Undeniably one of the best thing about growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland in the 70s and 80s was the music. You can say all the terrible things you want about Cleveland, but it was swarming with the redemptive power of rock n’ roll at a time when I needed it most. Ian Hunter summed it up perfectly when he sang: “Cleveland Rocks" in a well-deserved homage to one of his all-time favorite rock n’ roll towns. Likewise, for the month of May, the Happy Medium Song of the Day is going to indulge in a little hometown tribute and shine the spotlight on musicians from Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. Some of the upcoming selections are rooted in teenage memories of songs that filled the local airwaves just because they were sung by musicians who called Cleveland and Akron home. Others are songs by bands who were huge hometown favorites, but never really “busted out” beyond the city limits. And finally, there are songs by a handful of musicians who “made it big;" garnering fans worldwide and influencing generations of musicians everywhere.
In 1976 Alex Bevan released his second album, aptly entitled Springboard, and suddenly he was more than just another local musician with an acoustic guitar. During my sophomore year in high school, Alex Bevan became a hometown hero with a hit song that was played and performed everywhere like a city-wide anthem. WMMS featured “Skinny” round the clock, and frequently awarded the self-proclaimed Northcoast Troubadour with an esteemed Coffee Break Concert to showcase his entire folk-pop repertoire, live over the airwaves of one of the biggest radio stations in the country. With a personality and a setlist that embodied Cleveland, Bevan won over one audience after another. He successfully opened shows for the likes of Pure Prairie League, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jimmy Buffett, Livingston Taylor, and even Bo Diddley and The Clash. Six years after I moved to Washington, DC he treated the city to a series of rousing radio advertisements that championed the Cleveland Browns with a new song for every week of the '88 season. Each tune recapped the game from the previous week, and stoked excitement for the upcoming game with a perfect balance of cheese and corn.
Obviously the opportunities to hear Alex Bevan's music dropped precipitously the moment I left Ohio. In fact, I had not heard this song that had been a pervasive part of my sixteen year-old soundtrack for probably over forty years. But as soon as I decided that Cleveland and Akron were going to be the focus for my musical musings this month, “Skinny” popped right into my head as the perfect choice to begin this retrospective. The tune precariously verges on being a novelty song, but it still encapsulates a moment in time where being skinny forever seemed preordained, drinking beer was a forbidden pleasure, and “chasing” girls was a pipe dream—but being a kid from Cleveland was still something worth singing about, and sharing years later with the Happy Medium Song of the Day.
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