After the extensive worldwide tour for Bon Jovi’s ‘New Jersey’ album, the band was spent. They were exhausted and I am sure they were sick of each other. Over 200 shows together would make anyone need a break. And Bon Jovi needed a break or it was going to be over. The band members stayed busy as we will see these next few reviews. Jon Bon Bovi kept busy by doing his first solo album and it wasn’t your typical solo album. After being approached by actor, Emilio Estevez, to use the Bon Jovi song “Wanted Dead or Alive” for the soundtrack to his new movie, the western ‘Young Guns II’, Jon declined the offer.
Instead of flat out declining though, Jon offered to write a new song for the movie and that one song turned in to a whole album of songs from and inspired by the movie. In fact, only 2 songs were actually in the movie, the song Jon promised to write “Blaze of Glory’ and then the song “Billy Get Your Guns” which both appeared during the end credits. The rest were only inspired by the movie. Jon was so in to the movie, he was actually in the movie where he appeared in the movie during the scene where Doc and Chavez were prisoners in the pit…Jon was one of the other prisoners.
As we know, Jon doesn’t do anything half-ass and the musician friends he brought in were top notch. There is Jeff Beck, Elton John and Little Richard to name the A-Team. But the B-Team are no slouch either with Kenny Aronoff on drums, Robbin Crosy from Ratt, American Idol’s Randy Jackson and one of my favorite artists Aldo Nova. Jon would turn around and help Aldo for his next album ‘Blood on the Bricks’ where Jon and Aldo co-wrote all the songs together. The songs were not about rock & roll and girls anymore. Jon really pushed his boundaries and wrote about more mature subject matters, this would aid his future writing as we would see on future Bon Jovi albums.
The album came out on August 7, 1990 (that date will come up again in Jon’s world). The album would spawn four singles and reach #3 on the Billboard charts. The album sold over 2 million copies reaching Double Platinum in the States. The album wasn’t that much of a departure from Bon Jovi. It has the same cowboy rock style like their songs “Wanted Dead or Alive”, “Stick To Your Guns” and “Wild is the Wind”. So no surprise it did well. Also, Jon was the first with a solo album during this little break, but is it the best? We will see won’t we. Let’s get to the music.
Continue reading “Jon Bon Jovi – ‘Blaze of Glory’ (1990) – Album Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 