Thursday, February 24, 2011

RIDGE 'N' DEARMAN - Fifty Stars (1985-87)

RIDGE 'N' DEARMAN Fifty Stars
Requested in "Request & Fill Corner" section...

Steven Dearman Clark aka Steve Mandera is an english musician / songwriter established in Germany.

He has worked as producer for various independent record companies, but also on his own projects.
By the middle of the '80s, started to work with english vocalist John 'Rich' Ridge (ex E.F. Band) on a band called Dirty Money. A disc was recorded (1985) tentatively named 'Cash On The Nose', but never published.
Both also tracked down tapes for a new project simply entitled Ridge 'N' Dearman in 1987. Those tapes are known as 'Kindred Spirits', but again, the disc never was released.

Seems Steven Dearman Clark put together some tracks from these recording sessions and published some kind of compilation in 1999 as "Ridge 'N' Dearman - Fifty Stars". But no info about a CD can be found.
Got a folder with 6 songs supposedly included into that compilation disc, and I am sharing them here for you after a reader request.

The first 4 tracks are from the '87 album 'Kindred Spirits'. Despite the 'hard rock' label on the album cover, all these songs are pure commercial melodic rock with nice guitars and high doses of keyboards. All good and catchy.
Tracks 5 & 6 are from the early band project Dirty Money. Both are great pompy AOR tunes with much more strong guitars and killer keyboards.
It's a pity that both albums remain unreleased, specially Dirty Money's 'Cash On The Nose', as this seems to be a classy AOR recording judging both tracks.
Production is really good, professional and crisp.
This is a household rarity, don't miss it.

Additional Notes: seems John 'Rich' Ridge (RIP) has released a vinyl as solo artist in 1986 under the moniker 'JOHN RIDGE's DIRTY MONEY' on the unknown R&D label (Ridge&Dearman ?).
Any info / rip welcome.


01 - Ridge 'N' Dearman - The Fifty Stars
02 - Ridge 'N' Dearman - Only A Boy
03 - Ridge 'N' Dearman - Need Your Love Tonight
04 - Ridge 'N' Dearman - It's Only Love
05 - Dirty Money (R 'N' D) - Ice In The Sun
06 - Dirty Money (R 'N' D) - Wanna Be With You Tonight


John 'Rich' Ridge - Vocals
Steven Dearman Clark - Keyboards, Guitars
all tracks written, arranged & produced by Steven Dearman






RIDGE 'N' DEARMAN

5 Comments:

Criss said...

Please can you re-up!Thanks in advance!!!

Camelblue said...

@ Criss:
New link. Enjoy

Criss said...

Thank You!Great stuff

Tammy Johnson said...

Thank You!Great stuff

Arindam said...

Please re-up