Actor
Patrick Swayze
isn't thought of as a vocalist, though he sang
"She's Like the Wind"
with
Wendy Fraser
on 1987's
Dirty Dancing
soundtrack
and intentionally inflicted his dreadful rendition of
"I'm Henry VIII"
on
Whoopi Goldberg
and 1990's
Ghost
movie (thankfully, failing to make it onto the
to that film). So the surprise here is that, under the guiding hand of
David Kershenbaum
, he sounds like a clone of
Bryan Adams
on songwriter
Willie Nile
's very '80s
"Raising Heaven (In Hell Tonight)."
The
Road House
film and its subsequent companion long-player came a year after
John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band
released their album of the same name, so maybe it was an intentional
Arista
marketing attempt to get some of that
Eddie and the Cruisers
luster by way of
, or maybe this was just the expected image of the 1980s. It's always nice to hear
the Jeff Healey Band
, which starts the festivities off with a somewhat interesting cover of
the Doors
'
"Roadhouse Blues."
Hardly as menacing as
Jim Morrison
(or even
Blue Oeyster Cult
), it appropriately slips into title-track status with
Jimmy Iovine
's
bar band
production.
Bob Seger
does a respectable cover of
Fats Domino
"Blue Monday,"
but it too sounds like fade-into-the-background area musicians having some fun on a Friday night. Of the ten songs here, the only thing that really breaks on through is
Otis Redding
performing his own
"These Arms of Mine."
Little Feat
is fun with
"Rad Gumbo"
and
Jeff Healey
finally flexes his muscles on
Dylan
"When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky,"
the third of
Healey
's four entries. It has that something extra missing from his earlier jaunts and
Seger
's track. Austin singer
Kris McKay
is a surprise on
Maria McKee
"A Good Heart,"
getting a chance here prior to her
What Love Endures
album debut on
, which came the year after this.
Swayze
closes things out with another big '80s
sound on
"Cliff's Edge,"
a tune he actually co-wrote. Surprisingly, it's not a bad song and features -- believe it or not -- the album's best hook. This didn't do for
what the
did for
Jimmy Ienner
, and with
,
, and
on board, a lot more was expected of it. When
writes the best hook on an album you're on, it's pretty obvious that
was just another gig. ~ Joe Viglione