Those Jangly Eighties: Lone Justice

About this series: When it comes to music, the 1980s don't get much respect. The 1950s saw the birth of rock and roll. The 1960s saw Dylan, the British invasion, and the Summer of Love. The now-fashionable 1970s saw glam rock, Zeppelin, and the punk revolution. Even the 1990s, the decade when most music bloggers came of age, saw grunge and the explosion of hip hop into the mainstream. So what do the 1980s have to offer?

Quite a lot, actually.

For starters, the 1980's gave us a bunch of fun pop acts like Cyndi Lauper, Culture Club, Men At Work, Men Without Hats, Toni Basil, Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, and Duran Duran. The top 40 was a wacky place back then! The 1980s also gave birth to rap music (Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, N.W.A., Public Enemy) and a handful of pop superstars (U2, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince).

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. This series is about my favorite part of the 1980s musical map: jangly rock. By this I mean rootsy guitar bands like The Replacements, Lone Justice, Hoodoo Gurus, Guadalcanal Diary, The dBs, R.E.M., The BoDeans, Green On Red, Jason & The Scorchers, X, Los Lobos, Wire Train, The Rave Ups, The Blasters, Camper Van Beethoven, Marti Jones, The Plimsouls, The Long Ryders, The Windbreakers, Rank & File, and The Beat Farmers. These bands fall into a number of discrete sub-genres with names like Jangle Pop, Cow Punk, Paisely Underground, Power Pop and College Rock, but I like to lump them all together as "jangly rock."

If you were to travel back in time to a college town like Ann Arbor or Athens circa 1985, you'd hear stuff like this "left of the dial." But jangly rock never got very popular. (The hits of R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs, B-52s, and the Bangles came after those acts softened their sound.) Still, it was good stuff, and important too. The 1980s roots rockers were influenced by great artists like The Byrds, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Gram Parsons, Big Star, and The Sex Pistols. While most of the American jangly rock bands failed to reach the critical and popular heights of their influences, they paved the way for the more popular alternative (Pixies, Flaming Lips, Pavement, Nirvana) and alt-country (Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, Old 97s) styles of the next decade. So jangly rock deserves attention. Plus, it's a lot of fun!

But enough of my yacking, let's get to the music.
The first featured band is Lone Justice from Los Angeles. They're not the most important band from the era, but they're a good example of the style I'm talking about (with a little extra country flair). The lead singer and star of the band was a young lady named Maria McKee (whose older half-brother penned the brilliant song "Alone Again or" for the band Love). Read about Lone Justice here.

Check out these tracks from their 1985 debut album, which was their best effort and is well worth owning:

Lone Justice - Pass It On (written by Maria McKee)
Lone Justice - Don't Toss Us Away (written by Bryan MacLean)

(buy album).

In addition to fronting Lone Justice, then 19-year old McKee also wrote a great pop song called "A Good Heart," which became a hit for Feargal Sharkey (ex Undertones). Here's a recent live version by Ms. McKee.

Maria McKee - A Good Heart (Live) (buy album).

If anybody has a copy of Sharkey's version, I would love to post it here. It's out of print now, but I remember it sounding pretty good to my young ears. [***Update: I found a copy. It REALLY sounds dated. All the 1980's cliches. Yikes!***]

Check back soon for Vol. 2! Also, I'm working on an exciting new feature called "Searching For Tom T. Hall..."