The AT40 Blog/September 24, 1983: Billy's ode to Motown

Billy Joel's 1982 album "The Nylon Curtain" was a very heavy album with topical songs like "Allentown" and "Goodnight Saigon." He had seen the slipping of what we call "The American Dream" with the presidency of Ronald Reagan meaning that the next generation was never going to have it quite as good as the previous generation.

As much as Joel said he loved doing that album, calling it "the recording I'm most proud of and the material I'm most proud of," he wanted to get back to a peppier album, one where his influences were all artists he listened to on the radio as a child.

So in the spring of 1983, Joel, closing in on 34 years old, recorded "An Innocent Man." Each of the 10 tracks on the album paid homage to his musical heroes. And the album would be a rousing success on the charts for Joel as it peaked at No. 4 and would sell over 7 million copies in this country.

And the album would spawn six Top 40 hits, each with a unique sound to them:

Keeping The Faith: The sixth and final Top 40 hit from the album was spawned by the pop songs of Joel's youth before the Beatles landed in the United States in 1964.

Leave A Tender Moment Alone: The fifth hit from the summer of 1984 was an ode to the soft music of William "Smokey" Robinson of Motown fame, complemented by a harmonica throughout.

The Longest Time: This spring of 1984 hit and the fourth single from the album was an absolutely unabashed tribute to the doo-wop music of the 1950s that helped create the basis of rock 'n roll and pop music.

An Innocent Man: Joel called this Top 10 hit from the winter of '84 an homage to the sounds of Ben E. King and the Drifters, almost to a fault.

Uptown Girl: Joel's tribute to his future wife Christie Brinkley (though it started as a song about his girlfriend at the time, model Elle McPherson) was a spot-on tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, arguably the greatest song the Four Seasons never recorded.

And then there was the first single release from the album, the Motown-splashed "Tell Her About It," full of horns and soul-sounding backing vocals. If you closed your eyes, you'd swear you were back in the 1960s during the heyday of the Motown sound and those great songs coming out of Detroit.

Phil Ramone, Joel's longtime producer, felt strongly that "Tell Her About It" should be the first release from the album. The song centers around a man having to find the right words to tell a woman what he truly thinks about her and wanting to find that way before it's too late and she's gone. As a matter of fact, according to Joel's book The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man, Joel said it was his time spent with Brinkley that inspired the song because all they would do is spend time talking with one another and learning about each other. Joel said he believed at that point, you could have a "soul mate." He would marry Brinkley in 1985.

As the song was being released, the music video was also released to make it look as if Joel was a guest on the old The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, July 31, 1963, 20 years ago (which is completely false since July 31, 1963 was a Wednesday, not a Sunday, but July 31, 1983 was a Sunday). Sullivan, played by comic actor-impersonator Will Jordan, introduces Joel to the stage as "B.J. & The Affordables" after the legendary Topo Gigio had gone before him. Decked out in a sparkling suit and wearing sunglasses, Joel runs through the song, while various scenarios take place away from the performance (even showing Joel delivering pizza to a sorority party and playing a bartender for a second while singing the song). Actor Phil Foster, who played Frank DeFazio, Laverne's dad on Laverne and Shirley, is also in the video.

Also appearing in the video, waiting in the wings to perform, is comedian Rodney Dangerfield ... who gets cast aside by Petrushka the Dancing Bear at the end of the video. Talk about no respect!

"Tell Her About It" made a spectacular debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 38 on July 30, 1983 and shot up to No. 29 the next week. Three weeks later, the song leaped from No. 22 to No. 12. One week later on September 3, 1983, "Tell Her About It" was in the Top 10 at No. 7. From there, the song jumped to No. 5, then up to No. 2 before landing at the No. 1 spot the week of September 24, 1983, spending one week at the top. It would be Joel's second No. 1 hit after his 1980 chart-topper "It's Still Rock 'n Roll To Me." It also gave Ramone his second straight No. 1 hit as he also produced the song that got knocked out of the top spot, Michael Sembello's "Maniac" from the Flashdance soundtrack.

As mentioned before, "Tell Her About It" sent the ball rolling for the album "An Innocent Man." Unlike "The Nylon Curtain," the commercial appeal was far more apparent in this album. Even on the songs that weren't released, they had an influence, too: "Easy Money" was very much a ripoff of the music of James Brown, "Christie Lee" had Little Richard's influence all over it, "Careless Talk" was a tribute to Sam Cooke and "This Night" was a tip of the hat to Little Anthony & The Imperials.

Joel's legend as a star was cemented for life with the album's success. And to think, all he wanted to do was make an album that paid tribute to his heroes musically.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The AT40 Blog/September 20, 1986: Getting 'Stuck' at No. 1

By the summer of 1986, Huey Lewis & the News were household names, thanks to the success of the No. 1 album "Sports."

The band's previous album sold 10 million copies alone in the United State. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time. So how did they follow up "Sports?" By keeping their next album (and CD) in a "athletic" atmosphere.

"Fore!" was named after what you yell on an errant shot on a golf course (and a sport the members of the band enjoyed playing). But "Fore!" also was the fourth album for the band, whose star grew with each new release. The first single to come from the album was "Stuck With You," a simple pop hit that would double as an adult contemporary single. Backed by a perfect tongue-in-cheek music video featuring group leader Lewis and a female friend (played by actress-now-journalist Keely Shaye Smith Brosnan) getting out of a party neither want to be at in, only to be shipwrecked (where they landed after sailing on "Myot," Lewis' "yacht") on an island that is occupied by various members of the group dressed in costume (some not), the song zoomed to No. 1 the week of September 20, 1986, spending three weeks at the top, the band's second No. 1 hit after the movie hit "The Power Of Love" from Back To The Future the year before.

Still, how did Lewis and the band get into this position? The story starts in 1972 when then 22-year-old Lewis (real name Hugh Anthony Cregg III) and a keyboardist named Sean Hopper became members of a San Francisco Bay-area band called Clover. Clover recorded some albums in the 1970s, but none really gained any huge notoriety, so the band moved out of San Francisco and re-located to England after British singer Nick Lowe caught their act in Los Angeles one night and persuaded the guys to go to England. They would gain a following there and do work with Elvis Costello. Lewis, meanwhile, gained notoriety as a harmonica player in Europe, his work showcased on Thin Lizzy's "Live And Dangerous" live album, in which he was pointed out in shows by group lead singer Phil Lynott.

But the problem for Clover was that the music they were doing in England had begun to fade out and punk rock and new wave were becoming all the rage, leaving the members of the group to return to the United States by the late 1970s.

Back in the Bay area, the band was still popular, but a new act was coming up to challenge Clover for supremacy in San Francisco. That band, Soundhole, included drummer Billy Gibson, saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla and bass player Mario Cipollina. The rivals, though, found out from each other they had a lot more in common than they realized, one of those facts being both worked with Van Morrison.

In 1978, Lewis secured a record deal to record singles, and he liked Soundhole's sound so much, he recruited Gibson, Colla. Cipollina and Hopper to help with recording in the studio, calling themselves Huey Lewis & The American Express. They recorded two songs for a single -- a hokey disco version of the famous theme from "Exodus" known as "Exodisco" and the other being "Kick Back," a song Lewis had performed numerous times with Clover over the years.

In 1979, they brought on a new member, guitarist Chris Hayes, and secured a record deal on their own for Chrysalis Records when a demo tape they did landed in the hands of Bob Brown, the manager of another well-known band in the Bay area, Pablo Cruise, and who would end up being their longtime manager as well. Chrysalis executives loved their sound and all was right, but there was one thing they wanted the band to do.

Ditch the name. Not that they didn't dig it. They feared that the company American Express would sue the band for using the name, so the members agreed and came up with the name that would stick forever -- Huey Lewis & The News.

The band recorded its 1980 self-titled debut with Boz Scaggs' producer, Bill Schnee. A number of people thought the album would be a big hit, but for the most part, no one noticed, like the band recorded an album in anonymity.

The turning point came a year later in 1981 when getting ready to record the next album. The band turned to an old friend: Robert John "Mutt" Lange was the man who cut his teeth as a producer in the 1970s producing Clover's albums. This time, though, it wasn't his production work they needed from Lange.

Lewis asked Lange to submit a song for the album. He gave the band a song Lange sang lead vocals for in the 1970s for a group called Supercharge titled "We Both Believe In Love." Lewis loved the song ... just not the title. So he changed it to "Do You Believe In Love?" and wouldn't you know it -- the song became Huey Lewis & The News' breakthrough in early 1982, peaking at No. 7 that spring.

"Picture This" shipped gold, selling over 500,000 copies, and went to the Top 15 on the album chart.

But delays on the next album, which would be called "Sports," put such a damper on the band that Lewis and the band went back to doing small clubs in the interim while traveling on bus, a tour that would be called the "Working For A Livin'" tour in honor of one of the singles released from "Picture This."

It was that work on the 1983 tour prior to the release of "Sports" that may have pushed the album to great things and the band into superstar status by the summer of 1984 as "Sports," released in mid-September 1983, finally reached its apex on June 30, 1984, hitting No. 1 on the album chart just as Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." album and Prince's "Purple Rain" soundtrack were about to catch fire and dominate the rest of the year.

That led to the band being asked to record music for the Michael J. Fox movie Back To The Future in 1985 and "The Power Of Love" being the band's first No. 1 hit. But as soon as they could, the band went back into the studio to record the fourth album, "Fore!" for which Hayes and Lewis co-wrote "Stuck With You." It was No. 1 in the U.S., Canada and Zimbabwe and a Top 15 pop hit in over a dozen countries. "Stuck With You" featured perfect backing harmonies by the News members with Lewis leading the way on lead vocals.

"Fore!" would produce five Top 10 hits for Lewis & Co., two of which -- "Hip To Be Square" and "I Know What I Like" -- had backing vocals sung by various members of some of the band's buddies -- the San Francisco 49ers, including future Hall of Famers Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana.

"Stuck With You" remains to this day the group's biggest hit and the biggest of their three No. 1 hits. "Stuck With You" debuted within the Top 40 on August 9, 1986, at No. 33 and immediately jumped up to No. 24 the next week. From there, it traveled from No. 24 to No. 15 to No. 9, then No. 6, No. 3 and finally No. 1, where it kept Lionel Richie at No. 2 with "Dancing On The Ceiling," which if it had hit No. 1 would have extended Richie's remarkable run of writing at least one No. 1 hit a year to nine straight years.

In other words, Huey Lewis & The News helped end the streak. Surely, the two acts can get a laugh out of it these days.

These days, the band continues to tour and in February-March 2016, are expected to help headline a "Cruise Back To The 1980s" cruise with fellow 1980s rock bands that will leave dock from Fort Lauderdale and travel to Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay. Other acts on the cruise include A Flock Of Seagulls, Was (Not Was), Richard Marx, Modern English, Naked Eyes, Starship, Tiffany and Wang Chung and will be hosted by former MTV VJs (and current Sirius XM 80s on 8 channel personalities) Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter with DJ duties performed by rapper Biz Markie.

Cipollina left the band in 1994 and Hayes made his exit in 2009 to be with his family, but the other four members of the band, including Lewis, continue to enjoy what they do for a living.

Whether you like it or not, we're "stuck with them."

Really, it's not a bad thing at all.

The AT40 Blog/September 18, 1976: The long, "Funky" road to No. 1

The road to success is sometimes paved with narrow twists and turns and bumps some didn't expect along the way. For the band Wild Cherry, claiming their first No. 1 hit took a lot of turns and twists in getting there.

Formed in 1970 in the town of Steubenville, Ohio (also the home of the great Dean Martin as well as adult film star Traci Lords and ESPN SportsCenter anchor John Buccigross) by lead singer and guitarist Rob Parissi two years after graduating at nearby Mingo High School in Mingo Junction, Ohio, the band included a number of guys from Steubenville and East Springfield, Ohio, as well as Weirton, W.Va., in the upper needle of the state.

The band, which was given the name Wild Cherry by Parissi after looking at a box of cough drops he was taking while in the hospital for a short stay, made a name for itself in the Ohio Valley region as well as in northern West Virginia and nearby Pittsburgh. They released a number of singles for a record company they formed, including the song "You Can Get High (But Lay Low)."

Their hard work in touring paid off when they were signed by Terry Knight to his label, Brown Bag Records. Knight was the leader of a band called Terry Knight And The Pack, and ultimately, left the band for a managing career of the other guys in the group -- a group that would ultimately become Grand Funk Railroad.

The band got to record some more on Brown Bag Records and released songs like "Get Down" and "Show Me Your Badge," but nothing came from it. As a matter of fact, three years had gone by for Wild Cherry  doing the local club circuit and signed to a record label to record singles with nothing coming from it. And though Parissi was the driving force, he started wondering if the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel was an oncoming train.

In the middle of trying to make it, Parissi walked away and ended Wild Cherry, getting into the steakhouse managing business, just to keep himself away from the music he was creating.

But the thought of the music industry was still marinating in Parissi's mind. Was his group still "raw?" And did he have any belief they were a "quality cut?" A year into the steakhouse managing business, Parissi was clamoring for another taste of the music business.

He was back aboard ... but had a big problem. At the end of his first stint with the band, he went so cold turkey about ever doing another gig or record that he sold his favorite guitar. He wanted it back -- even went to the record store to ask about it and they couldn't give him an answer as to where it went to. For months, he was searching out that guitar, then while he was least looking, he was in another record store one day and there it was -- his favorite guitar hanging on the wall. He recognized it immediately, asked the owner how much he wanted for the guitar, then was surprised when the owner answered back, "You can have it. I never really did like it anyway."

So Parissi, finding his guitar, went back to work in 1975 with the "new" Wild Cherry that consisted of him, Pittsburgh natives Bryan Bassett on guitar and Ron Beitle on drums and Detroit native Allen Wentz on synthesizers and bass guitar.

And the band went back on tour to promote their own music, which was still of the rock format at the time.

Enter fate. During the mid-1970s, the band began to be asked if they did more uptempo songs since disco music was becoming all the rave throughout the world, especially in the United States. Parissi was hesitant at first to do "dance" music, but one night at the 2001 Club in Pittsburgh, a group of African-American customers were sitting at a table near where the band was performing their normal routine. At that point, one man from the group asked the gys, "Are you white boys gonna play some funky music?" Parissi didn't think anything of it.

But one person who did become "aware" of what the fans were asking for was Beitle. It was right before a set a few nights later that Beitle uttered the words "Play that funky music, white boy." And the light bulb went on inside Parissi's head. Just five minutes before he went back on stage to perform the band's set, Parissi stopped at the bar and asked the waitress if he could borrow her pen. He grabbed a napkin and began to write the words to what would become the song, "Play That Funky Music."

Five minutes later, the song was complete, but the band didn't do anything with Parissi's piece until they got into a studio to record it. Studio engineer Ken Hamann was so blown away by what he had just heard, he got in contact with CBS/Epic Records affiliate Sweet City Records. The band was signed immediately, then the record company made it clear that they saw big-time potential in this new recording called "Play That Funky Music," featuring Parissi's now famous guitar opening (on the same guitar he once sold, then got back) and soulful voice that most everybody thought the lead singer was African-American.

The band had intended "Play That Funky Music" to be the B-side of a Commodores tune they were covering, but now were sitting on this pop and R&B gold mine that was about to burst into a major treasure for Parissi and his group.

The song made its Top 40 debut on July 31, 1976, at No. 34. and just marched forward from there: It rocketed to No. 22 the next week, then to No. 15 on August 14, then to No. 12, then into the Top 10 at No. 7 on August 28. From there, it jumped to No. 6, then No. 3 and on the week of September 18, 1976, it had landed as the No. 1 song in America, spending an impressive three weeks at the time.
There was more, though: Two weeks before hitting No. 1 on the pop chart, "Play That Funky Music" had already caught the fever as a soul smash and got to No. 1 on the R&B chart, spending two straight weeks there.

"Play That Funky Music" became a huge smash all over the world, hitting the Top 10 in over a dozen countries. And for generations, no one can hear this song without uttering those words that drummer Ron Beitle heard that night from those fans ... "play that funky music white boy."

The band was nominated for a pair of Grammy Awards and the song won an American Music Award honor for Best R&B Song. Session keyboardist Marc Avsec joined the band for good after playing on a couple of songs during the sessions for their self-titled debut album.

But for all the success of "Play That Funky Music" and a Top 5 self-titled debut, Wild Cherry never followed up properly on it. "Baby Don't You Know" missed the Top 40, peaking at No. 43 in 1977 and three other Hot 100 singles charted, but none higher than No. 61.

Near the end of the line for the band, a former member of a group called the Jaggerz from the Pittsburgh area named Donnie Iris joined. That would be on the band's 1979 album, "Only The Wild Survive." Ironically, Wild Cherry didn't survive. The group called it quits for good in 1979 and even more ironic, the most successful member of the band after the breakup was newcomer Iris, who teamed up with Avsec to form Donnie Iris & The Cruisers and score Top 40 hits in the early 1980s with "Ah! Leah!" "Love Is Like A Rock," and "My Girl."

Wentz moved to New York and became a writer and session musician, working with artists such as Roberta Flack, Cyndi Lauper and the late Luther Vandross. Bassett moved to Sanford, Fla., to become a record producer and engineer of blues music and occasionally toured with the bands Molly Hatchett and Foghat. Beitle got to work alongside numerous rock acts as a drummer over the years and these days, he's a drummer for Nied's Hotel Band in Lawrenceville, Pa.

As for Parissi, the man who wrote the famous words "play that funky music white boy," he got to live a Forest Gump-like existence in the music industry. He moved to Miami after Wild Cherry broke up in 1979 and went on tour with Bobby Caldwell of "What You Won't Do For Love" fame. After that, he moved to New York, where he got to work with up-and-coming star Billy Squier's band for the "Don't Say No" breakthrough album and worked as a guitarist and part-time producer on the comeback album for Gary "U.S." Bonds, "Dedication," which was co-produced by Bonds and two of his biggest fans, Bruce Springsteen and "Little" Steven Van Zandt. He earned a gold record for his work on that album when it sold over 500,000 copies in 1981.

Parissi continued to play local clubs in his native areas of Steubenville and in Pittsburgh and got to work for a short time as a morning disc jockey and a program director. He lives in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area these days, but every August 11, he is back in Mingo Junction to help raise funds for a scholarship endowment that goes to his now-consolidated high school, Indian Creek High. And he still writes and peforms music in the smooth jazz genre.

And if that's not enough, the longest street in his hometown of Mingo Junction, Ohio, is renamed in his honor. Not bad indeed.

Wild Cherry has not existed since 1979, but the band's one and only tune lives forever.

And it can thank some persistent club goers who were looking for the band to perform one uptempo tune.

Look at the gift they gave those fans. It came from that long, twisty, bumpy road trip they were taking to succeed.

The AT40 Blog/September 7, 1985: The "real" story of "The Man In Motion"

If you ask most people what the song "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" is all about, chances are those people will tell you it's the theme song from a Brat Pack movie starring Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Mare Winningham, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe as college graduates trying to make it on their own after receiving their diplomas.

But what if I told you that this was not the original premise of writing the song whatsoever? Yeah, you'd be shocked, too.

And, yes, it's true. The song was co-written by the song's producer, David Foster, and the singer, John Parr, about a man trying to accomplish something amazing. In other words, it had nothing to do with the Brat Pack whatsoever.



The man this song was meant for was a Canadian native named Rick Hansen. Hansen, born August 26, 1957, in Port Alberni, British Columbia, was involved in an truck accident at the age of 15 when he was thrown from the back of the truck he was a passenger in that swerved out of control and into a tree. The spinal cord injury he suffered made him a paraplegic. Hansen worked hard to get himself into some kind of working shape, finish school, graduate, then become the first person with a physical disability to earn a degree from the University of British Columbia.

After school, Hansen worked on being an outstanding wheelchair athlete. He won as a member of the national championship wheelchair basketball team and became a wheelchair marathoner. In the 1980 and 1984 Summer Paraplegic Olympics, Hansen earned three gold medals, two silvers and a bronze. And on top of that, Hansen was a three-time world championship marathoner.

Hansen had seen and done enough in his life, but just as he ran out of challenges to conquer, he thought back to the spring of 1980. An amputee and former star athlete named Terry Fox began a venture called the "Marathon Of Hope" to raise cancer awareness while running through Canada, the insidious disease that led to him being amputated. Sadly, though, a recurrence of the cancer he was fighting came back and Fox had to end his run. Fox would die on June 28, 1981 from cancer at the age of 23.

Hansen thought about the 5,373 kilometers Fox ran on one leg in 143 days. Fox's efforts raised $600 million Canadian and Hansen had an idea that would be similar.

The idea would have Hansen not just going through Canada, but all around the world. It would turn out to be four continents. And so on March 21, 1985, Hansen set out from the Oakridge Mall in Vancouver to little fanfare. But Hansen was persistent and the more kilometers he amassed, the more media coverage he garnered. Hansen went down the west coast through Washington, Oregon and California, then went to Europe. Then he got to Asia. Next was Australia. And when he was finished his journey, Hansen had wheeled 40,000 kilometers in 34 countries and raised $26 million for spinal cord research and quality of life initiatives. He landed back in Vancouver's BC Place Stadium on May 22, 1987, two years, two months and one day after he started or 792 days later.

Like Fox, Hansen was lauded a hero among fellow Canadians and like Fox, Hansen was awarded both the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada, the second highest honor of merit in the country.

But let's back up: Just as Hansen had begun his venture to take on the world in his wheelchair, Foster, a fellow Canadian, had begun putting the words and music together to a song in Hansen's honor in the fall of 1984. The song was originally titled "Man In Motion" in honor of the name of Hansen's venture. And as Foster was in the middle of writing this tribute, he got a phone call from Lauren Shuler Donner. She was the producer of the movie St. Elmo's Fire (which, by the way, is named after an electrical phenomenon) and she knew of Foster's work as a producer, mostly for the comeback of the group Chicago. She wanted Foster to put together the movie's soundtrack.

So Foster went right to work, going nonstop to get the project done in a matter of months. But he found a way to advertise his ode to Rick Hansen. And so the first person he called was a 30-year-old unknown Brit named John Parr, who was on tour at the time as the opening act for Foster's buddies from the band Toto. He had a little familiarity with Parr, but not much. Still, he asked Parr if he could help him co-write the song.

So Parr and Foster finished the song up with one major thing added in it -- the title be changed to "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" so that people would recognize that the song was the main theme from the movie and that the title of the movie be put into the lyrics.

Mission accomplished. Not only was the movie title put into the song, but "Man In Motion" was going to serve its purpose for Hansen's cause once the song would be released. The song, which featured members of Toto on background, would be put on the British version of Parr's self-titled debut album, but not on the American version. Parr did score his first Top 40 hit in this country with the raucous No. 23 hit "Naughty Naughty" in the winter of 1985 from that album.

And as Hansen was winding his way down the west coast of the U.S., the movie was released on June 28, 1985 -- the fourth anniversary of Fox's passing. The week before the movie's release, the song debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 90. But as the movie continued to become a smash that summer, the title song got plenty of radio airplay and attention. Three weeks later, the song was sitting at No. 42.

Then on the week of July 20, 1985, it debuted in the Top 40 at No. 30, the highest-debuting record of the week. Two weeks later, it became Parr's biggest hit as it got to No. 18. Two more weeks later on August 17, 1985, the song had entered the Top 10, moving from No. 11 to No. 7. From there, it jumped to No. 4, then No. 2 and finally, on the week of September 7, 1985, "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" became Parr's first No. 1 hit, staying at the top for two weeks.

Unfortunately for Parr, his career didn't have the same kind of mojo as the movie (even as critics blistered and panned the movie and its director, Joel Schumacher), the theme song or even Foster's handiwork had. Two ensuing singles -- "Love Grammar" and "Blame It On The Radio" -- failed to even get past No. 88 on the chart. And it wasn't until 2011 that "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" landed on any of Parr's albums or CDs in this country, eventually placed on his "Letter To America" CD. Parr still keeps busy and does work where needed. He recently teamed up with the remaining members of The Who, Mick Hucknall, Jeff Beck and other musicians to play at the Kenney Jones Rock & Horsepower concert in London, raising money and awareness for prostate cancer. And he also teamed up with Guns 'N Roses producer Mike Clink, ex-GNR guitarist Slash and Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx to work on a Pete Way album.

Hansen, meanwhile, started his own foundation in 1988 and is the CEO, where his organization has reportedly raised $200 million for spinal-cord injury-related issues and keeps bringing awareness to the subject. In 2010, Hansen was a torch bearer for the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games where he spoke to the audience and participants in the Games that night.

So the next time someone says that "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" is from a movie starring a bunch of Brat Pack actors and actresses, tell that person they are half right.

And then tell them the whole story. They may even be fascinated.