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Urgent | |
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| Origin | New York City, United States |
| Genres | Rock |
| Years active | 1984–1987 |
| Labels | EMI-Manhattan |
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Urgent was an American melodic rock band from New York City featuring former and future members of Sterling, Vendetta and Diving For Pearls. Urgent founding member Donnie Kehr and guitarist Yul Vazquez have both gone on to highly successful stage, movie and television acting careers.
Formed by brothers Michael (vocals, guitar), Don (vocals, keyboards) and Steve Kehr (drums), and rounded out by Miami native Yul Vazquez (lead guitar) and Klyph Black (bass), Urgent rose from the East Coast in the mid-1980s. Initially looked at by Epic Records, the band wound up signing with newly formed EMI subsidiary Manhattan Records and turned to British rock legends Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson for the production of their debut album. [1]
Cast the First Stone was released in 1985 and became a minor success with the single "Running Back" peaking at #79 on the Billboard Hot 100. A second single off the album, "Love Can Make You Cry", was also featured on the successful Iron Eagle soundtrack album.
The 1987 Tom Allom produced follow-up album, Thinking Out Loud, which spawned the single/video "Can't Take It No More", was not a success and the band split up. Yul Vazquez, along with drummer Peter Clemente, would join former Plasmatics man Jean Beauvoir on his Drums Along the Mohawk tour before both joined Diving For Pearls whose eponymous debut album was released via Epic Records in 1989. Vazquez segued into an acting career starting in 1992 with the movie The Mambo Kings and had a memorable recurring role on Seinfeld between 1995 and '98 as Bob, The Intimidating Gay Guy. Vazquez was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for "Best Featured Actor in a Play" for his role of Cousin Julio in The Motherfucker With the Hat . [2]
Bassist Klyph Black was also a member of Detroit, MI power trio Vendetta, featuring guitarist/vocalist Nikki Buzz, whose Max Norman produced album was issued on Epic Records in 1982. Black, along with Peter Clemente, was part of the second incarnation of Secret Chiefs, a NY band put together by Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe. [3] Black and Clemente both appear on Monroe's 1987 debut solo album, Nights Are So Long . Black was a long-time member of the Grateful Dead cover band Zen Tricksters and can now be found in the bands Black & Sparrow, Jam Stampede and Rumor Has It.
Michael and Steve Kehr were members of pop rock band Sterling who released the album City Kids, produced by David Kershenbaum, on A&M Records in 1980. Don Kehr would contribute backing vocals to the 1989 Hunter/Ronson album YUI Orta as well as to Ian Hunter's Artful Dodger album in 1996. [4] He also rekindled his Broadway career, having made his Broadway debut at age 12, co-starring with F. Murray Abraham in Legend in 1976. In 2005, he released the solo album Shift. Kehr can be seen as Norm Waxman in Clint Eastwood's 2014 movie adaptation of Jersey Boys . [5]
After the demise of Urgent in 1987, Michael Kehr formed the short lived The Michael Kehr Project before retiring from music and turning his focus on family. He resurfaced in 2008 and began writing new songs and working with producer Mark DeSimone. Shortly afterwards, he reunited with brother Donnie and the two have since written new music together, including the song "Falling".
| Title | Album details |
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| Cast the First Stone | |
| Thinking Out Loud |
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| Single | Year | Positions | Album | ||||||||||||
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| US | |||||||||||||||
| "Running Back" | 1985 | 79 [6] | Cast the First Stone | ||||||||||||
| "Love Can Make You Cry" | — | ||||||||||||||
| "I Can't Take It No More" | 1987 | — | Thinking Out Loud | ||||||||||||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | |||||||||||||||
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992, at Wembley Stadium in London, England, for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis, directed by David Mallet and broadcast live on television and radio to 76 countries around the world, with an audience of up to one billion. The concert was a tribute to Queen's lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS on 24 November 1991.
Mott the Hoople were an English rock band formed in Herefordshire. Originally named the Doc Thomas Group, the band changed their name after signing with Island Records in 1969. The band released albums at the beginning of the 1970s but failed to find any success. On the verge of breaking up, the band were encouraged by David Bowie to stay together. Bowie wrote their glam-style signature song "All the Young Dudes" for them, which became their first hit in 1972. Bowie subsequently produced their album of the same name, which added to their success.
Michael Ronson was an English musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer. He achieved critical and commercial success working with David Bowie as the guitarist of the Spiders from Mars. He was a session musician who recorded five studio albums with Bowie followed by four with Ian Hunter, and also worked as a sideman in touring bands with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. A classically trained musician, Ronson was known for his melodic approach to guitar playing.
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Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm, better known by his stage name Michael Monroe, is a Finnish rock musician who rose to fame as the vocalist and saxophonist for the glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, and has served as the frontman for all-star side projects, such as Demolition 23 and Jerusalem Slim.
Slaughter on 10th Avenue is the debut album by English guitarist Mick Ronson, then-guitarist of David Bowie's backing band the Spiders from Mars. It was released in February 1974 by RCA Records.
Ian Hunter Patterson is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Mott the Hoople, from its inception in 1969 to its dissolution in 1974, and at the time of its 2009, 2013, and 2019 reunions. Hunter was a musician and songwriter before joining Mott the Hoople, and continued in this vein after he left the band. He embarked on a solo career despite ill health and disillusionment with commercial success, and often worked in collaboration with Mick Ronson, David Bowie's sideman and arranger from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars period.
Diving for Pearls was an American melodic rock band founded in 1984 whose self-titled debut album was released in 1989. A follow-up album, Texas, was issued in 2006 without much fanfare. The band takes its name from a line found in the 1983 Elvis Costello song, "Shipbuilding." Their song "Gimme Your Good Lovin" peaked at No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Zon was a progressive rock band formed in Toronto, Canada in 1977. The band consisted of vocalist Denton Young, guitarist Brian Miller, bassist Jim Samson, drummer Kim Hunt, and keyboard player Howard Helm. The band released three albums.
Nights Are So Long is the first studio album by singer Michael Monroe, released in 1987 through Yahoo! Records; a remastered edition was reissued in 2004 through Warner Music. It is Monroe's first post-Hanoi Rocks release, with Yahoo! being the record label of Hanoi Rocks' then-manager Seppo Vesterinen. Save for three tracks written by Monroe, the rest are mainly covers; his subsequent 1989 album, Not Fakin' It, would be the first to feature primarily original compositions. Monroe dedicated the album to Razzle, Hanoi Rocks' drummer, who was killed in a road accident in 1984.
You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic is the fourth solo studio album by Ian Hunter. The album featured members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band as the backing band. AllMusic considers the album to be Hunter's best.
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Can't Slow Down is the ninth studio album by the British-American rock band Foreigner and their most recent album to date. It was the band's first studio release with lead singer Kelly Hansen and bassist Jeff Pilson and the group's first new studio album since 1994's Mr. Moonlight. In the U.S. the album was first available exclusively through Wal-Mart retailers.
"Keep Our Fire Burning" is a single by the Finnish rock band Hanoi Rocks, released exclusively in Finland.
Night Out is the 1979 debut studio album by Ellen Foley, a long-time backup vocalist for Meat Loaf. Seven of the nine tracks were cover versions of Foley's favorite songs, while two were co-written by Foley, one of which was "We Belong to the Night", which hit #1 in the Netherlands and #31 in Australia around Christmas of 1979. The musicians were mostly from Ian Hunter's touring band for his 1979 album You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic, with the addition of Australian musician Kerryn Tolhurst on slide guitar.
Yul Vazquez is a Cuban-American actor and musician. He has appeared in Runaway Bride (1999), Bad Boys II (2003), War of the Worlds (2005), American Gangster (2007), The A-Team (2010), Captain Phillips (2013), The Infiltrator (2016), Midnight, Texas (2017–2018), Russian Doll (2019), and Severance (2022). Vazquez used to be the lead guitarist for melodic rock bands Urgent and Diving for Pearls.
Junior's Eyes was a British group led by guitarist Mick Wayne, which recorded one album and is notable for acting as David Bowie's backing band during 1969.
"Garageland" is a song by English punk rock band The Clash featured as the final track for their 1977 debut album The Clash.
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