Shooting Star Being Inducted Into Kansas Music Hall of Fame
Shooting Star, the first American band ever signed by Virgin Records, are among the 2009 inductees into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame.
Shooting Star’s debut album hit the charts in 1979, leading to a string of AOR singles over the next few years, including “Last Chance,” “Tonight,” “You Got What I Need” and “Hang on for Your Life.”
“We had a really weird career. We never had that breakthrough hit that would have pushed us through to all the markets,” guitarist and founder Van McClain says.
Part of it stemmed from the band’s choice of a record label, the result of a bidding war between A&M, Atlantic and Virgin Records.
“We went with Virgin,” he explains. “We loved those guys. But in hindsight, we wish we hadn’t. They were hugely underfunded back then. In those days they were trying to expand into America and just couldn’t do it.”
And the Irish connection? Readers of IrishKC will know the original Shooting Star violinist Charles Waltz as a member of The Young Dubliners, and they also had a bassist called Norm Dahlor at some point, and he now plays for some group called The Elders.
Have a read of what the Lawrence Journal-World has to say about this years whole class of Kansas Music Hall of Fame inductees.
See Also:
• Kansas City Secrets
• Quantifying Fun
• Interview with Steve Phillips of The Elders
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