And it’s also comforting that the merest mention of the band’s name is enough to start cash registers cranking in arenas around the world. It is, of course, gratifying to Jones that Foreigner’s first three albums -– buoyed by such barstool hits as “Cold as Ice,” “Feels like the First Time,” “Hot Blooded” and “Double Vision” –- have sold nearly 16 million copies worldwide. As guitarist, coproducer and chief songwriter (often in collaboration with Gramm), Jones is centrally responsible for the group’s resounding melange of gut-pummeling riffs, high-profile melodies and moon-shot vocals, all embroidered with dittering synthesizers and intricate harmonies. Jones is Foreigner’s creative core, around which the other members –- drummer Dennis Elliott, bassist Rick Wills and singer Lou Gramm, the lone American – are fitted like a hand-stitched suit of clothes. Today, Jones looks back on such epic encounters from a pinnacle of his own –- high asquat the heavy-pop heap with Foreigner, a formidable airwaves band cast very much in his image. Lou Reed Keyboardist Michael Fonfara Dead at 74 Lennon ambled over to the kid, who was in a considerable panic. They were issuing from the direction of Vartan’s guitarist, a dark-haired teenager whose guitar strap had just snapped, sending his shiny Gibson to the floor with an ominous crack. Eventually it would, but by showtime on the second night, the Beatles may well have wished they were back in Britain.Īnd so Lennon, standing in the wings between sets, must have been happy to hear a burst of familiar curses suddenly cut through the alien babble. Opening-night reviews of the main event had been desultory, and le Beatlemania had not yet ensued.
Two of the support acts -– American folk-rocker Trini Lopez, internationally hot at the time with “If I Had a Hammer,” and Sylvie Vartan, a singer equally celebrated as the wife of Johnny Halliday, the French Elvis Presley -– had attracted enthusiastic constituencies of their own.
The shows were a warmup for the Beatles’ impending descent upon the United States, but they had started off badly. It was January 1964, and the Beatles, having whipped Britain into a helpless froth, were headlining a three-week residency at the Olympia Theatre in Paris.
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