One of the greatest – and short lived – Melodic Rock / AOR acts from ’80s was without a doubt CHINA SKY. The band, hailed as ‘megastars in the making’ by Derek Oliver in Kerrang magazine, broke up just two months after the release of their self-titled debut album in September of 1988, and since then, amassed something of a cult following among fans of the genre, and the album has become a sought-after collectors item.
Now, thanks to YesterRock specialized team, ”CHINA SKY” has being reissued in all its glory in a remastered form.
Formed by talented guitarist Bobby Ingram, singer Ron Perry and bassist Richard Smith, China Sky redefined the American AOR sound for the second half of the ’80s.
Produced by magician Bob Marlette (Alice Cooper, House Of Lords) all the songs on the album are a pot of gold, plenty of guitar hooks, catchy choruses, keyboards galore and heavenly harmony vocals.
This record is the golden Holy Grial for any Melodic Rock / AOR fan.
Sadly, Ingram and Co. were unhappy with the recording label whom refused to properly promote the album, and China Sky broke-up soon. Bobby Ingram went on to join Jacksonville southern rock outfit Molly Hatchet, singer Ron Perry spent fifteen years recording and touring with his band The Ron Perry Connection and bassist Richard Smith did studio work and played with several popular regional bands in the southeast.
No one looked back. China Sky became a distant, painful memory marked with the scars of what might have been… until sometime in the late 2000s, when Perry began to receive strange emails.
Requests for China Sky pictures, CDs and memorabilia started to become an increasingly regular occurrence.
Collectors begin to inquire about the reissue of the album and unreleased China Sky material. “I thought it was a friend pulling pranks,” said Perry, about the renewed interest in a band that had been all but forgotten by its original members, “But the messages kept coming in from all over the world.”
“The ball just started rolling on its own,” chuckles bassist Richard Smith, “and there was no getting out of the way.” With the resurgence in popularity of the Melodic Rock & AOR genre in Europe, Japan and South America, Perry & Smith began to sense an opportunity to finally bring the early promise of China Sky to full fruition.
The pair decided the time was right to take what they had started a quarter century earlier and make it right. That haunting feeling of having important unfinished business needed to be addressed.
China Sky would be re-born.
With Bobby Ingram’s full time commitment to Molly Hatchet, the reconstituted 2014 China Sky would need a new guitarist who would fit seamlessly into the band. Someone who had the chops, the passion and the personality to help the band reach its full potential. They found just such a player in Steve Wheeler.
Wheeler, a go-to studio musician and respected ‘shredder for hire’ in Jacksonville, had actually played with Ingram as a member of ‘The Danny Joe Brown Band’, the former Molly Hatchet lead singer’s solo project.
Ron Perry recalls, “In the ’80s, China Sky ended up just being the three of us. The rest of the musicians were hired guns.
We wanted the new incarnation to be an actual band so we were going to need to find people that could lock in with us musically and personally.” Enter drummer Bruce Crump (ex Molly Hatchet), a seasoned veteran with numerous gold and platinum records to his credit.
“Keyboards were an essential part of the China Sky sound in the ’80s. They provided the atmosphere and the ambiance that made for such a rich sonic landscape,” says Richard Smith. “We couldn’t trust just anyone with such an important component of our music.” Steve Wheeler remembered a Scottish keyboardist with whom he had played a few pickup gigs; Tim McGowan, which actually was a China Sky fan.
With all of the pieces firmly in place, China Sky entered the studio and recorded last year a very good comeback album (featured on the blog).
This AOR Heaven remaster of the self-titled debut album is excellent, and does justice to this true AOR / Melodic Rock Gem.
It’s a brilliant piece of music full of magic… do yourself a favor and order a copy before it’s too late.
A MUST HAVE
01 – Turn On The Night
02 – The Glory
03 – Some Kind Of Miracle
04 – Winner Takes It All
05 – All The Time
06 – Only The Young
07 – Reckless Days
08 – Lost In Your Love
09 – Dancin’ On The Edge
10 – The Last Romantic Warrior
Ron Perry: Vocals, Guitar
Bobby Ingram: Guitars, Backing Vocals
Richard Smith: Bass, Backing Vocals
Tom Coerver: Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Frank Wildhorn: Keyboards, Synths
Bob Marlette: Keyboards, Percussion, Producer