John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band - Eddie & the Cruisers (1983) [2017 SACD]

Eddie and the Cruisers is a 1983 American film directed by Martin Davidson based on the novel by P.F. Kluge. The story concerns the mysterious death of a fictional ’60s rock star. Though the film received mixed reviews when it first opened in theaters it was rereleased nine months later on cable TV with great success.

After screenings on HBO in 1984, the album suddenly climbed the charts, going quadruple platinum. The main song in the film, “On the Dark Side,” was the number one song in the country on Billboard’s Mainstream, Rock, and Heatseeker charts; and #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Another single from the film, “Tender Years,” peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100.

John Cafferty was hired to write a few songs for the film based on Davidson’s description of his fictitious band and their music. Initially, he said that the Cruisers sounded like Dion and The Belmonts, but with elements of Jim Morrison and The Doors. The Cruisers were essentially a Jersey bar band, and he thought of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The film needed music that contained elements of these three bands. Cafferty did such a good job of capturing the feeling of the 1960s and 1980s that Davidson asked him to score the entire film.

Only Michael “Tunes” Antunes, the tenor saxophone player for the Beaver Brown Band, and Helen Schneider were professional musicians in the cast.