Akron flashback: Thank you, Michael Stanley, for the music and memories

I can still hear that slow, chugging guitar followed by a piano flourish.

“Well the glow from the bars and a thousand stars light the cold Ohio night. And the turnpike’s slick, the snow’s as thick as thieves.”

The Michael Stanley Band song “Lover” from the 1980 album “Heartland” really spoke to me as a kid. I was too young to have a lover, but it sure sounded like something I might want to try someday.

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It was indescribably thrilling for Ohio youths to hear a Cleveland band sing about Ohio on Cleveland radio. This group was one of us. We were one of them.

When MSB performed “Lover” in concert, the audience always sang the line, “Thank God for the man who put the white lines on the highway.”

The lyrics really resonated with fans. Truthfully, the entire band resonated.

Childhood memories came flooding back Saturday when I learned the sad news that Michael Stanley had died of lung cancer at age 72.

I recalled the kids at North High School wearing MSB T-shirts, playing MSB songs, scrawling MSB on chalkboards and swapping tales about seeing MSB in concert.

Classmate Martin Denker, a major influence on my musical tastes, introduced me to the group around 1979. Smart, funny and charismatic, Martin was the coolest kid I knew in school. We liked the same girls, but he actually went out with them while I stayed home and listened to the radio.

I distinctly recall him singing lyrics from “Midwest Midnight” and “Strike Up the Band,” and I figured if he liked something, it had to be good. So I went to the record store at Chapel Hill and bought the MSB album “Greatest Hints,” mistakenly believing it was a greatest-hits album. Oops.

No matter, I still loved that album, playing it repeatedly until I knew the words to every song. Then I taped it on cassette and smuggled the recorder to school so I could secretly listen with an earplug in study hall.

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Working backward through the MSB catalog, I purchased “Cabin Fever” (1978), “Stagepass” (1977), “Ladies Choice” (1976) and “You Break It … You Bought It” (1975). There were so many good songs that I never knew which one to play.

“Last Night” was catchy. “One Good Reason” was funky. “Rosewood Bitters” was pretty. “Let’s Get the Show on the Road” was gritty.

In my opinion, “Why Should Love Be This Way” should have been a smash hit. Same with “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Mind.” Same with “Promises.”

Michael Stanley fans will never understand why the rest of the nation didn’t embrace the group as fervently as Ohioans.

MSB kicked it up a notch in 1980 with “Heartland,” an album that swept my school like a tsunami. It seemed liked everyone was blasting it on their car stereos. My favorite tracks included “Lover,” “All I Ever Wanted,” “Don’t Stop the Music” and “Working Again,” but there was one song that everyone liked.

“He Can’t Love You,” featuring Kevin Raleigh on vocals and Clarence Clemons on saxophone, was a musical phenomenon in Ohio, entering the Billboard Top 40 and eventually appearing on MTV when the cable channel debuted in 1981. 

My friend Martin and I went to see the Michael Stanley Band with opening act Donnie Iris in a sold-out concert at Blossom Music Center. Traffic was so backed up that we had to park near Steels Corners Road and walk the rest of the way to the venue. When MSB took the stage, the crowd’s screams shook the pavilion.

Something I’ll never forget: Martin was seated next to a beautiful girl who obviously was attracted to him. When MSB played “Falling in Love,” she gazed dreamily at him and sang along with the lyrics: “Whoever you are, I’m falling in love again.” Oblivious Martin just had that effect on girls. 

MSB shattered the attendance records at Blossom and the Richfield Coliseum, selling out show after show after show after show.

Ohio fans figured it was only a matter of time before the rest of the country caught on to the greatness of MSB. I was vacationing in Nevada when the “North Coast” album premiered and I recall my excitement when I heard the opening track “In the Heartland” on FM radio there.

This was it! MSB was going to be famous on the West Coast. I just knew it.

The band’s music followed me to Kent State with the albums “MSB” (1982) and “You Can’t Fight Fashion” (1983). Among my favorite songs were “In Between the Lines,” “When I’m Holding You Tight,” “Someone Like You” and “My Town,” which became a Cleveland anthem, a Billboard Top 40 hit and MTV video.

“This town is my town, all right,” Stanley sang. “Love her, hate her, it don’t matter. ‘Cause I’m going to stand and fight.”

The blue-collar sentiment really appealed to residents of Rust Belt cities like Cleveland and Akron, places tired of being the punch line to jokes. People in other states might not understand, but we knew what we liked.

When I was a college intern at the Richfield Coliseum, I was fortunate enough to meet Michael Stanley at a Cleveland luncheon. The band was at the peak of its popularity, but Stanley was just so friendly, humble and gracious.

He signed autographs and took a photo with me, and I treasure that Kodak Instamatic snapshot. Looking at it more than 35 years later, I see a starstruck kid thrilled to meet a rock hero.

It’s been nearly 35 years since MSB broke up in 1987, unable to achieve national success, but I still own the original vinyl records, the ticket stubs and the concert jerseys that will never fit again.

In recent years, my wife, Susie — the woman hinted at long ago in those MSB songs — accompanied me to Stanley’s shows at Tangier in Akron and the Hard Rock Rocksino at Northfield Park. Such great songs, such great times.

Singing along, I felt just like a kid again. Thank God for the man who put the white lines on the highway.

Thank you, Michael, for the music and the memories.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.