CHRONICLES OF THE PAST - "King of Wishful Thinking"

Back in the late 1980's early 1990's I had become the vocal contractor for Peter Wolf. Peter and I had met on the Dennis Edwards project where he wrote a song and played keyboards. As Peter's productions were gaining notoriety, I sang background on a lot of the songs he produced, such as "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" which I spoke about on this BLOG on February 20, 2011.

Go West was an up and coming group from England who formed back in 1982. They had many successful singles in the UK but at this time they were not that well known in the United States. Go West was a duo made up of Peter Cox and Richard Drummie. Together with Martin Page they wrote a song called  "King Of Wishful Thinking", which Peter Wolf produced and I, with some serious singers, sang background on.

The song was released in 1990 and it ended up being used in the film Pretty Woman. The song scored Go West a Top-10 US hit, and in 1991 this song also received an ASCAP award for being one of the most played songs in America the previous year.

In 1992 the band released the Indian Summer album which included "King of Wishful Thinking" as well as the song "Faithful" which became another hit in the US, peaking at #14, and also a UK hit, peaking at #13. The song "Faithful" later received airplay recognition awards in the US in both 1992 and in 1993. I also had the privilege of singing backgrounds on this song as well. Since Go West was gaining recognition in the US they were doing quite a bit of the Late Night Shows such as The Tonight Show, which I got to perform on the show with them and sing backgrounds.

Since that time I haven't seen Richard or Peter. I do know that Peter went on to record some solo albums from 1997 up through the 2000s. As usual we all had fun in the studio and it was great listening to their English accents. I did do a lot more work with Peter Wolf, the producer, which you will hear from time to time.

Pretty Woman came on TV the other day and in the beginning of the film you'll hear the song "King of Wishful Thinking", it took me back hearing this song again, so I thought I'd share a piece of nostalgia with you. Enjoy the video above :-)

Until Next Time - Phillip