Another of my “All-Time-Favorite” albums is getting a meticulous makeover by one of my All-Time-Favorite people. I started what I thought would be a quick Facebook post and it turned into an article about nostalgia, niche music, community, and how music can be so provocative. There’s a lot of that in the air right now, what with the release of The Jesus Music film, Electric Jesus, and more. But if we’re not careful, nostalgia can be a trap. Getting in on Randy Layton’s Indiegogo campaign to re-issue Robert Vaughn and The Shadows’ excellent 1987 album Love and War, however, is not a trap at all – and you’re running out of time to do it. Ok, here’s my ramble from the other day.
Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to only fall in love with popular music. I know there are people out there who can do this. They just like whatever is on the radio. It’s like they took that instruction from their mother, “Eat what’s put in front of you,” and applied it to all of life – uncritically. Canned green beans, truck stop coffee, cheeseburgers from a window, and whatever pre-packaged schlock-rock the geniuses at Big Record Company Inc decided was going to wring cash out of the youth that Summer. It looked like fun to like what everyone else liked. They all had the same T-shirts.
I was never one of those people. Well, not when it came to music anyway. I was infected with the naïve belief that music could actually mean something. I had fallen in love with bands, solo artists, and songs that pushed conventions to the breaking point, dared to believe in change, and inspire me to be a better person. I know. How stupid. It’s not like KISS has had to use crowdfunding platforms to rescue their crappy albums from obscurity. My favorite albums, though? They seem to be in critical condition.
My record collection is littered with albums and demos by artists that couldn’t survive the difficult terrain. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. But one of my favorite albums – one that I really thought had a chance at breaking through in a major way – was Robert Vaughn and The Shadows’ 1987 album
Love and War. It came out on Exit Records, the home of The 77s, Charlie Peacock, and Vector via their distribution arrangement with Island – the home of U2. Unlike the other Exit artists, though, Robert Vaughn was not a part of Warehouse Ministries – or the Sacramento scene. He came from San Diego. They had a mainstream rock sound. Though Vaughn brought some Psychedelic Furs edge and snarl in his vocals, the tracks blended classic rock swagger, arena blues-rock bluster, horns, and a cinematic sense of scope. They fell somewhere in the realm of “Rain in the Summertime” era The Alarm, “Born in the USA” era Bruce Springsteen, and “Let The Day Begin” era The Call, with some Fixx, and Love and Rockets thrown in for good measure.
And lyrically, Vaughn had a way with vaguely spiritual imagery that gave the songs heft and mystery. He traded in iconography and types, more than anything specific. His oblique storylines, dreamlike conversations, and anthemic shouts were poetic, mysterious, and somehow, I suspected, biblically haunted. Though there was no indication that they were “a Christian band,” the perspectives felt spiritual. The only hint of anything “Christian” was their affiliation with Exit. Lines like “Draw near to me, and I’ll draw near to you,” may have drawn upon Biblical imagery, but Springsteen and others had done that. These were searching songs, and I sang along. I loved every tune on this too-short LP. I have had to re-purchase the original vinyl several times for having worn the grooves out. I just found one a few years ago and was so relieved. It has never shown up on streaming services. It was never released on CD. It practically owns the title “tragically obscure.”
Here’s another rare thing. I have never met Robert Vaughn. I never got a chance to see him and his amazing band play a live show. They got their shot on American Bandstand (which I missed when it aired because that was not exactly appointment television for me by that point.) They never made it Cornerstone. The album was out for a minute, but despite some early radio buzz, Exit didn’t have anywhere near the kind of resources it took to buy an artist “success” back then. And make no mistake – that’s what it took. The difference between a handful of great reviews and some college and AOR radio play and having a “hit” usually came down to lots of dollars in “payola.” So, unlike most of my heroes, Robert Vaughn remained an enigma.
My friend Randy Layton at Alternative Records knew him, so when True Tunes got up and running we bought his later records through him. But Vaughn remained as shadowy in real life as his press photos had always looked. It helped in terms of the “cool factor” in my imagination – because I was already sold on the music. I knew every nuance of every measure of every song. But our music community was ultimately about relationships. No one knew this guy. They didn’t know about his life, his struggles, his hopes. He just disappeared. Thus, as artists like The 77s, The Choir, and others have managed to maintain a viable connection to their fan-friends, very few even know who Robert Vaughn is.
So, now, some thirty-four years later, Randy Layton is working irrationally hard to remaster and restore this amazing album for the digital release it always deserved. He has unearthed loads of extras and is packaging it beautifully. Randy is one of those people I met in the weird corner of this gym while everyone else was bopping around to KISS (we’ll keep using them as a stand-in for music that sucks.) He befriended me when I was just a kid with crazy ideas. He had worked with Exit and he had worked in record stores and in promotions, so I knew I had stuff to learn from him. Later he started his own Indie label so he could lose more money on great music. Randy has been fighting cancer for a long time, struggling to make it through most days, and he decides to put Robert Vaughn and Shadows’ Love and War album out on CD? This is beautiful and insane. This is how meaningful, awesome, kick-ass music that dares to infect us with the love of all that is holy messes us up. It has me crying as I listen to a lost 80s rock album few have ever heard and write about my friend.
Whether you were one of the dozens of fans of this insanely cool album made by an enigmatic artist who may also have been a believer in Jesus (and possibly insane like us) or not – you should
back Randy’s Indiegogo campaign and get this CD. Even if you don’t have a CD player – you should get it, listen to it in your dad’s car, and think about what it was like to huddle with a handful of friends desperate for crumbs of meaning falling from MTV’s table. You should buy it as a blessing to Robert Vaughn – to show him that his work meant something. You should just give it up, already. Put the CD on a shelf in your office as a reminder that success is defined in very different ways.
And then listen to the album ten times through, on headphones, with your eyes closed, and let Vaughn’s gruff voice and unabashedly passionate musical and lyrical ideas wash over you. “Let the winds of Heaven dance through this electrified dream romance….” Remember that “If by chance they should try to steal our love with their big lie, tell them all that love turns to ashes. The price of love is worth this life that passes.”
PS: Randy has sent me some of the remastered songs to hear and they are amazing. The plan is to release a 2-disc package. Disc one will be the original album, fully remastered and sounding INCREDIBLE. This will be the first time Love and War has ever been available on CD and there will likely only be 300 copies available. (That is just nuts.) The 2nd disc will contain alternate mixes, remixes, demos, and songs that didn’t make the album. I have also heard some of this material and it, also, is really, really good. Keep in mind, Love and War was a big-budget album made with “major label” ideals. The stuff from the cutting room floor was better than what made the cut on most indie releases. So, the project is worth it on a musical level. It is also, as a piece of history, a fascinating story of artists following their passion. They hit it out of the part creatively and came up short commercially.
UPDATE: SUCCESSFUL FUNDING & RANDY LAYTON RESPONDS!!
How exciting! We just found out that this project officially met its goal AND Alternative Records’ founder Randy Layton saw our feature here and sent a response with his own personal perspectives on this project and why he has invested so much into seeing it brought back from the depths. (Note – unlike many crowd-funded projects like this, there will not be additional copies made available after the project is over, so if you want this in your collection, you had better get in now.)
From Randy Layton:
I had already had a working relationship with Exit Records, and a friendship with some of those artists, which was really cherished as there was so much talent and I got to help promote that, and later even get out albums by some of that talent through my label, Alternative Records.
But before that, Jan Volz pulled me into the studio at Exit one day and had me listen to demos for this new act they were bringing in from San Diego, Robert Vaughn & The Shadows. This was the first signing outside the home base of Sacramento, and besides being located physically away from the Warehouse, the band came off as outsiders musically and otherwise. This was different. Most importantly, this was really good.
The music was passionate, thematic on hope and destiny, even if overshadowed a bit by the political side that got attention. As Robert said, “Social, romantic and political themes-the four categories of life. They’re all there. It’s my world view, the only one I feel the right to express.”
That he did. For me and many others, that music made a strong musical and emotional connection. The other day, he told me he thinks all these songs are basically about the same thing, the disenfranchised and the forgotten finding hope and redemption because this is such a priority from God.
So here we are. It’s an unusual situation from the label’s point of view. I have the challenge of promoting a release by an artist who hasn’t been making records since around 1994. And he is one who has been through a lot of personal trials and tragedies. He lost a son.. lost a lot, actually. He decided to “get off the grid” as much as possible and just get away from a music career that was exciting and memorable – but also painful for a lot of reasons. But during that late 80’s period, Love and War shows us Robert and the band having a powerful creative vision and executing it.
I can tell you there are a lot of crowdfunding music projects that help get albums off the ground, but they are generally by artists who, Covid era aside, are finding ways to make a living doing what they love. Here’s an opportunity to not only get what I think is an essential album from its time back to life, where it can be re-evaluated by those of us who were there and discovered by a new generation, and actually help the artist in question directly. That is a big part of why I got involved in this project.
While you consider that, you’re getting some 17 extra tracks with this reissue, many new remixes that shine a whole new light on the recordings. They sound fresh, current, more organic. There are songs recorded that were never used. It’s exciting to be able to present this to you.
Robert, and band members Anthony and John, and Leo are all happy to see this happen and frankly, pretty surprised it is. I consider it a gift to be able to get this out to you, and any further donations/orders are going to not only make sure it gets out, but also will help out in other ways I can only hint at here.
Thank you,
Randy Layton
