History
In 1982, America experienced renewed commercial success with the hit album View From The Ground. Two of the tracks on that album, including the Top 10 single "You Can Do Magic," were written and produced by Russ Ballard. Desiring to maintain their commercial momentum, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell turned to Ballard once again, this time to produce their entire follow-up album.
Beckley and Bunnell began work on the new album by trading songs with Ballard. The recording sessions, however, did not end up as planned. Beckley recalls:
"We thought we were involved in the process, but we got over to London, had cut a lot of the songs that we had nixed, and it became apparent that it was going to be a kind of 75/25 thing, where most of the songs were going to be his. So we were very removed from this album. We did our best to sing these songs as good as we could, but even on the songs we wrote, he basically played all the instruments."
This time around, it was America's input with Ballard that led to a hit single. One of the songs written by Ballard, called "The Border," had potential, but Bunnell was dissatisfied with its lyrics. "Because he was very British, had used some cliche lyrics that, to us as Americans, sounded incongruous," Bunnell remembered. "He was trying to get a desperado-type feel but used words like Pasadena. The lyrics just didn't get the whole border thing and that Mexicali feel that he was envisioning. I asked to rewrite it, and he was receptive, so I wrote a story about running away and trying to escape something."
The album included a number of Ballard-penned ballads, including "She's A Runaway," "Tonight Is For Dreamers," "Honey," and "Don't Let Me Be Lonely," along with the upbeat "My Kinda Woman." "Cast The Spirit," which had originally appeared on Ballard's 1978 album At The Third Stroke, was a more hard-edged entry. Bearing lead vocals by Bunnell, it became the album's second single, but failed to make a dent in the charts.
Bunnell's sole composition for the album was the psychadelic-tinged "My Dear." The album ended with "Someday Woman," an acoustic-driven track written by Beckley, Bill Mumy, and Robert Haimer.
Your Move was first issued in the CD format in the United States by the now-defunct One Way Records in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Your Move (album)
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