PAUL DAVIS – Cool Night [Japan AOR CITY 1000 series / remastered]

As part of the AOR CITY 1000 series, here’s another request from you; “Cool Night“, the excellent album by PAUL DAVIS finally released with a proper sound quality / remaster. It was so much demanded all over the years, that this reissue, pretty recent, it’s already out of print.
Sony Music Japan has started a campaign titled AOR CITY 1000 featuring a Low-priced Reissue on 100 classic AOR / AC albums from their back catalog, many of them out of print or hard to find. This is a limited offer (ending March 2017) with the incredible price around U$S 9 each CD – or 1000 Japanese Yen, hence the name of the campaign.
Paul Davis was (RIP) an American singer / songwriter best known for his FM radio hits and solo career during the Seventies delivering a bunch of very good soft-rock albums.

Davis signed to Arista for 1981’s “Cool Night”, and with the new label, the musician attempted a bit of a new sound freshening up his soft rock with scores of synthesizers that were all the rage in the early ’80s.
He didn’t completely leave behind the warm glow of his late-70s records – it is evident on the wonderful hit title track as well as the easy pulse of “You Come to Me” – but compressed drums provided many of the rhythms here, and the shimmering sounds of electric pianos were replaced by synthesizers.

Yes, “Cool Night” is often tagged as a West Coast album but in fact, for the most part, it’s one of the first ‘radio-friendy AOR’ records with a very modern sound for the era.
Additionally, this album was the first in history to be both recorded & mixed digitally.
It was Paul Davis most successful album and was 2x (Platinum) by the R.I.A.A, with 3 Top 10 singles as well.

What really makes this album so special is how Davis really reinvented himself as a completely contemporary artist for this period with excellent use of multi layered, harmonically involved synths and a band of multiple seasoned musicians to create music that is very much involved in the arrangement.
Anyone whose listened to Rock&pop FM radio within the last 30 years will all to easily recognize the title tune of this album, a quintessential piece of smooth lite AOR. Pure ’80s stuff.
Honestly, all the 10 songs on this album are great, actually superb examples from the sound to come in the genre for the next five years.

Some personal favorites, although this album is composed primarily of uptempo tunes, are the rock breakdowns of the snappy, crisp “Nathan Jones”, and “65 Love Affair”, a song that anticipates in many ways some of the melodic ideas Toto would use on their huge hit Rosanna a year after this.
“Oriental Eyes”,”You Came To Me” and “Somebody’s Gettin’ To You” showcase more delicacy and moodiness into three awkwardly romantic themed ‘story’ songs that essentially keep the same flavors intact.

“Cool Night” is very much it’s own masterpiece of melody, clever arrangements and musical consistency. It was really modern when appeared and still sounds very fresh today, even more with this clear remastering which blows out the Wounded Bird Records appeared some time ago.
Don’t be fooled by the cover artwork; this is an awesome record and if you’re a lover of very high quality first half of the ’80s sounding music, smooth production akin Toto and excellent vocals, then this is you chance to get a Japanese Edition of this album at a really affordable price – at least a used copy now.
VERY, Highly Recommended

Only at 0dayrox

ＳＯＮＹ ＭＵＳＩＣ ＪＡＰＡＮ ～ 【SICP-4882－ＣＤ】
Ａ Ｏ Ｒ   Ｃ Ｉ Ｔ Ｙ  １０００

01 – Cool Night
02 – You Come To Me
03 – One More Time For The Lonely
04 – Nathan Jones
05 – Oriental Eyes
06 – ’65 Love Affair
07 – Somebody’s Gettin’ To You
08 – Love or Let Me Be Lonely
09 – What You Got to Say About Love
10 – We’re Still Together

Vocals, Synths: Paul Davis
Guitars: Steve Hardwick, Rick Hinkle
Keyboards: Doug Bare, Tommy Cooper, Vance Taylor
Bass: Barry Dunaway, Steve Tischer
Keyboards, Bass, Background vocals: Ed Seay
Drums: Benny Rappa, Gene Christman, Jean T. MacHine
Background vocals: Benny Rappa, Carol Veto

Out of Print
www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/SICP-4882