Some Like It Yacht: Christopher Cross 75

Christopher Cross - I Really Don't Know Anymore

We'll begin giving May its flowers with this guy, because why not? I've had a huge crush on him since I was a teenager, dare I confess.

Beyond my pathetic adolescent desires, he's written some pretty timeless tunes and is, if you don't know, an extremely underrated guitar player.

One time, Deep Purple came to San Antonio when he was a teenager, and Ritchie Blackmore got food poisoning, which prevented him from performing that night.

In a mythical rawk moment akin to that Quadropheniac time Keith Moon passed out from horse tranquilizers and Pete Townshend pulled a kid out of the Cow Palace crowd to drum with The Who, in stepped our hero, who knew the Purple set note for note and blew half of Texas away.

That was in 1970, way before he became, for a time at the turn of the 1980s, the biggest thing going.

Then there's the even-more-mythical Stratocaster guitar that he traded in for a Les Paul in the mid-1970s, which resurfaced as Stevie Ray Vaughn's preferred "Number One" instrument when he ended up buying it from the same Austin music shop a while later.

Those are just his claims to pre-fame, because at the end of the Seventies, he -- real name: Christopher Geppert -- got signed to a major label. Well, his band, for which he was the main, driving force, got signed.

In typical music biz fashion, the label marketed his first record -- which became as big as anything current at the time -- as if the name of the band was his real name.

In the grand tradition of advertising/promotion becoming real life, it stuck... and Christopher Cross was born.

You know what happened next. For about 3 years he was at the top of the charts with a handful of songs that have become standards, with Steely Dan famously asking him to play on Gaucho (he declined, totally intimidated). He was also -- in 1980, when his first LP had more top ten hits on it than Star Wars had imitation spinoffs -- the only artist up to that time ever to have swept the Grammys, and held that (OK, somewhat dubious) title until Billie Eilish did it more recently.

Then, speaking of dubious music doings, MTV -- which was hungry like the wolf for profits from the then-new music video revolution -- blew up, and the industry moved on to people with more perfect faces, who were wearing a whole lot more makeup and waistlining a little less paunch.

Of course being let out to pasture by the vile, venal music biz didn't deter him from forging a career that started in what then was called AOR -- now it's got another name some of its most frontline artists despise -- and progressed into different areas all his own making. Right now he's out with Toto on a big summer tour, like a hot Yacht Rock SWAT team.

Here he is at the absolute pinnacle of his popularity, out showcasing his 2nd record Another Page at the historic, sold-out Budokan in Tokyo.

Christopher Cross

Nippon Budokan

Tokyo, Japan

2.2.1983

01 Never Be the Same

02 Deal 'Em Again

03 Poor Shirley

04 Think of Laura

05 Say You'll Be Mine

06 Mary Ann

07 Sailing

08 Minstrel Gigolo

09 Baby Says No

10 Talking In My Sleep

11 I Really Don't Know Anymore

12 Nature of the Game

13 Love Found a Home

14 No Time for Talk

15 Words of Wisdom

16 The Light Is On

17 All Right

18 Long World/band introductions

19 Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)

20 Ride Like the Wind

21 Beach Boys medley (Surfin' USA/I Get Around/Do You Wanna Dance/Fun, Fun, Fun) 

22 Ride Like the Wind (EN extended guitar remix)

Total time: 1:45:19

disc break goes after Track 11

Track 21 is from Nakano Sunplaza, Tokyo JP 11.7.1980

Track 22 is remixed to feature the playout guitar solo 

that was buried and prematurely faded on the original 1979 "Christopher Cross" LP

Japan personnel:

Christopher Cross - guitar & vocals

Rob Meurer - keyboards & vocals

Stephen Barber - keyboards (Tracks 01-20)

Jeff Sova - keyboards (Tracks 01-20)

Andy Salmon - bass & vocals

Tommy Taylor - drums & vocals

James Fenner - percussion

Hank Hehmsoth - keyboards & vocals (Track 21 only)

with

Toshiyuki Honda - tenor & alto saxophones

Tracks 01-21 are sourced from the 2024 bootleg silver 3CD set, limited to 100 copies, 

entitled "Japan Tour 80-83" on the Empress Valley Supreme Disc label (EVSD-1501/2/3), 

which themselves seem to be sourced from off-air FM captures -- from original NHK-FM broadcasts -- 

of indeterminate (but likely master cassette) origin

Track 22 is from the original 24-track multitrack stems from 1979, remixed by EN December 2024

remastered for unity by EN, April 2026
686 MB FLAC/direct link

A word about the last bonus track: it stems (pun intended) from this Rick Beato video I saw a couple of years ago that was all about how the ripping, facemelting guitar solo at the end of dude's signature hit Ride Like the Wind -- legendarily penned on a wild LSD trip --  was criminally buried in the final mix of the song. So, a couple of days later, I tracked down the multitrack stems for it, and remixed it to amp up just that very playout solo... and, as it turned out, Rick Beato knew exactly wtf he was talking about.

I've got a pretty mighty May mashed up over here at Bliss Bottoms, but let's keep the Yacht behind the horse and begin it by celebrating songwriter extraordinaire Christopher Cross -- born this day in 1951, and still out there Sailing.--J.