Go Too was the third in a trilogy of albums masterminded by Japanese master-percussionist, composer and all-round keyboard whizz, Stomu Yamash’ta. 

He first attracted mainstream attention when he brought the Red Buddha Theatre to Europe (acting as their director-cum-composer-cum-producer) presenting the multi-media extravangaza The Man from The East. The soundtrack to which was picked up by Island.

Go was, essentially a collaborative Jazz-fusion / Space-rock supergroup, and formed on the back of that. Its core featured Yamash’ta together with Steve Winwood, Al Di Meola (guitar – from Chick Corea’s Return To Forever), Klaus Schulze (synths – from Tangerine Dream) and Michael Shrieve (Santana’s drummer).

Two albums resulted including the Live double – Go Live From Paris. Line-up and label changes ensued with Winwood moving on to other things and a switch from Island to Arista.

Go Too was recorded in New York with the nucleus of Yamash’ta, Schulze, Shrieve and Di Meola along with Peter Robinson (keyboards), Doni Harvey (guitar), Brother James (percussion) with Jess and Linda Lewis sharing lead vocals. Although (surprisingly) unaccredited, the string arrangements were by Paul Buckmaster.

The album – for many years unavailable – has recently been re-released as part of The Go Sessions (The Complete Recordings) as well as in its own right.

“I got a lot out of working with them. It wasn’t just a great honour, also – again – the way those guys just, sort of step on it immediately.

‘I got the same impression with Leon Pendarvis as well – in a different way; he was a serious arranger. In the same way he’d hear the guitar part and doing his Fender Rhodes bit, he could hear what the horns should be doing. All up in his head. Such is the multi-task. but, when you listen to the songs, they are all so integral – why would you write a riff like…

‘When we did the Stonechaser album the first tunes we had were Bird Of Harlem, One World, If Ever… and pretty much the one’s that I’d written with Maggs…

‘In fact, If Ever... goes back to JRB days…

‘But, with that album, we recorded a lot of it but then it was put on the shelf for about four months, at which point I started writing other bits and pieces. I did some things with Steve Dwire and Doanne, made some demos.

‘And then, ‘cos Chris again didn’t think it (Stonechaser) was particularly good – in fact, what he was probably saying was …’we’ve spent an awful lot of money doing this, and what have we got… four tracks?’

‘In fact, we had eight tracks but they weren’t finished.

‘So it was put aside while he figured what else to do. And then Lionel Conway (head of Island Publishing at that point) came out and said, …’the four tracks they’ve finished are really good… so if we had four others, we’ve got an album’.”

Lionel Conway is one of Music Publishing’s most experienced and respected figures. His career began at Dick James Music working The Beatles’ catalogue as well as with Elton John / Bernie Taupin.

He moved on to run the publishing arm of Island Records – signing Cat Stevens, Dave Stewart, Robert Palmer, Andy Fraser, Tom Waits, Jimmy Cliff, U2 and Jimmy Cliff as well as Jess among many others. Over twenty years later, Lionel relocated to LA to open up the company’s West Coast office.

In 1992 he moved over to Maverick, working closely with Madonna. From 2001 he joined the Mosaic Media Group (administering the catalogues of ZZ Top and Aerosmith as well as over 40 #1 Country hits among others) and is currently President of its North American operation.

“So, then, when Lionel said…’four more and we’ll be alright…’ then that’s they took me out to California to work with ‘songwriters’ and…

‘I think its quite obvious that I worked with a couple of people – that’s how Prime Time Love and Deeper In Love came about… but, they’re very much turn of the seventies / eighties pop songs… very much set within a time…

‘I’d forgotten that Andy Fraser wrote Loving You… that must’ve been given to me when I was out in California and I think I wrote Brand New Start out there.

‘But… they were arranged by Leon in such a way that they were pop as opposed to… if you listen to his arrangements for the first album that I recorded over there – Misty Roses and things like that – they’re absolutely top drawer but, he too must have been under instruction. …’these have to be hits… we’re not doing his Jazz thing,  these have to be hit records...’

‘I have no idea how to make hits but what I do know is you can try to hard.”

Bronfman the writer

The Quiet Sound was written by Bruce Roberts (no, not that Bruce Roberts) and Edgar Bronfman Jnr (yes… that one).

This particular Bruce Roberts (pictured left) is one of the unsung songwriter heroes – penning tunes with the likes of Bette Middler, Carole Bayer Sager, Burt Bacharach, Andy Goldmark and more for Dionne Warwick, Jermaine Jackson, Roberta Flack, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Smokey Robinson among others.

Roberts has also recorded his own records (his second album featured Elton John, k.d.lang and Luther Vandross).

That Edgar Bronfman Jnr, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful figures in the music industry today and enjoys a significantly higher profile – he’s been CEO of Warner Music Group since 2004; prior to that he was CEO of Seagram and chairman of Universal.

Prior to his more conventional day job, he was a songwriter, often collaborating with Bruce Roberts (cf Dionne Warwick’s cover of Whisper In The Dark) but, equally often, under the pseudonym of Junior Miles.