Sunday May 1, 2022 “Emotion in Motion” Ric Ocasek
Guitarist, singer/songwriter Ric Ocasek and guitarist/singer Benjamin Orr had a long musical association performing as an acoustic duo and then as part of a number of bands including, The Grasshoppers, Richard and the Rabbits, CapN’ Swing and Milkwood before connecting with guitarist Elliott Easton and forming the basis for The Cars.
After being rejected by several record labels, Ocasek moved Orr to bass guitar and changed drummers, bringing on drummer David Robinson, previously with the Modern Lovers, and adding keyboard player Greg Hawkes to form what would be the final, successful line-up of The Cars.
Ocasek was the primary songwriter for the band and would share lead vocals with Ben Orr on the many of The Cars hits. With a sound difficult to categorize, Ocasek’s songs and the band's sound which he produced has been described separately as new wave, power pop, proto-punk, garage rock, and bubblegum pop. Whatever it was, it worked as they had thirteen hit singles and sold over twenty three million albums worldwide under his leadership.
Although he was best known as the leader, singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter for the Cars, Ric Ocasek also wrote, sang and produced seven solo albums including This Side of Paradise which contained today's 1986 top twenty song “Emotion in Motion”. Ocasek also acted as producer for a wide variety of other artists over the years including Weezer, Bad Brains, Black 47, Guided by Voices and so many other artists. He passed away in 2019 as a result of congestive heart failure.
Stay safe and well…and remember when artists made videos that actually related to the song’s lyrics…yeah me neither.