April Wine - Just Between You and Me

As with any endeavor, inspiration for eighties videos can strike in strange ways.  After we finished the previous post (Lou Gramm's, "Just Between You and Me"), we thought that it would be cool to follow it up with April Wine's, "Just Between You and Me," a totally different song that has the same title (as astute readers will already have noticed).  Consider this a double shot of "Just Between ... "

Canadian rockers April Wine had been around for a lifetime by the time their 1981 album, Nature of the Beast came out.  The band formed in 1969 (!) and had released 8 albums prior to their U.S. breakout.  Nature of the Beast peaked at #26, and ended up going platinum in the U.S. (and double platinum in Canada).  In addition, two singles broke the U.S. top 100 -- "Just Between You and Me" (#21) and "Sign of the Gypsie Queen" (#57).

The video is pretty basic, highlighting the band in concert (in fact, "Sign of the Gypsie Queen" was shot using footage from the same concert).  We have to say, we love the three guitars and the big drum kit (with double bass); the whole thing is a great snapshot of a late 70s / early 80s rock band.

Cool trivia fact:  "Just Between You and Me" was the 14th video ever played on MTV and the first one by a Canadian performer, securing April Wine a place in music video history.

Lou Gramm - Just Between You and Me

Lou Gramm (born Lou Grammatico) became famous as the voice behind Foreigner, who were massively successful during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  However, the creative tension between Gramm (who wanted the band to continue with the straight-ahead rock sound that made them stars) and guitarist Mick Jones (who was pushing for more ballets and new wave inspired keyboards) began to tear the band apart in the mid-1980s.

As a result (stop us if this sounds familiar), Gramm released a solo album in 1987 (Ready or Not).  The LP peaked at #27 and the single "Midnight Blue" broke the top 10. While Gramm returned to Foreigner to work on their next album (Inside Information), the writing was on the wall, and Gramm left Foreigner after his second solo album came out, 1989's Long Hard Look.  (To be fair, Gramm did rejoin the band in the 1990s, but the second iteration did not have much success).

Long Hard Look yielded two top 40 hits, "True Blue Love" (which peaked at #40) and "Just Between You and Me," which hit #6.  "Just Between You and Me" was co-written by the superb hired-gun songwriter Holly Knight (there is more on her on the post for John Waite's "Change," which she also co-wrote.)  The nicely done black and white video intersperses Gramm with a nice young couple who seem to be acting out the song's lyrics.

Gramm would go on to have a major health scare (a benign brain tumor) in 1997; while he survived, the resulting treatment impacted his weight and voice.  However, he seems to be doing well, and continues to perform.

By the way, "Midnight Blue" was posted on ERV in May 2014.