Love and Other Bruises (G Russell) 1976 and Lost in Love (G Russell) – Air Supply 1979
Graham Russell (guitar), Russell Hitchcock (vocals) and Chrissie Hammond (vocals) were cast members of Jesus Christ Superstar and met in May 1975, they formed the vocal harmony group Air Supply in Melbourne and began performing around their musical theatre commitments. Hammond departed to form Cheetah with her sister Lindsay, and was replaced by Jeremy Paul (bass, vocals), who would join Hitchcock and Russell to record their debut single, the Graham Russell composition Love and Other Bruises.
As their name implied Air Supply where a breath of fresh air in a scene crowded with pub rockers and spandex-clad glam rockers, their lineup continued to evolve with the addition of drummer Jeff Browne, guitarist Mark McEntee (who would later join Chrissie Amphlett in the Divinyls) and keyboardist Adrian Scott.
With producer Peter Dawkins (Spectrum, Ross Ryan) they recorded their eponymous debut album at Alberts Studios (Syd), the lead single was Love and Other Bruises and at #6 it became their first top ten hit, their self-titled debut album also charted a creditable #17.
The album was a foretaste of the harmony soft rock with which Air Supply would storm the US charts relentlessly throughout the 1980’s for no less than eight top ten hits there. In 1977 they picked up the support act spot on Rod Stewart’s tours of Australia and the United States, which afforded priceless exposure to the giant North American market.
Future releases delivered minor hit singles back home, Empty Pages (#43 in ’77) and Do What You Do (#45 in ’77), and the albums The Whole Thing’s Started (#32 in ’77) and Life Support (#27 in ’79), but Clive Davis of Arista Records, a legendary A&R executive and record producer (Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Eric Carmen, Patti Smith, and many others) took Air Supply under his wing and groomed them for success in North America.
Their next album and the title song Lost in Love would break the band in the US, and Air Supply would become one of the most successful groups of the decade, selling over 15 million records internationally and scoring a US #1 in the process in 1981 with The One That You Love.
Lost in Love was the fourth studio album by Air Supply and the first to hit the charts in North America, it contained no less than three bona fide hits, and the title song by Graham Russell was a truly international breakthrough for the firmly middle-of-the-road Air Supply.
The group’s Australian record label Big Time Records had sold Lost in Love to Arista Records for distribution in the US unbeknown to Russell or Hitchcock, but it proved to be the turning point in their career, the Robie Porter/Rick Chertoff/ Charles Fisher – produced song became Air Supply’s first US hit at #3, #4 in Canada and Japan, #3 in NZ, #13 locally and a top ten hit in France.
Air Supply would have 11 top 40 hits in the US and five of these would include the word “love” in the title, so unsurprisingly this song is about the unrequited love of the singer who has lost the object of his affections and reflects on how he may re-ignite the flame.
Two music videos exist for this song, the official version depicts Air Supply singing on a blue background and the other has the group performing the song in concert, the album was a mega-hit reaching multi-platinum sales of over three million copies, with two more top five hits to be lifted from it in 1980 – All Out of Love and Every Woman in the World.
4The Record 