The Music of
JACK RUGAN
Dating back to 1980, "Here's Johnny-O!" is the 29th solo album from the ultra-prolific singer/songwriter, Jack Rugan.
FROM JACK
Back in 1981, at the age of 18, I started to embrace different styles of music beyond the "classic rock" I listened to in high school. I got into all the "new wave" stuff and it really started to influence the music I was creating at the time. That summer, I purchased a Casio VL-tone, a compact keyboard that could only play one note at a time, along with some cheesy rhythm loops. It was very limited in its' capabilities, however, it took my early music into a whole new direction. By 1982, I was also incorporating a Casio 202 full size keyboard, often borrowed from my Uncle George. With the shift towards more slightly "electronic music", I decided to create a new stage name. Inspired by a nickname provided by my 12th grade English teacher, Johnny-O was born, and from 1981-1985, five Johnny-O cassette albums were released. With each new collection, a "live" show was performed. Crowd favorites included "Loose Screws (Scatterbrain)", "Mondays & Wednesdays", "From Memphis, with love", and many others.
The audio quality of those early recordings were hampered by the limited recording capabilities and experience I had at the time, however, behind all those limitations were some super catchy tunes! 40 plus years have since passed since those fun days, and yet, many of those songs stayed at the front of my memory banks. I felt it was time to finally give them their due and record new versions, all the while faithful to the original recordings. The two vintage Casio instruments mentioned above play a big role in providing the sound and feel of those original tapes. I also incorporated stem separation software to extract some of the original vocals and soundbites, which then were inserted into the new recordings. It provides a fun combination of the past and present! One pretty neat example is in the opening song, "Old love". The banter at the start is me at age 18, which then segue ways into today's version of Johnny-O!
It was a really fun album to work on, providing some fun memories, while taking the tunes into the 21st century.
As always, thanks for listening!