Songoftheday 9/25/17 - Lonely fear lights up the sky can't help but wonder why, you're so far away...

"Voices That Care" - Voices That Care
from the single Voices That Care (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day was released under the banner of "Voices That Care", as a charity and celebration of the men and women serving overseas during the "Desert Storm" Iraq war. Renowned producer David Foster wrote the same-titled song along with his then-wife Linda and former Chicago lead singer Peter Cetera. Cetera appears on the record singing one of the verses, along with other stars like Celine Dion, the Pointer Sisters, Michael Bolton, Garth Brooks, Randy Travis, Bobby Brown and Ralph Tresvant from New Edition, Luther Vandross, Kathy Mattea, Jani Lane from Warrant, Nelson, Brenda Russell, Will Smith, and Little Richard, with Warren Wiebe, who did the demo, providing the vocals for the end of the song. A corresponding video, which included words of encouragement from some of the people participating as well as other sports and acting stars, was then shipped overseas to the troops, while later a TV special broadcast to America happened, though the war ended just as it was coming out. Nevertheless, with the Red Cross receiving benefits, and Foster's keen pop sense that crafted a listenable song, the record did much better than most of these fly-by-night charity events. And the lyrics, which specifically do not choose to proclaim whether it was right to be in the war in the first please, it allowed people to offer support to the people fighting even if they didn't believe in the reason they were there. A huge star-studded choir (Meryl freaking Streep!) came through at the end...

"Voices That Care" just missed the pop top 10 by a notch in May of 1991. The song also climbed to #6 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart.

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Here's the half-hour television special that promoted the song...

And finally, a cover of the song from an all-star assortment of a cappella troupe singers done five years ago for charity...

Up tomorrow: Twin brothers rock on better than previously.