar to Pump era Aerosmith, a bit of a bluesy deviation from the bulk of their material. The band pulls this off quite well, and it serves to add some variation to the album.
The band’s strong suit is definitely energetic, anthem-like melodic rock. Each of the uptempo tracks has that catchy, arena quality to it, backed up by instantly recognizable chorus lines.
Of course, what would an album like this be without power ballads? The obligatory tracks here are Storm In My Heart, Strong, Dream of Me, and Yours. Storm in My Heart is good enough that it would have likely been a big success back in the day. Strong is an acoustic piece that builds momentum in places, then expands into a full choir during the chorus lines; excellent and emotional songwriting.
Dream of Me is an atmospheric number that contains well performed acoustic pieces and one of the more emotional vocal performances from Gregg. Also, there are some very emotional, Neal Schon like guitar solos to be heard in this song, giving it a noticeable Journey flavor.
There are a few interesting notes worth mentioning about some of the material on this disc. Fans of the super group Contraband will recognize the track Loud Guitars, Fast Cars, and Wild, Wild Women. Gregg and bassist Mike Spears originally wrote this song as a joke, but their management gave it to Contraband who released the song as their first single. The video for this song actually got some decent airplay on MTV when it was released.
Slip and Fall was intended for the never released second Blue Tears album, but instead, it was used by label mates Every Mother’s Nightmare on their Wake Up Screaming album.
When first listening to this album, the track A Date With Destiny seemed to have Bat Out of Hell (Meatloaf) written all over it. After some reading, I learned that Gregg wrote the song for Meatloaf, as he and Blue Tears had the same manager at the time. Meatloaf never used the track, and so here it is on Dancin’ on The Backstreets.
Blue Tears delivers quality material with this album. How come Blue Tears wasn’t massive in 1990 is a crime. Anyone who owns the band’s 1990 debut album or is a general fan of 80’s classy melodic rock need to listen to “Dancin’ On The Back Streets”.
HIGHLY Recommended
1 – Summer Girl
2 – Loud Guitars, Fast Cars & Wild Wild Women
3 – Kiss And Tell
4 – Storm In My Heart
5 – Slip And Fall
6 – A Date With Destiny
7 – All Cried Out
8 – Forever Yours
9 – Do You Want Me?
10 – Small Town Dreams
11 – Livin’ In The Movies
12 – She’s Not Falling In Love
13 – Strong
14 – Touch
15 – Dark Of The Night
16 – Dream Of Me
Lead Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards – Gregg Fulkerson
Guitar, Vocals – Bryan Hall
Bass, Vocals – Michael Spears
Drums – Charlie Lauderdale
BLUE TEARS – Dancin’ On The Back Streets [’80s / ’90s recordings] 2005 , MP3+FLAC
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