One of my favorite debut albums from a band is ‘Dawn Patrol’ from the band Night Ranger. Most people got in to Night Ranger thanks to either “Sister Christian” or “(You Can Still) Rock in America”, but for me, it was actually their debut album which came out November 1, 1982 and I’m sure I saw the video on MTV as I am not sure how else I would’ve heard of them at that time.
For those that don’t know, Night Ranger is made up of a bunch of extremely talented musicians. The guitar duo of Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson is an unbeatable duo and it almost wasn’t meant to be as Brad was playing with Ozzy Osbourne in 1982 after the tragic death of Randy Rhodes, but he didn’t end up fitting in with the band so he came back to Night Ranger. Kelly Keagy (drums) and Jack Blades (bass) were from a band called Rubicon which also happened to have Brad Gillis in it as well. They then brought in Alan Fitzgerald on keyboards and he came from the band Montrose. The band was complete and what I liked even more was that they had two singers with Kelly and Jack. Kiss had two singers as well and I loved Kiss so I was high on these guys as well for that two singer approach as it gives so much variety to the music.
And the music was great. It was hard rock with a hint of AOR as well. The guitars were immense, the drumming was sensational and the vocals were the best. The keyboards accentuated the music and not over powering it. The debut album was probably the most raw, most intense and the heaviest of that 80’s run which makes it my favorite.
An interesting fact about the band is that they were originally called Ranger and the debut album was printed with that name. Before it was shipped, it was discovered there was a country band called Ranger in California (where Night Ranger is from) and they were worried about getting sued. So, they destroyed all the albums and reprinted them with the new name Night Ranger which was taken from a song on the album. I wonder if any of those Ranger covers ever slipped through and somehow survived as that would be a pretty impressive collectible if so.
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