Kevin Cronin joined the band for their second album and quit while recording their third. They had struggled through their six previous studio albums, riding out personnel changes that included three different singers. Painting with sound as the cliche goes.įor REO, their live album was where it all came together. While I enjoy the immediacy and 'in the moment'-ness of performing live, the studio has an additional creative layer to it. Even as a musician I prefer recording over performing. Personally I prefer the studio over the stage. Though the die hard fans will seek out anything and everything related to their favorite band the casual fan will stick with the live album or the greatest hits package. This tends to minimize the importance of those studio albums that came before. I think the downside of these albums is that if this was the band's breakthrough then the live versions of their songs become the definitive versions over the studio versions.

REO's was good but I'm not sure about amazing. Some were good, some were not so good and a few were amazing. In the 70s it seemed everyone and their grandma released double live albums. Gary Richrath, the guitarist from the classic line-up who sparred many times with Cronin over creative control left the band in 1989 and passed away in 2015.Ġ4 Being Kind (Can Hurt Someone Sometimes) They still tour and record but only the singer Kevin Cronin and keyboardist Neal Doughty are from the classic line-up and the keyboardist being the only founding member. By the early 90s they were once again playing clubs and the festival circuit. Their live album gave them enough of a push to see them through at least two albums that would spawn several chart hits.The hits would slow down as they seemed to push their MOR ballads over their more snappier rock tracks. REO Speedwagon fell somewhere in between. Some breakthroughs had long lasting results pushing the band into the upper elite of rockdom, others were brief flashes of stardom that gave them their 15 minutes of fame before being sent back into near obscurity.

For many artists, their live albums were their breakthrough moment when the general public took greater notice of them. In the 70s, double live albums were all the rage. I was wondering if other live albums could be given the same treatment. A while back I posted a Peter Frampton comp that recreated his Comes Alive! album using the studio versions.

Reo speedwagon greatest hits rar