- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- The Choir is a predecessor band to the Raspberries, with several members of the Choir forming the latter band with lead singer and songwriter Eric Carmen.
The Choir – Choir Practice (1994): The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in 1983 in Cleveland, of all places. Supposedly, the location was picked because an early promoter of rock and roll music, disc jockey Alan Freed (one of many who claimed to have coined the term “rock and roll”) is from Cleveland. I have thought myself that that location should have been picked because of the vibrant local music scene instead of a half-remembered DJ. Even if hardly anyone knows that they hailed from Cleveland, several affectionately regarded rock bands came from that scene, such as the Outsiders, the Raspberries, and the James Gang, with the punk rock band called the Dead Boys coming along later. The Raspberries are remembered for their intelligent pop craftsmanship and had a Gold record in 1972 called “Go All the Way”; they are cited as influences by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Stanley of KISS, Tom Petty, and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses.
The Raspberries reformed in 2004 and were the first performers when the House of Blues opened a venue in Cleveland. The Choir is a predecessor band to the Raspberries, with several members of the Choir forming the latter band with lead singer and songwriter Eric Carmen, who also had a lucrative solo career. Choir Practice collects numerous songs by the Choir, including their local hit “It’s Cold Outside”, one of my very favorite 1960’s songs. More recently, Artifact: The Unreleased Album by the Choir was released on February 16, 2018, the exact same day that I ran across a copy of the CD in an Atlanta record store. (There are two sizable blobs on Side 1 that you will just have to move the tonearm past when the record starts skipping).