Tag: Neal Grusky

Takara – ‘Eternity: The Best of 93-98’ (1998) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Takara’s third album, The label decided to release a greatest hits compilation of those first three albums. Jeff Scott Soto was no longer a member of the band…okay…he was never an “official” member of the band even though he sang on three albums with them. Now that the band needed to search for a new singer, the label wanted to release this to hold fans over until that process was done. Neal Grusky’s search for a replacement would take a little while as their follow-up album didn’t come out until 2001 with Michael James Flatters as their new singer.

This compilation had 16 tracks and was released on November 18, 1998. If you have the Japanese Edition, you get two additional acoustic tracks as well which is always a plus. However, I think you get those two acoustic tracks on every edition so it isn’t that special…although I don’t think they were ever previously released. You also get the ever cherished OBI Strip along with a booklet with lyrics in both English and Japanese. As far as a breakout between albums you get 5 tracks from the debut, ‘Eternal Faith’, 6 from the follow-up ‘Taste of Heaven’ and 5 from the final Soto album, ‘Blind in Paradise’. The songs are in chronological order and even in the same order they were on the album so not much thought was put in to sequencing for this release. But it is a money grab, so what do you expect.

“Spotlight” kicks it all off and is the first of five tracks from ‘Eternal Faith’. It sounds like you are right back in 1985 with the keyboards and heavy guitar riffs. It is Bon Jovi meets Europe. The album sounds so dated in the 80’s which is not where the music scene was going in 1993!! It has the obligatory guitar solo and Jeff’s vocals have that higher register tone which was key for 80’s rock. The biggest problem is the keyboards are high in the mix and sound like crap. They have this crisp, clink, clink sound to them which I find rather annoying. But not too much that I don’t enjoy the song…more a production note.

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Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss, Neal Grusky – ’24th of June: Alive ‘N Kissing’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back on June 24th, of probably 1995 (I think) at a place called Kühners Landhaus in Kissing, Germany, a group of musicians and friends gathered together for a small promotional show. Those four friends were Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss and Neal Grusky. That short little show was released as Promo and limited to only 500 copies by Long Island Records and released sometime in 1995. I’ve been wanting this one for quite a long time and finally bit the bullet and bought it as it wasn’t too expensive, but is on the pricier side of things.

It is a very relaxed show and the guys have a lot of fun with it but when the music plays, it is all business and all perfection. They are in front of a very polite and yet receptive crowd and they whip through 6 tracks with Jeff on vocals for 5 and Michael Voss on 1 track. They are joined by Mike Foerster to help out on acoustic guitar as this is an all acoustic set. No drums, simply guitars and vocals. An intimate setting and the guys doing what they do best.

The CD opens with Gary Schutt calling for Jeff to come to the stage so they can start the show. When Jeff does finally arrive, they kick in to a beautiful rendition of Jeff’s band Takara’s song “Restless Heart”. The original version is a power ballad with some great keyboards and a big chorus. Here, it is stripped down to its bare essence with Jeff giving such a stellar rendition. There is no explosive moments like in the regular version, it is reserved and even more emotive than the original. Jeff sounds amazing and sounds as good or even better than the studio version. Simply stunning.

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Takara – ‘Blind in Paradise’ (1998) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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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.

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Takara – ‘Taste of Heaven’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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When we reviewed Takara’s ‘Eternal Faith’ album a few weeks back, we mentioned that Jeff Scott Soto said he wasn’t a member of Takara and did it as a favor. Well, a couple years later we are back with the second Takara album and who is singing? It is a Mr. Jeff Scott Soto, of course. After the band had such success in Japan with ‘Eternal Faith’, the Japanese record company wanted another album and would only do it with Jeff on vocals. Jeff didn’t want to let his good friend, Neal Grusky, down and be the reason his buddy lost his record contract, so Jeff being the man he is agreed to do vocal duties again as well as Produced, Engineered and Mixed the album. When Jeff says he’s going to help out, there is no half-assing it for him.

The band had more money to produce this record then the measly $2,500 for the last so we do get better production quality…plus Jeff was getting better at it. The biggest difference is that Jeff’s friend Greg Schutt was no longer on bass. Duties were handled by Carl DeMarco. There were two songs that the bass was done by Bob Daisley from Ozzy and Rainbow fame which is pretty cool, but Carl was the now official band member. On drums, we still had Robert Duda and Neal Grusky on guitar as expected. There are also some keyboard elements done by none other than Jeff’s then girlfriend Julie Greaux, of course!

The album was released on May 24, 1995 in Japan and went to #96 on their national charts, so not bad at all. The version I have is the Canadian Release from 1995 but the CD has 1993. That isn’t the only mistake the CD has as it also called the last song “Lonely Sade of Blue” omitting the “h” in Shade. Oops! Good quality control goes a long way. Let’s get to the music, shall we!

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Takara – ‘Eternal Faith’ (1993) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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The story of Jeff Scott Soto and Takara starts way back in 1985 when Jeff met Neal Grusky who is a founding member of Takara. They quickly became friends through their mutual love of music. Neal started Takara in 1987, but it wasn’t until November 1988 that Jeff really got involved. He agreed to help produce a set of demos for the band. When current lead sing, Mark Del Papa, couldn’t do the vocals due to drug issues, Jeff jumped in and sang on the demos as well. The demos were strictly to help the band find a lead singer. Now, where have we heard that before??? Oh yeah, Panther.

Jeff’s job was to produce and do the scratch vocals. They would bring in other singers to sing as well and Jeff would help produce and mix those. This went on for a number of years and they had done demos from 1987 to 1991. There was no intention to release these, it was strictly to get the band moving forward. Also, Jeff had never produced or mixed before so it was a trial by fire process.

Somehow, the tapes wound up with EMI/Toshiba in Japan and the label really liked them and showed interest in the band. But there was a catch…isn’t there always. They didn’t want to release an album with the other singers, they only liked Jeff’s versions and would only release it with Soto as the singer. Neal went back to his friend and Jeff being the good friend he was, agreed to let that happen as he didn’t want his friend to lose the label deal.

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