In 1986, Paul Simon was like an aged, washed up, all-but-forgotten ball player, limping up to the plate for seemingly one final at bat, long after the glory days of Simon & Garfunkel from the 60’s were over and what remained of his career during the late 70’s-early 80’s was bland, forgettable mediocrity defined, but by G-D did he ever hit it out clean out of the park with the undisputed masterwork of “Graceland”.
Fountains of Wayne had a few songs on the radio in 1997 or so, and then were almost forgotten only to resurge with Stacy’s Mom in 2003.
I saw them in Orlando at a small club in the late 2000s and opening for them was … New Found Glory. Who later staged a comeback of their own and are now back to headlining and/or large venues.
Dusty Springfield didn’t chart anywhere after 1970, until she teamed up with Pet Shop Boys in 1987 and went to no.2 in the UK and US.
Johnny Cash.
If the Doobie Brothers ever get popular again, they’ll fit here. I mean they have the forgotten thing down cold.
Cheap Trick had four U.S. Top 40 hits in 1978/79, then pretty much disappeared for seven years, after which they notched four more Top 40 songs, including a #1 hit, in 1986/1987.
Robert Johnson.
Ben E. King was largely forgotten until the movie Stand by Me came out.
Yes. And didn’t Glen Campbell have a comeback with Rhinestone Cowboy and Southern Nights?
And I think she did it at least twice.
Which reminds me of Tina Turner.
Also had a late 80s post-disco comeback. Hearing “One” on top 40 radio was the first I heard from them (I was around 10). Then my dad showed me all his '60s Bee Gees record. I didn’t realize then that they were the “Staying Alive” disco guys.
This was around the same time as Donny Osmond’s “Soldier of Love” comeback.
I’m not sure if those count as a comeback, per se, given that he’d been consistently putting songs on the U.S. country chart all along: in the stretch of 1967 (the year of his first top 10 country song, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”), to 1977 (when “Southern Nights” was a #1 hit), the only year that he didn’t put a song in the top 10 on the country chart was 1973. (Source: Glen Campbell discography - Wikipedia )
OTOH, it’s true that “Rhinestone Cowboy” (1975) and “Southern Nights” gave Campbell more visibility on the pop charts (both songs were #1 on the US pop chart), and outside of the US, than he’d had since the late 1960s.
Like Elvis, Johnny was always popular, but just with a different crowd. Yeah, he had a ‘revival’ of sorts with the Rubin stuff, but he was always cool.
John Fogerty is one.
What’s funny is because of my age it felt like Credence was terribly long time ago when he hit it big again with Centerfield. That’s because I was a little kid when Creedence ended. It was still a 13 year gap between the end of CCR and his big solo album. In between he did do a few things but they didn’t have the impact of Centerfield.
Journey. Their hits ran out in the early 90s, lead singer Steve Perry left the band, he was replaced by a karaoke impersonator, now they are as popular as ever as a touring act even with a new hit song!
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Judas Priest. Hits ran out by the 90s, lead singer Rob Halford was replaced by a karaoke imitator, Halford returns and the next 2 Priest albums debut in the top 10 in the US.
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One more is Black Sabbath. Ozzy leaves in 1979, they continue with 5 lead singers with mixed results until reuniting in the late 90s, and are bigger then ever including a #1 album.
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I would like to mention Leonard Cohen, he did it twice. His first three records were fantastic, then he had a long run of mediocre or even bad records (New Skin for the Old Ceremony and Death of a Ladies’ Man come to my mind), then he made I’m your Man in 1988, greart success again, fell back into mediocrity (Dear Heather), went into buddhist seclusion, was robbed by his manager, came back big a second time. He died the very same day Trump got elected.
i swear the dope has thread targeted ads because just as I read the post about ccr/fogerty i got an ad about John Fogerty singing ccrs set at Woodstock at the Wynn in vegas the 10-20th
I don’t think the songs on his 70’s albums are all bad (ok, Fingerprints is terrible) but they were diminished by some questionable production. He played quite a few songs from New Skin For the Old Ceremony on his last tours and they sounded great.