Songoftheday 9/18/12 - I just look at you & I'm hypnotized, like I'm drowning now drowning in your eyes...

Jefferson Starship - "Be My Lady"
from the album Wind Of Change (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (two weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day is by San Franciscan rock group Jefferson Starship, who were formed when the Jefferson Airplane split up in the early 70s. At first with Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and David Freiberg. After the first album released under the JS name, Dragon Fly, and had a minor US hit with "Ride The Tiger" in 1974. After touring to support the album, the band changed personnel, adding guitar-axe Craig Chaquico, keyboardist/songwriter Pete Sears, and Airplane bandmate Marty Balin. Their next record, Red Octopus, gave them their biggest hit under the JS name, the top-3 "Miracles" featuring Balin on vocals.

But by a couple more albums later in 1978. the Starship was about to crash. The band lost both their singers as Balin left for a solo career and Slick was booted after a crazy drug-addled tour. Recruiting singer Mickey Thomas to the lineup the following year, the band added a powerful voice to the band, but also a much more pop-directed sound. Their first single with Thomas, "Jane", scored the group their first hit in England, from their Freedom At Point Zero album.

Slick and the band started to reconcile during the sessions for their first album of the 80's Modern Times, and she appeared in the clip for the band's first chart hit on the newly-born rock radio chart, "Find Your Way Back" (#3), in 1981. The next year with Slick fully on board (and more restrained), the group recorded their Winds Of Change album, and "Be My Lady", written by Pete Sears and his wife Jeannette, was released as the first single. The song, like the album, was produced by Kevin Beamish, who helmed REO Speedwagon's crazy successful Hi Infidelity album.

The song brought the band back into the top-40 on both the pop and rock charts, but it signaled an even more sedated sound from the band, completing the transition from stoned hippy rockers to corporate arena-fillers.

Up tomorrow: the best hair and the best beard in country music team up.