Ep. 3: Friday 45: Tom Cochrane and Red Rider - "Big League"

RockPopandRoll

It's our Friday series that takes a look at, and a listen to, one great single of the 80s that deserves another spin.

There once was a band called Red Rider.

The lead singer, Tom Cochrane, joined that Canadian rock band in 1978 and served as their lead singer and main songwriter for more than ten years. He recorded six studio albums with Red Rider. By 1986, the band was billed as "Tom Cochrane & Red Rider".

It's a band never had a song in the Top 40 in the United States, although you might remember a rock and roll oddity – an atmospheric rocker called "Lunatic Fringe".

FRIDAY 45: "Big League" reached as high as #4 in Canada and #9 in the American Rock Radio Tracks chart.

The song is fictional – about the death of a hockey player - but the story goes that it was inspired by a custodian who approached Cochrane before a show at an arena and requested Cochrane play his son's favorite song, called "Boy Inside the Man". As they talked, Cochrane understood that the father's son had died, and Cochrane would go on to write the song based on what he took away from that conversation.

The song was produced by Don Gehman, best known for the four Mellencamp albums (American Fool, Uh Huh, Scarecrow, and Lonesome Jubilee) he produced in the 80s.

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