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Part of the New-York 70's music scene,
he first came to my ears as a solo artist on the Big Sound Records' Phil
Spector tribute "Bionic Gold" released in 1977 (an excellent cover
of the Dr
Winston O'Boogie's "Instant Karma").
New York session drummer
Michaels — who first came to light backing Connecticut auteur Roger C. Reale
in the late ‘70s — had already played on records by Ian Hunter,
Sparks
(Big Beat 1976), Bram Tchaikovsky and Ellen Foley by the time he stepped forward as a singing,
songwriting solo artist. Although commercially fruitless, the two albums he
made at the dawn of the ‘80s are giddily over-produced new wave-era pop that
have more hooks than a mile of barbed wire.
Produced by Roy Thomas Baker
(Queen, The Cars, Ian Hunter...), Calling All Girls is the better of
the two, with such giddily infectious tunes as “Shake It and Dance,” “U.S.
Male” the more than Sparks sounding "Something on your Mind" and the title track. For this frenetic
confection, Michaels gets assists from an eclectic collection of Foley, Liza
Minnelli, former bandmate G.E. Smith, former Beckies guitarist Jimmy
McAllister (real name Mayo James McAllister playing on the
Sparks
Big Beat 1976 tour), Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone,
Greg Hawkes of the Cars, Dan Hartman and others.
Also of interest is the
participation of legendary Alan J. Merrill (Vodka Collins, Arrows) and
author of the smash hit "I Love Rock 'n' Roll on the second Hilly Michaels
album.
A stunning record and a long
lost gem.
The album has never been re-issued to this day on CD.
I did a transfer from my LP to cd-r in 2005 (with SoundForge
7.0), and i revamped the original
sleeve in order to get the pictures you can see
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