Peter Cetera - Peter Cetera (1981) [Remastered 2018]

Deluxe digitally remastered edition including 12-page full color booklet including liner notes, enhanced artwork with unpublished photos and new interview. For most fans of strident and forceful AOR, Peter Cetera would not, under normal circumstances, be their first port of call. Having been a founder member and lead vocalist with horn rock band Chicago, his background was firmly in another musical world but this, his debut solo album, showcased a desire to break free of those chains and strike out in a new direction, a solo career that turned heads and eventually led to his departure from the mother ship. Times had been disappointing for Chicago, their 14 album run at Columbia records was abruptly terminated in 1981 when they were perceived as being irrelevant to the current market. Cetera himself had actually begun to record a solo album and was half way through the project when news came of not only Chicago's ill fortune, but also of the cancellation of his own project. Fortuitously Chicago were picked up by the Warner Brother's label who also exercised the option on his solo album, which was completed and released by their Full Moon subsidiary. Issued in 1981 and produced by himself and Jim Boyer (Billy Joel, Steve Winwood), the album was quite a revelation to those who expected to hear a mellow example of his work with Chicago. The record, instead, was a punchy example of contemporary AOR, fuelled by crunchy guitar (featuring Steve Lukather and Chris Pinnick) and designed to fit in seamlessly with the work of say, Journey and Toto. Tracks such as 'I Can Feel It' and 'Livin' In The Limelight' are classics of the genre.