RUNAWAY
From the album Back Home in Country
Listen: Runaway
This entire project came about as a birthday gift from Gary. I was on a music sabbatical as I would do from time-to-time when the road got to be too much. He called some of our old musicians and we all met in Nashville to do a 2-song recording "just for fun." When he told me about it, I wasn't happy because I wasn't ready to get back into the craziness of the business. It's "just for fun", he said. No pressure, no worries. We were just going to go back to Nashville (We were living in New York at the time), and have some fun with the old band and celebrate my birthday. Gary chose a song and I chose a song.
Gary chose Runaway. Growing up listening to 50's/60's music, this song has been recorded by many artists, so we wanted to put our own spin on it. John Palen, our bass player and producer of this song, brought in an old friend to try out a new rhythm section for the song using a drum machine playing electric drums. John and his friend stayed up the entire night previous to the recording session to get the tracks put down to their satisfaction. Electric drums was a very new concept back then, so it intrigued the DJ's when playing the cut.
Daughter, Paula, sang the harmonies and my mom, Middi, was along to help celebrate. We had a big old time!
We recorded this 2-song session at Creative Sound Studios in Nashville, TN, and Brent Maher who produced the Judds came in and told Gary we should release Runaway. Runaway was side A and The Night Life was side B. I wanted to release The Night Life, but Gary was always very strong on Runaway, so that's what we did.... "just for fun" to see what would happen.
Runaway debuted on Billboard's Top 100 list at 87. Off to the races again! What a birthday... Thank you, Gary!