Songoftheday 8/21/12 - When I awaken feelin' no pain, visibly shaken waitin' to touch you again...

REO Speedwagon - "Sweet Time"

from the album Good Trouble (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (three weeks)

Weeks in the top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day is by the Champaign, Illinois arena-rock band REO Speedwagon, who are named after an old truck brand, they came together in the late sixties. With their self-titled first album, released in 1971, they "bubbled under" the Billboard Hot 100 with "Sophisticated Lady". Their music was much more bluesy and trippy at that point, though by the time of their first live album in 1977 Live...You Get What You Play For, they learned to incorporate pop melodies and structure in the music, and their "Ridin' The Storm Out" became their first minor hit. With the addition of Kevin Cronin, the band found a voice, and it all paid off in 1980 when they released their ninth studio album Hi Infidelity, which went on to sell over ten million copies, and produced four top-40 hits, including the pop #1 classic "Keep On Lovin' You".

Riding high on that success, the band put out Good Trouble in 1982. The first single, "Keep The Fire Burnin'", scored them another top-10 hit in the spring. That song and its followup single, "Sweet Time", were both written by Cronin and produced by the band with engineer Kevin Beamish...

The song produced another top-40 hit for the band, but missed the heights their previous album did, and didn't appear on the rock chart at all. After a few more charting singles on rock radio, the band regrouped and two years later ended up with another #1 pop hit with "Can't Fight This Feeling".

Up tomorrow:  The Canadian band everyone loved to pile on before Nickelback came around.