Bryan Cuts Like a Knife
December 7th, 2011
Recent web discussion on Lefsetz retrospective on Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like a Knife" spawned comments from those who remembered or were involved. My own modest recollection was posted Dec 6, 2011 as follows:
Hi Bob:
While I don't expect to see this posted under "Yet More & More Cuts Like a Knife", there are a few of us here in Vancouver who watched the afterburners kick in as Bryan & Jim Vallance stayed focused & worked hard to write the songs which became the vehicles for Bryan's career.
Early on, as he took over Nick Gilder's gig as lead singer for Sweeney Todd, Bryan showed up in everyone's basement or studio where writing and recording was taking place. I even recall him in a talent contest at the Body Shop club on Hornby Street at the time. He sang backup on my demos which later became cuts on Prism albums, where he and Jim Vallance contributed numerous songs prior to Bryan's launch. Following his disco entry "Let Me Take You Dancing", "Jealousy" was one of Bryan's first recorded songs ever, a single for Prism and Bryan's own later version.
There was a sense of community in those days; we all kicked in to help each other in the studio. Guitarist Keith Scott was a hot player in local cover band Zingo, from which Bryan enticed him to his own project. I had one of the first Music Man Odyssey basses in town, and loaned it to Bryan's bassist Dave Taylor for the Cuts Like a Knife sessions at Little Mountain studios in Vancouver. Jim Vallance guest-lectured my songwriting classes faithfully for twenty years during his halcyon days with Bryan and others. Bryan & Jim were kind enough to reunite our old Prism team for a couple of three-way co-writes on a Prism hits CD, just for old-times' sake.
As Bryan's and Jim's stars soared over the horizon, some of us back home are simply proud of Vancouver's most celebrated exports.
- Al Harlow
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