1982 Night Plane – Night Plane

Night Plane’s recent re-release of their 1982 album (Night Plane) is just the cure (as is their upcoming show Saturday, June 8th, as part of Glenwood Caverns Adventure Parks’ Music on the Mountain concert series).
The album included a whopping ten musicians, and the resulting tunes are robust, diverse, and plain old fun. The title track, “Night Plane” is straight up rock, with Haden Gregg and Jim Dykann’s powerful vocals and bittersweet lyrics (“At the station, feeling all alone/this is the time for another home”) complemented by vibrant electric guitar and piano.
Night Plane explores other genres too, with the reggae-inspired track “Tried Too Hard” and the bluesy tune “Line of Fire”(highlighting Bryan Savage’s saxaphone).
Where the album really shines, though, is in the last four bonus tracks, recordings from live performances. Mainly acoustic, the master guitar work on songs like “She’s a Runaway” is beautiful. Gregg and Dykann’s voices have aged well; they sound grittier and more soulful than in the earlier recordings. Their live performances showcase the band in their element–and the results are well worth a listen.

There is a nice story in the inlay of the album:

…..During one of the recording sessions, Steve (Lukather) heard Craig, Haden and me (Joel Kaufman) discussing what we are going to call them. I didn’t like Blue Surge and we were considering Dykann & Gregg among other names like Haden’s half -joking suggestion of Rude Boys on the project’s initial name of Skyway. Steve looked at us and said, “You guys are Night Plane”. From that moment on they have been Night Plane. Steve told me about other projects he was working on, but that he specially enjoyed the Night Plane songs……