Songoftheday 6/23/14 - Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire...

David Foster - "Love Theme From St. Elmo's Fire"
from the albums St. Elmo's Fire (Original Soundtrack) (1985) and David Foster (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day is from the Brat Pack movie St. Elmo's Fire, which starred the biggest young actors of the time like Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. The rock anthem "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" from English musician John Parr went all the way to #1 in September, and as a follow-up producer David Foster's "Love Theme" from the movie was released as a single. Foster, who was born in British Columbia, Canada, was no stranger to the charts, first as part of the soft-rock group Skylark, who went to the top-10 on the pop chart in America in 1972 with "Wildflower". He spend the rest of the decade establishing ground as a songwriter and producer, scoring hits with Earth Wind & Fire's "After The Love Is Gone", Donna Summer's "Last Dance", and Boz Scaggs' "Love Look What You've Done To Me".

In the 80's Foster helped veteran acts like Chicago and Paul Anka transform into adult-pop hitmakers, and wrote and produced "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)". So his momentum at that time held up enough that his instrumental "Love Theme" was able to be played on pop radio, something unfathomable today...

Foster's "Love Theme" reached the top-20 on the American pop chart in November of 1985, while going all the way to #3 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart. It would be his only time as an artist in the top-40. The following year, he released "The Best Of Me" with Olivia Newton-John, but while it made the top-10 on the adult contemporary chart, it stalled at #80 on the Hot 100. His last time on the pop chart came in 1988 with his "Winter Games" theme, which went to #85 on the pop chart and #28 on the adult contemporary...

Most recently, Foster has become sort of reality show fodder, taping The Princes Of Malibu with stepsons and Kardashian-adjacents Brody and Brandon Jenner, as well as his wife Yolanda being on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills....

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and here's Foster live with guest Kenny G performing the Love Theme...

Up tomorrow: A Canadian in a cube.