The last time Michael Stanley and his band performed onstage at the Akron Civic Theatre was nearly 40 years ago, but the man himself, who will return to the Civic on Friday, remembers it well because it was a big gig for the young band.
“It was pretty memorable because Billy Joel opened for us. About two weeks later, he became an international star, but we got him right before that happened,” Stanley said with a chuckle.
“It was when the band was just starting to make some noise and it was our biggest show in Akron up to that point, and the Civic is such a great venue, it’s really nice to play a place like that.”
The Michael Stanley Band would go on to huge regional success, including playing four sold-out nights at Blossom Music Center to nearly 75,000 fans.
In the early 1980s, the Cleveland band broke out of the confines of the North Coast and scored some Top 40 radio hits, including keyboardist/singer/songwriter Kevin Raleigh’s power-pop gem, He Can’t Love You. Stanley’s anthemic My Town appeared on Solid Gold and American Bandstand, and a couple of the band’s videos were in regular rotation on early MTV.
The MSB broke up in 1986 but Stanley never stopped making music. He also remained in the public eye as host of P.M. Magazine with Jan Jones, and Cleveland Tonight in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, and has been the long-running afternoon drive-time voice of Cleveland classic-rock station WNCX-FM 98.5.
Stanley is such a North Coast staple that the comedy troupe Last Call Cleveland revived and updated its 2004 ode to Stanley, Cleveland and musical theater, Michael Stanley Superstar (The Unauthorized Biography of the Cuyahoga Messiah).
How does the alleged messiah of the title feel about a tongue-in-check take on his career and status? “All I can say is that a production that’s based around me, Dick Goddard and an ‘evil’ Donnie Iris has its work cut out for it! Good luck to all concerned.”
For the last two decades, Stanley and his band the Resonators have done a multi-night run at Akron’s Tangier in the spring, and periodically his side band, the less formal and blissfully under-rehearsed Midlife Chryslers, would play the old Northside Bar and Grille.
But the singer/songwriter, who turned 69 in March, knows his loyal audience well and despite his ability to still sell out multi-night runs, admitted to a bit of trepidation about breaking the long-standing spring Akron tradition.
“Well, they were pretty locked into us being at Tangier for the past 22 years. So when we decided to try and do this, it was a question of well, maybe this isn’t where they want to see us? But it sold out so quickly, it was a [case] of, ‘OK we’re all on the same page, here,’ ” Stanley said.
Still making music
Though he could probably have spent the last 20 years simply playing the Heartland album, with a dash of Rosewood Bitters and a rousing My Town, Stanley has repeatedly returned to the studio.
He has been cranking out nearly a record a year since the turn of the century with longtime musical partner and legendary producer Bill Szymczyk, who made classic records with B.B. King, the Eagles, the James Gang and the Who, to name a few.
Stanley’s most recent album, In A Very Short Time, was released in late 2016 and is available at linelevelmusic.com.
A collection of 13 songs with Stanley’s introspective adult-contemporary heartland sound, the album features a dash of blues and folk. Songs such as the title track — the chorus of which simply states “In a short time, this will be a very long time ago” — and the bluesy 12-bar vamp of Smart Too Late (“We got old too soon and smart too late”) are introspective in a way that only comes with age and experience.
And don’t worry, fans: Stanley’s not letting up. He was talking from the studio where he is finishing up the next album, which will be mixed during the summer and readied for another late-year release.
“I realized the other day, I’ve never done a resume in my entire life and I’ve almost always had a job where I can wear tennis shoes if I wanted to,” Stanley said.
“And none of this has been planned out. Even the band was kind of started by accident and we thought, well if this goes on for a couple of years, it’ll be a fun thing to look back on. I certainly never thought it would be going on this far down the line.”
Earlier in 2017, Stanley, who has already survived a big heart attack and the loss of his wife, Denise Skinner, to cancer, discovered he had prostate cancer. It’s something he said he may not have found so early if not for his late wife’s insistence that he get regular check-ups.
“It gets your attention and reinforces the point that it’s all pretty finite at this point,” he said. “When you’re 18, you don’t see the end anywhere down the line, and when you’re this age, you realize there’s only a set amount of songs, albums, gigs that are left, so let’s make the most of them while we can.”
That appreciation extends to his career and the fans that still come out to see him and the Resonators.
“When you’re doing something you love to do, it isn’t exactly work. It is. But it isn’t. You don’t get up most times and say, ‘Aww, my gosh, I gotta do another show tonight, what a drag,’ ” he said.
“But we’re lucky to be able to do this. It’s hard work and it takes its toll on you mentally and physically, just like any job does. At the same time, you get that hour or two when you’re onstage and you’re in touch with the audience and they are in touch with you. It’s hard to put a price on that.”
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, like him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1lNgxml and/or follow him on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ .