A lush, soothing, and ethereal masterpiece.
Our FIRST Ballad of the Week is from a band that I discovered fairly recently while researching ballads for this site. A total stranger introduced me to this song, and I knew this band was something very special. Lead singer David Forbes and keyboardist/vocalist Andrew Johns are just superb musicians and just damn good people.
In 1983, Saxophonist Mark Holden was invited to work in the new Thunderhead recording studios in Calgary, Alberta. Shortly thereafter, he and Randy Gould joined with vocalist David Forbes from Seattle to form the band BLVD.
Never performed live until the band was invited to Firefest 2014 , this ballad was finally performed live in London. Recalling the performance, lead singer David Forbes jokingly lamented it “never actually rained” and it was, in fact, “a partly cloudy day in London.”
When asked of the origins of the song, Holden said
“Rainy Day in London was inspired by the moment my wife Jane and I met in the mid seventies, and the subsequent days (and now years) that have followed.”
Mark Holden, Boulevard
Be sure to check out Boulevard’s latest album “Luminescence” on Amazon.
Below is the video for the original single version of Rainy Day in London, released in 1984 with Andrew Johns on vocals. (Notice that hair, the man had PERFECT hair).