"You never know how long you're gonna be a rock star," cautions Eddie Money, who will be performing with Concrete Blonde Thursday at Muhlenberg College, Allentown.
For a man who's been a rock star for more than a decade, you wouldn't think he'd worry about his career; and lately, at least, he's had no need to. With his latest Columbia album, "Can't Hold Back," in Billboard magazine's Top 20; a Grammy nomination for the single "Take Me Home Tonight;" a new single "I Wanna Go Back" currently climbing the charts, and a new song on the soundtrack of the latest Sylvester Stallone movie, "Over the Top," things are looking pretty good for Money.
Three years ago, however, it was a different story, one which gave Money something to worry about. Sortof. He didn't fall off the face of the Earth or anything. He was still around, still playing arenas - but he was playing them as an opening act.
In 1982 he'd had a big hit with the LP "No Control." However, in '83 fans weren't answering the question posed on his follow-up album: "Where's the Party?" Suddenly, Money was left to find his own party - which was no trouble for him, because he had a problem with drugs and alcohol. Not to mention a problem with his record company, a problem with his manager and a problem with his promoter. Clearly, it was time for Eddie Money to take a vacation. So he went home, dried out, and got married, though not necessarily in that order.
"I was burnt-out and super-tired of working," Money says, adding that during his sabbatical, he focused on his new-found domestic life. "I got into appreciating my house. I threw a couple parties and I got some dogs."
Professionally, he may have been down but he wasn't out, as some people believed. During his break he produced an album for a band, Eddie And The Tide, and continued writing songs. "I never had any doubts that I'd be around for awhile," he says firmly. "If you have a lot of faith in what you're doing, if you love what you're doing, then other people will love it too."
Eddie Money (his real name is Edward Mahoney) started doing what he loves to do at an early age. When he was a boy he'd sing along with the radio. As a teen-ager he played in several bands around his hometown of Woodhaven, N.Y. "I was big locally and in Long Island," says Money. "And when you're big in your own community it's just like being big everywhere else."
He became big everywhere else shortly after promoter Bill Graham discovered him at a California battle of the bands contest and became so impressed with the raspy-voiced singer that he decided to become his manager. In 1977, Eddie Money's first album - which spawned the hits "Baby Hold On to Me" and "Two Tickets to Paradise" - went platinum. After that, he cut five albums in six years; the fifth one flopped and broke his momentum. But now he's got himself going again.
This time around he has a new producer, a new backup band, and a few new songwriters that co-authored some of the tunes on his new record. He believes that "Can't Hold Back" is his best album yet, and a quick listen to the disc bears him out. His voice is more flexible and mature than it used to be, and he seems more able to adapt himself to a wider variety of rock and pop styles than before. "I'm singing a lot better on this one," he says, attributing his development, in part, to the fact that he stopped drinking and tries to get more sleep these days.
Although he's pleased with both the new album and his performance on it, he admits that, initially, he didn't want to do the song "Take Me Home Tonight." CBS, his record company, asked him to do it and he agreed only after it occurred to him to get former Ronette Ronnie Spector to make a cameo vocal appearance on the single. The lyrics that introduce the chorus to the song are "Just like Ronnie sang," so Money figured that since the songwriters obviously had the Ronette classic "Be My Baby" in mind, he might as well get Ronnie herself to embellish the chorus that Money sings with the line that made her famous.
"I didn't like the song, but it was good for Ronnie's career and let's face it - I'm a performer and an entertainer, not just a songwriter, so I gotta get out and do these things. It helped Ronnie out and it helped me get some of my other material on the album across, so now I'm happy I did it." Ronnie Spector got a new record contract from her exposure on the song, and on her next album, she and Money will perform a duet.
For Money, things have been happening pretty quickly again since the success of his new album. Once again, he has to keep up with the hectic pace of tours, interviews, videos and side projects, and sometimes he finds it a little difficult. "When I wasn't working it wasn't as bad but I'm in the limelight again and when you're hot you're hot; you gotta roll with the ball. I guess I gotta start takin' this thing a lot more serious now," he adds reflectivly. "I'm married now."
Carrie Stetler is a free-lance writer on entertainment for The Morning Call.