If you grew up in the Cleveland area in the '70s and '80s like I did, you’ll know the name.
The Michael Stanley Band was popular regionally, but they never quite broke out, and decided to disband in 1987.
He was a local radio DJ for many years afterward and also worked as a co-host on Cleveland’s PM Magazine. He played himself on an episode of The Drew Carey Show.
Michael Stanley died on Friday at the age of 72. :
This was their biggest hit, He Can’t Love You:
I always loved that song, wondered why he didn’t make it bigger. RIP.
A real class act. For people my age (GenX) he was not so much a musician but the voice of classic rock radio.
My brother ran in the same circles as him in the past 20 years or so. He was a real hometown guy. Everyone has a Michael Stanley memory. Super popular and humble. Cleveland through and through.
I left Cleveland in 1988 so most of what I’ve heard about him since is secondhand. It’s really nice to hear about how well he did after the band broke up.
He auditioned for Drew Carey’s band, but was disqualified because he had to be in bed by 5:00 every day.
I bought his self-titled album in 1972. Sad to hear the news.
Thanks for finding that!
Nice article in Variety about the Michael Stanley phenomenon. Made me cry.
I moved to St. Louis to attend college in the late 1970s. The local album rock station, KSHE, liked the MSB, and played “Rosewood Bitters”as one the station’s signature songs.
The song stuck in my head for decades. The synth riff was as addictive as any I’d known (similar in power to “Heart of Glass” and “Baba O’Reily”). The slide guitar was a solid pleasure — later I learned it was probably Joe Walsh playing it. Joe did production work on the album, and eventually released a fine cover version of “Rosewood Bitters”. There’s also dozens of Youtubes of Joe preforming the song in concert, including shows with Michael Stanley.
Anyway, the song has been one of my life’s top 10 ear worms, and I thank Mr. Stanley (and Walsh) for bringing it to life.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, I heard The Michael Stanley Band on WDVE quite a bit for a couple years. I don’t remember, “He Can’t Love You”, but, 'My Town" got a lot of airplay. During the chorus, a bunch of people would shout out, right after, “This town. . . is my town”, - “PITTSBURGH!” Don’t know how that came about, but I guess someone at the station mixed it. At the time, I didn’t know it wasn’t part of the song.
His recording of, “Rosewood Bitters” is in my really big, random-shuffle playlist I listen to most days.
“Let’s Get The Show on the Road” was the first song of his that I took notice of:
I grew up in St. Louis, cut my rock and roll teeth on K-SHE 95, and Rosewood Bitters has always been one of my favorites. (And yeah, that Joe Walsh slide guitar is pretty distinctive, isn’t it?)
I had a friend in college who was from Cleveland and was a huge MSB fan. We road-tripped to St Louis to catch a MSB show at the Kiel Opera House back around 1982-ish. Good times. 