Greetings REWINDNation,

This has been a VERY difficult weekend music wise if your a lover of 70’s and 80’s pop/rock music. First on Friday September 13th we lost Eddie Money who passed away due to complications from esophageal cancer. He was 70 years old. He was born Edward Mahoney in Brooklyn,New York and grew up singing in street do-wop singing groups from age 11 and had a passion for music. However Eddie followed the traditional footsteps of his father,grandfather and brother to begin a career as a New York City police officer at age 18. While working as a clerk sitting at a desk he decided that he wanted to follow his dream to become a rock singer so he resigned from the police force and headed out to Berkley,California to persue a career in music. After years lanquishing as a club singer he met legendary concert promoter Bill Graham in 1977 who recommended him to Columbia Records who signed him to a recording contract and a year later he hit the big time with his debut self titled album,Eddie Money which contained two of his best known hit songs, “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets To Paradise”. His debut album went on to go double platinum and is the biggest selling album of his career. however his biggest hit single came in 1986 with “Take Me Home Tonight” a duet with 60’s iconic singer Ronnie Spector and went to #4 on the Billboard Pop Singles Charts and is considered one of the 80’s biggest and most iconic songs. Sadly Eddie had demons that haunted him throughout his musical career but in 2001 he entered a 12 step drug and alcohol treatment program and by 2003 was clean and sober. In 2018 he and his family starred in the reality TV series, Real Money on AXS-TV which reveled a funny side to him. The show was picked up for a second season and ironically he opened up about having cancer on an episode that aired the day before he died. Although he revealed his illness a month before he died,his fans all over the world were still shocked.

Then if the weekend couldn’t get anymore sadder on Sunday September 15th right in the middle of my radio show,TheREWIND I was SHOCKED to find out that lead vocalist,guitarist and main songwriter of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group The CARS, Ric Ocasek was found dead in his New York City apartment. I was completely floored by this and was an emotional wreck for the rest of the show. However I had to pull it together to do the show. Ocasek was born in Baltimore,Maryland and raised later in Cleveland,Ohio where he would eventually meet his future bandmate Ben Orr in 1965. Later in the mid 70’s Ocasek and Orr founded The CARS and they released one of the biggest selling debut albums of all time, The CARS which despite only reaching #18 on The Billboard Top 200 Albums Charts went on to sell over 6 million copies! They would go on to release four Top Ten albums in a row, many of them contained hits written or co-written by Ocasek including,” Just What I Needed’,”Let’s Go”,Shake It Up, “You Might Think” and their biggest hit song,“Drive”. Ric also was a producer who produced various artists throughout the years. He famously married model/actress Pauline Porizkova who appeared in The CARS video for the song Drive. He was 75 years old when he died.

I knew when I started this radio station/website that when you have artists and groups that were big music stars in the 70’s and 80’s would get older but those of us who are music fans think our singers and groups are immune to aging and are indestructible but alas we all know that’s not so. sadly just as we ALL have to face losing someone in our own lives,we have to face this same thing with are music heroes. The saving grace to all of this is Eddie and Ric’s music will last forever therefore we will enjoy them ALWAYS!

RIP Eddie and Ric

                                           ~Leslie “DJ L ROB” Robinson