<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Warning:\u00a0 I like Styx.\u00a0 I have always liked Styx.\u00a0 What happened to make them fragment, reassemble, and separate again into two distinct \u2018camps\u2019 the way they did was never quite clear to me.\u00a0 The memory of where and when I first heard <\/span>Lady<\/span><\/i> on the radio, however, pops into my head everytime I hear the song.\u00a0 When the \u2018Stereo 100\u2019 FM format was big in Marquette during the spring of 1975, they played such a tight rotation of songs that one could set their watch by it.\u00a0 The timing was such that I heard <\/span>Lady<\/span><\/i> at the same spot (somewhere between turning off Fourth St. onto Fischer St. or just after turning off Fischer to cross the US 41 By-pass at Altamont St.) while motoring to Bothwell Middle School where I was doing my student teaching.\u00a0 Every single day!\u00a0 Reading Sterling Whitaker\u2019s fine 2007 book <\/span>The Grand Delusion – The Unauthorized True Story of Styx<\/span><\/i>, it became apparent that my entry into Styx-world was somewhere during Act Two.\u00a0 How the band ended up where they are today (which we will call \u2018the Epilog\u2019) makes more sense now that I have read more about Acts One and Three.\u00a0 We can track the intermissions between these acts by noting the albums they released across their whole career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the forward (<\/span>Styx Was Never Cool<\/span><\/i>), one time band member Glen Burtnik notes that Whitaker\u2019s book chronicles, \u201c[A band] that was an uncool, unhip, unfashionable, un-sexy, multi-platinum success story.\u201d\u00a0 As part of Styx from 1990 to 2004, Burtnik knows how the Acts were stitched together because he understands musical theater:\u00a0 The left-handed Burtnik was \u2018Paul\u2019 to Marshal Crenshaw\u2019s \u2018John\u2019 in the original production of <\/span>Beatlemania.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Burtnik mentions that he had not yet read the book at the time he penned the Forward, but he ends his contribution by saying, \u201c[The book] is the tale of an American rock band finally worth telling to music fans unhip enough to be interested.\u00a0 I just hope Whitaker makes me look cool.\u201d (Spoiler alert – he does).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ACT ONE:\u00a0 The core of the band that would become Styx began like so many others.\u00a0 Dennis DeYoung heard the sound of music coming from an open window as he walked down the street in Chicago\u2019s Roseland section.\u00a0 It was 1962 and \u201chotter than hell, and I heard the sound of a little band,\u201d DeYoung recalls.\u00a0 The then fifteen year old stuck his head in the window and discovered the twelve year old twin Panozzo brothers (John and Chuck on drums and guitar, respectively) playing with another kid on accordion.\u00a0 DeYoung, often characterized as being the \u2018take-charge self-confident\u2019 type, invited the Panozzo brothers to his house to play music.\u00a0 Having played accordion for eight years, Dennis was more accomplished than the kid he deposed, and thus began a little band that would eventually play gigs under the name of The Trade Winds.\u00a0 Their reputation grew as supporting members came and went.\u00a0 The Beatles first appearance on <\/span>The Ed Sullivan Show<\/span><\/i> turned them away from the usual wedding reception repetoire they were pumping out.\u00a0 When another band called The Trade Winds released a record, they changed their name to TW4 (which stood for There Were 4).\u00a0 After TW4 gained two new members (guitarists John \u2018JC\u2019 Curuleswski and James \u2018JY\u2019 Young), DeYoung traded in his accordian for a Farfisa organ, and the band morphed into one of the most popular cover bands in the \u2018burbs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As their reputation grew, they were signed by a young booking agent who eventually got them their own record deal.\u00a0 The band was given material to record and one of the few original tunes on the album (<\/span>Best Thing<\/span><\/i>) actually cracked the charts at #82 in 1972.\u00a0 The band did not especially like the songs they were told to record (or how they sounded on record for that matter), but when their first single charted, they thought, \u201cWow, that wasn\u2019t hard to do.\u201d\u00a0 The next week, <\/span>Best Thing<\/span><\/i> dropped to #88 and three weeks later, it was gone from the charts.\u00a0 Having been told they needed a new name, they settled on Styx after their record label boss hit up one of his \u2018hip\u2019 friends for a list of fifty possible band names.\u00a0 Of the five given to the band (that also included \u2018Kelp\u2019 and \u2018Torch\u2019), Styx was the only one that everyone in the band agreed on.\u00a0 After the <\/span>Styx<\/span><\/i> album more or less sank from sight, the band convinced their boss at Wood Nickel records to let them write their next album.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While there were some highlights, <\/span>Styx II<\/span><\/i> made barely a ripple in 1973.\u00a0 Live, they had a killer sound but it did not translate to vinyl very well.\u00a0 Even the first song DeYoung wrote and sang (<\/span>Lady)<\/span><\/i> failed to catch any radio play, but the band now looks back and sees what was not obvious to them as \u2018newbies\u2019 in the music biz:\u00a0 The label spent $161 mailing promotional copies to radio stations.\u00a0 That was the extent of the push given to the LP and it wasn\u2019t enough to get it aired.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2018JC\u2019 Curulewski wanted them to become a more experimental band ala King Crimson.\u00a0 He was also the one band member whose substance intake and (normal) negative attitude began to wear on the rest.\u00a0 His last major contribution to their recorded output was on their other 1973 release <\/span>The Serpent is Rising.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 When none of these albums generated big numbers, RCA reduced their financial commitment to the band.\u00a0 By their fourth offering, (<\/span>Man of Miracles <\/span><\/i>\u00a0in 1974), tensions were building.\u00a0 When I bought my first Styx album in 1975 (<\/span>Equinox<\/span><\/i>), I also picked up their last Wooden Nickel disk, a collection of their best tracks for that label titled <\/span>The Best of Styx<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 For <\/span>Equinox<\/span><\/i>, the band had signed with A&M Records.\u00a0 \u2018JC\u2019, having added \u2018alcoholic\u2019 to his list of vices, was in the process of exiting the band, thus marking the end of <\/span>Styx –<\/span><\/i> Act One.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Act Two:\u00a0 I was excited to pick up their second A&M album in 1976 (<\/span>Crystal Ball<\/span><\/i>) but\u00a0 unaware of the friction that had lead Curulewski to depart.\u00a0 \u2018JC\u2019 was replaced with a new kid from Georgia, Tommy Shaw.\u00a0 Shaw\u2019s song credits and vocals were immediately recognized as an upgrade in the band.\u00a0 The next ten albums (<\/span>Crystal Ball<\/span><\/i> through 1999\u2019s <\/span>Brave New World<\/span><\/i>) would be their most prolific and successful period.\u00a0 One could not turn on the radio (and later tune in MTV) from 1977\u2019s <\/span>The Grand Illusion<\/span><\/i> to 1983\u2019s <\/span>Kilroy Was Here<\/span><\/i> without hearing hit song after hit song.\u00a0 They were a hit making, hard working blue collar band from the midwest, but as Burtnik reminded in the Foreword, they were never considered \u2018cool\u2019.\u00a0 Popular culture seemed bent on using Styx as a punchline but those fans living in \u2018Styx-world\u2019 paid the doubters no mind.\u00a0 When <\/span>Paradise Theater <\/span><\/i>was released in 1981, it proved to be one of their most creative albums.\u00a0 The whole band liked the concept\u00a0 about a defunct landmark theater.\u00a0 The group vibe helped produce not only a great album, but also an allegorical tale about the economic and social problems that were troubling the country at that time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0DeYoung decided that the next step was to combine theater and music (as opposed to music about a theater) and take the band to the next level.\u00a0 Although <\/span>Kilroy Was Here<\/span><\/i> (1983) racked up big numbers behind the hits <\/span>Mr. Roboto <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Show Me the Way<\/span><\/i>, the tour mounted around the concept killed the band.\u00a0 Unlike <\/span>Paradise Theater<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Kilroy<\/span><\/i> was less of a band effort.\u00a0 The other members viewed it as DeYoung\u2019s baby all the way.\u00a0 Putting up with the main songwriter\u2019s mood swings was easier when the band was making hits and enjoying the ride.\u00a0 The \u2018we are all in this together\u2019 brotherhood feel began to wear thin when\u00a0 DeYoung thrust the others into unfamiliar roles \u2018acting\u2019 out the story of rock rebel <\/span>Kilroy.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It was a piece of musical theater ahead of its time, but it brought down the curtain on Act Two of Styx.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As they say, \u2018hindsight is 20\/20\u2019, so we can now see that they made some mistakes with the production of <\/span>Kilroy Was Here.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 The first iteration was staged at the Pantage Theater for a week and luminaries who flocked to see it (like Sting) pronounced it a work of genius.\u00a0 Touring the production to small halls (to make it more intimate) proved to be a losing proposition moneywise.\u00a0 When the opening film segment could not be run at one theater gig, DeYoung made the mistake of canceling the whole show.\u00a0 Had the band simply made apologies by playing a \u2018normal\u2019 band set, it would not have damaged the band\u2019s reputation the way sending the audience home empty handed did.\u00a0 Staging it in stadiums was a bigger mistake.\u00a0 With the film intro and stage dialog consuming a great deal of time before the band ever started playing music, Styx garnered more negative reactions, widening the divide between DeYoung and his bandmates.\u00a0 Shaw noted, \u201cI am a rock guitarist and I spend the first half an hour on stage without a guitar saying lines that make me sound wooden?\u00a0 Not my cup of tea!\u201d\u00a0 After a disastrous show at Texas Jam, Tommy made it known that he was leaving the band at the end of the tour.\u00a0 Shaw did leave\u00a0 the group as promised and spent the next decade performing with his own band, in a band with former Night Ranger bassist Jack Blades (as Shaw\/Blades), and in a supergroup that added Ted Nugent to the Shaw\/Blades mix (Damn Yankees).\u00a0 He was replaced by the aforementioned Glen Burtnik.\u00a0 The Burtnik area was more of a Coda to Act Two than an introduction to Act Three.\u00a0 Album sales were okay, but not great.\u00a0 The band continued touring, only now they were not filling arenas as they had with Shaw in the band.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were other things that led up to Shaw\u2019s departure.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t widely known that at the cusp of <\/span>Crystal Ball<\/span><\/i>, their most successful album to that point, Dennis DeYoung let the pressure get to him.\u00a0 He had a breakdown and hospitalized himself for a brief period.\u00a0 He became enough of an intolerable tyrant in the studio that he was actually fired from his own band.\u00a0 After a half hearted attempt to replace Dennis, they asked him to come back.\u00a0 DeYoung did, but with conditions.\u00a0 First, he wanted to do no more than four or five shows in a block so he could spend more time with his family.\u00a0 Secondly, he brought his wife and kids on the road, adding a new dynamic to the band\u2019s inner workings.\u00a0 There was a small dust up between Dennis\u2019s wife and the manager who had orchestrated their career into the big leagues.\u00a0 He was let go.\u00a0 The band became more fractured in the wake of these developments.\u00a0 <\/span>Crystal Ball<\/span><\/i> had been created with minimal input from the ailing DeYoung, but once he came back and hit his stride, they pumped out four consecutive triple-platinum albums beginning with <\/span>The Grand Illusion <\/span><\/i>(1977) and ending with <\/span>Paradise Theater <\/span><\/i>(1981). \u00a0 For Shaw, the final straw was the <\/span>Kilroy Was Here <\/span><\/i>tour<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It pushed him over the edge and out of the band.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Act Three:\u00a0 There was no defining curtain between Act Two and Act Three, just a succession of events that changed the band\u2019s chemistry.\u00a0 Shaw departed first.\u00a0 The band had recorded their first live album <\/span>Caught in the Act<\/span><\/i> but broke up before the album was released.\u00a0 With Burtnik replacing Shaw, the band reformed to record <\/span>Edge of the Century<\/span><\/i> in 1990.\u00a0 It would be the last record featuring drummer John Panozzo who passed away in 1997 from liver damage caused by his abuse of alcohol.\u00a0 Grunge interrupted plans to record an album tentatively called <\/span>Son of Edge<\/span><\/i> and the band broke up again in 1991.\u00a0 A second reunion was mounted in 1995 with Shaw back in the fold but with drummer Mike Brady subbing for the ailing John Panozzo.\u00a0 The double live disk <\/span>Return to Paradise<\/span><\/i> (1997) was a surprise success.\u00a0 The follow up (<\/span>Brave New World<\/span><\/i> – 1999) would be DeYoung\u2019s last contribution to the band.\u00a0 Arguments over material and a viral illness Dennis contracted (making him light sensitive) led to the band touring without DeYoung.\u00a0 He was replaced by Canadian musician Lawrence Gowan who has remained with the band ever since.\u00a0 When bassist Chuck Panozzo\u2019s own health problems sidelined him in 1999, Burtnik returned to the band as his fill in.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Styx has spent the last twenty years with Tommy Shaw in the driver\u2019s seat.\u00a0 When Burtnik left in 2003, he was replaced by former The Babys and Bad English bassist Ricky Phillips (Panozzo still makes guest appearances from time to time).\u00a0 Session player and lifelong Styx fan Todd Sucherman took over the drum throne from Brady in 1997 and has become one of the most dynamic drummers in the rock world.\u00a0 With the core of JY, Shaw, and Gowan still in place, Styx has continued to be a concert draw on their own and in collaboration with orchestras like the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO) from Cleveland.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dennis DeYoung finally recovered his health and though he could live comfortably on the royalties from his past hit songs, he is still creating new music.\u00a0 He has nine solo albums to his credit dating from 1984\u2019s <\/span>Desert Moon <\/span><\/i>to his most recent disk, <\/span>26 East, Vol 1<\/span><\/i> (released in May of 2020).\u00a0 Touring with a project called <\/span>Dennis DeYoung and the Music of Styx<\/span><\/i>, he has performed with a five-piece rock band, often accompanied by a full fifty piece orchestra.\u00a0 For a period in the early 2010s, DeYoung formed a new band whose members were chosen to not only sound like the original Styx, but actually resemble them.\u00a0 That is one way to revisit the past.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Will we ever see Dennis DeYoung perform with the current Styx band?\u00a0 Only time will tell.\u00a0 It is obvious from the stories they all shared with Whitaker that there is still a tremendous amount of professional respect that flows both ways.\u00a0 Like any dysfunctional family, bands sometimes need time to look back and cringe at the things that drove them apart in the first place.\u00a0 Whether they meet in the middle again or not, the music of Styx is reaching new ears.\u00a0 As long as both camps are still performing and Classic Rock radio continues to spin their hits, the Styx brand will remain alive and well.\u00a0 Let us hope 2021 will give everyone the opportunity to again hear their music played in a live setting as we get ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 My overly optimistic hope were recently dashed:\u00a0 DeYoung was scheduled to perform at the Island Resort in Harris, Michigan in the spring of 2021, but the show was canceled due to on-going COVID-19 concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Rockin’ the Paradise – Styx on top of the world . . . then comes the crash!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Warning:\u00a0 I like Styx.\u00a0 I have always liked Styx.\u00a0 What happened to make them fragment, reassemble, and separate again into two distinct \u2018camps\u2019 the way they did was never quite clear to me.\u00a0 The memory of where and when I first heard Lady on the radio, however, pops into my head everytime I hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}