Takara had 2 albums in the can with Jeff never really being an official member. He was always doing the vocals to help promote the band and hopefully giving them a chance to find a new singer. The third album was written and the music was laid down back in December 1996. The tapes were sent to Jeff and it took almost a year for Jeff to finish the vocals as he was so busy with The Boogie Knights. You might ask yourself, why did the band wait for Jeff. Well according to Neil Grusky, there was no one as good as Jeff. And that might be true, but was it worth it? Probably not as the band never really took off and never found success with or without Jeff. Without a full commitment from Jeff and the band not finding another singer, they were really destined for nothing.
Three years after the release of their second album, ‘Taste of Heaven’, the new album ‘Blind in Paradise’ was finally released. The band consisted of Jeff Scott Soto on vocals, Neal Grusky on guitar, Carl Demarco on bass, Eric Rango on keyboards and Robert Duda on drums. The band continued their AOR sound and being 1998, it is a very dated sound for even that time as this album reeks of the 80’s. I’m not saying that is a bad thing…it just isn’t really a good thing.
My copy is a cool one I think as I have the Japanese version. It comes with the prized OBI strip and even a postcard to join their MVP Supporting Club. The booklet is half in English and half in Japanese which better than getting two separate books. It also has two bonus tracks and that is really why we want the Japanese Edition is those bonus tracks. If you look at the song titles, you see a lot of numbers or letters replacing words. Soto is huge fan of Prince and Prince did that a lot so Soto thought if it was good enough for Prince, it is good enough for him. Now, enough about this version, let us get to the music.
Continue reading “Takara – ‘Blind in Paradise’ (1998) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 