【Melodic Rock/AOR】Fake I.D. - The Thunder (1980s Unreleased Demo)~Emily's rare collection

Описание: 【Pls look at the top comment first】The sound quality of this song is not good, because this song is a quite rare but valuable demo, even it is an unreleased demo, written in 1980s by Barlow & Minto, a classic songwriting team, consisting of Pamela Moore Barlow and Janet Morrison Minto. This songwriting team started in early 1980s in Marin County, California. Before that, Janet had worked with and been married to the notable Northern Irish rock icon, Van Morrison in his earliest days as a solo artist, but eventually, they divorced in 1973. Pamela had fronted several popular bands in the San Diego area. While recording a demo for one of the groups they started, Janet met and later married to engineer-producer Chris Minto while Pamela had married to Bruce Barlow, a founding member of Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen. So this is the origin of Barlow & Minto. When the two couples were re-located to Los Angeles, Janet Minto and Pamela Barlow had become immersed in writing songs professionally.

Two ladies formed this creative team with masterpieces one after another. Their most impressive works were those aor gems, accomplished during 1980s. Some were written for Swedish rock legend Alien, some were produced for a past underrated group, called "Fake I.D." . It can be considered that this precious demo "Thunder" was written and recorded for and under the name of Fake I.D., a five-piece aor band, behind which there was a strong studio and produce team, including Barlow and Minto.

About Fake I.D., such a powerful voice is from an underrated but absolutely awesome vocal artist, Gene Miller. This band features Gene Miller on lead vocals, Pamela Moore Barlow and Janet Morrison Minto on backing vocals, Bruce Barlow on bass, Chris Minto on remixing and engineering with Janet Morrison Minto. Generally, Fake I.D. released only one album titled "Dreaming Ezekiel" in 1997 with all the songs written by Barlow & Minto. Actually, they had more hidden tracks which were never released and just recorded as demos like this flaming song, even one of the best from the bottom of my heart.

Speaking of Gene Miller, apart from his role as the lead vocalist of Fake I.D., he used to work with several artists such as Gregg Rolie, Richard Marx, Peter Cetera, Bryan Duncan and Bonnie Tyler as the backing vocalist. As a solo artist, Gene Miller has been dedicated to lots of soundtracks, especially those 1980s and 1990s films with classic aor themes. He can perfectly deal with rocking tunes and pure pop ballads. For most young people, he acted the singing voice of adult Kovu in "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride" with Liz Callaway (Kiara). Gene Miller performed this song "The Thunder", one of my favourite demos, in his early years during 1980s. Though the accurate recording year was unknown, the killer treble voice of Gene Miller truly displayed his art of singing as a mighty and marvelous rock vocalist.

Check out the studio album "Dreaming Ezekiel (1997)" of Fake I.D. and hear some of the tracks performed by both Gene Miller and Alien and written by talented ladies Barlow & Minto. It's hard to tell which version is the real original one of the song "Go Easy", Alien or Fake I.D., known by most rock fans as Alien's early masterpiece written by two ladies, because the releasing year of Alien's version is much earlier. If I'm not mistaken, the original recording and producing year of "Dreaming Ezekiel (1997)" by Fake I.D. is around 1989. But one thing can be sure that another track "I'm A Fighter" included in Alien's "Eternity (2014)" album is an absolute 1980s single which Barlow & Minto wrote for Fake I.D. before. Even long time ago, it was once performed by Mark Free as an unreleased brilliant demo.

"The Thunder" was included in the unreleased demo album of Fake I.D., titled "Second Coming". It is the second track from the album. From its title, it is easy to know this album was accomplished after their official studio album "Dreaming Ezekiel", which was recorded in 1989 as I memtioned before. But each of the accurate year respectively is unknown. Anyway, both of them bring the sense of nostalgia, true 1980s gems as they sound like. Also, it was included in the unreleased demo collections of Barlow & Minto with 22 works altogether, which contains most of the songs respectively from the two albums of Fake I.D., "Dreaming Ezekiel" and "Second Coming", except for a few individual tracks. For most aor lovers, I trust the works from Fake I.D. are welcome and they deserve all thumbs up even the demos, because they're precious and should never be forgotten. Cherish for good and make them alive.
#MelodicRock #aor #GeneMiller