Songoftheday 7/8/15 - Some walk by night some fly by day, nothing could change you set and sure of the way...

"Moonlighting (Theme)" - Al Jarreau
from the album Moonlighting (Original TV Soundtrack) (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's SOTD comes from jazz vocalist Al Jarreau, who was last seen with his 1983 top-40 pop hit "Mornin'". As the soft-rock-laden early 80s gave way to new wave and funk, Al continued to have success on the R&B charts with ballads like "After All" (#26, 1984) and at easy-listening stations like his contirbution to the Out Of Africa movie with Melissa Manchester, "The Music Of Goodbye" (#16 AC, 1986). In 1987, he contributed two songs to the hit comedy show Moonlighting, starring Cybill Shepherd and a young Bruce Willis. One would turn out to be the show's opening theme song. Written by Haitian composer Lee Holdridge, "Moonlighting (Theme)" would be redone and extended for radio airplay, which latched on to it as the "it" show like they did for Miami Vice two years before...

"Moonlighting (Theme)" became Al's third and most recent top-40 pop hit in July of 1987. The single went all the way to #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart, and also crossed over to the R&B list at #32. Across the pond the single did even better, peaking at #8 (very rare for this type of music). It would go on to nab two Grammy nominations for song for a movie/television and male pop vocal.

Althought "Moonlighting" would be his last time on the pop chart, Jarreau would of course continue to have big success on jazz and R&B radio, with his next hit "So Good" climbing to #2 in 1988. His most recent soul hit was "It's Not Hard To Love You" in 1992 (#36)...

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And here's Al performing live (like a pro) on Top Of The Pops promoting the song in the UK...

Up tomorrow: a rock veteran enjoys recapturing the flame.