Post by erik on Oct 2, 2021 11:21:55 GMT -5
For half a century, Jackson Browne has been a force on the California singer/songwriter scene. This week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight looks at his biggest hit, a song featured on a 1982 teen-cult movie that was a sizeable box office hit as well.
SOMEBODY’S BABY (Jackson Browne; Asylum; 1982)—Though born in Heidelberg, Germany, on a U.S. air base, Jackson Browne was really Californian through and through. He grew up in the Highland Park section of northeast Los Angeles and in suburban (and ultra-conservative) Orange County before falling under the spell of L.A.’s nascent folk-rock scene. Through the aegis of local singer Pamela Polland, Browne became fast friends with an equally young Arizona arrival named Linda Ronstadt; and during the late 1960’s, he began writing really great material, though future songwriting efforts would reveal him to be something of a painstaking perfectionist. One of his early songs, “These Days”, became heavily covered; and “Rock Me On The Water” was a minor hit for Linda in early 1972, by which time Browne had scored his own Top 10 hit with “Doctor My Eyes” (#8). For the rest of the 1970’s, when he was not helping out both Linda and the Eagles, Browne established himself as more of an album artist rather than as a singles artist. Then in 1982, he and L.A. session guitarist Danny Kortchmar collaborated on what, rather ironically, would turn out to be the highest charting hit of Browne’s career, “Somebody’s Baby”. Very much influenced by the 70’s teen-angst songs of the Eagles, the song was featured in the 1982 cult film Fast Times At Ridgemont High, which Amy Heckerling directed from a script by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe (who later went on to have his own highly successful directing career with, among other things, Almost Famous), and which made a household name of Sean Penn (who played “stoner dude” Jeff Spicolli. The film and its soundtrack were highly successful during the summer of 1982, as was “Somebody’s Baby”, which peaked at #7 in August of that year. Browne’s albums continued to sell quite well into the 1990’s, though radio airplay was limited to classic rock stations after the late 1980’s; he also remained socially active into the new millennium.
SOMEBODY’S BABY (Jackson Browne; Asylum; 1982)—Though born in Heidelberg, Germany, on a U.S. air base, Jackson Browne was really Californian through and through. He grew up in the Highland Park section of northeast Los Angeles and in suburban (and ultra-conservative) Orange County before falling under the spell of L.A.’s nascent folk-rock scene. Through the aegis of local singer Pamela Polland, Browne became fast friends with an equally young Arizona arrival named Linda Ronstadt; and during the late 1960’s, he began writing really great material, though future songwriting efforts would reveal him to be something of a painstaking perfectionist. One of his early songs, “These Days”, became heavily covered; and “Rock Me On The Water” was a minor hit for Linda in early 1972, by which time Browne had scored his own Top 10 hit with “Doctor My Eyes” (#8). For the rest of the 1970’s, when he was not helping out both Linda and the Eagles, Browne established himself as more of an album artist rather than as a singles artist. Then in 1982, he and L.A. session guitarist Danny Kortchmar collaborated on what, rather ironically, would turn out to be the highest charting hit of Browne’s career, “Somebody’s Baby”. Very much influenced by the 70’s teen-angst songs of the Eagles, the song was featured in the 1982 cult film Fast Times At Ridgemont High, which Amy Heckerling directed from a script by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe (who later went on to have his own highly successful directing career with, among other things, Almost Famous), and which made a household name of Sean Penn (who played “stoner dude” Jeff Spicolli. The film and its soundtrack were highly successful during the summer of 1982, as was “Somebody’s Baby”, which peaked at #7 in August of that year. Browne’s albums continued to sell quite well into the 1990’s, though radio airplay was limited to classic rock stations after the late 1980’s; he also remained socially active into the new millennium.