80's Music Junkies: Rick Springfield

Rick Springfield (born Richard Lewis Springthorpe on August 23, 1949 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is a songwriter, musician and actor. He is most famous for his 1981 #1 hit single, "Jessie's Girl" which became a Grammy Award-winning landmark of 80s pop-rock and helped established the emerging music video age.

He is one of those good looking artists you could get from the 80s. He used to adore the girls with his sexual appeal. Rick was born in Australia and grew up in his native country and England, as his father pursued a career as a professional soldier. As a teenager in England during the 1960s he remembers his earlier musical influences as the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Rick received his first guitar as a gift for his thirteenth birthday and soon leapt at the chance to play at regular weekend dances.

Although his achievements are not well recognised in his homeland, Australia, Springfield has long maintained a large and fiercely loyal fan base in the United States, Canada, and Japan. His many career achievements include a Grammy Award, four platinum albums, twenty US Top 100 singles and seventeen Top 40 hits including a US #1 and #2 single. After a few albums with some hit singles, Springfield's lack of critical acceptance slowed his career, though he continued releasing albums on the RCA label throughout the 1980s.

In 1981, Springfield returned to music with the album Working Class Dog. Most notably on this album were the smash hit singles, "Jessie's Girl" and "I've Done Everything for You", the latter written by Sammy Hagar.

Springfield won a Grammy in 1981 for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Jessie's Girl". Springfield was also nominated for two Grammys in 1982 and one Grammy in 1983.

His subsequent release in 1982, Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet, also contained a string of top 40 hits, including "Don't Talk To Strangers" and the soft ballad "What Kind of Fool Am I?"

His 1983 release, Living in Oz, contained more serious subject matter, a more hard-rock sound, and more technological sound. The album went platinum on the strength of the hits "Human Touch", "Souls", and "Affair of the Heart". His 1984 single "Love Somebody" (from the album Hard to Hold) was his last top ten hit in the U.S.

Springfield was one of several performers who participated in the Live Aid charity concert. After releasing the album "Tao" in 1985, Springfield chose to take a break from recording to spend more time with his family, and to deal with the depression that had affected him since his adolescence.

In 1987, Springfield returned to the studio and released the album "Rock of Life". The next year, he was seriously injured in an ATV accident. Since he was unable to play the guitar for six months, the planned tour to promote his album was cancelled.

I have included a compilation of Rick’s top songs from the early 1981 to 1987.