Body And The Beat

Good clean vinyl with pen marks on one label housed on a good cover with record store label on rear.

When the classic Dragon line-up of Marc and Todd Hunter, Robert Taylor, Paul Hewson and Kerry Jacobson reunited in 1982 it was with the intention of clearing debts from the decade before. But a hit song with lyrics that grew from a children’s nursery rhyme, and the following album and tour, had them again scaling the highest reaches of the Australian charts.

Rain and Alan Mansfield

Todd had written the bulk of ‘Rain’ at his Bondi home and it had been kicked around in various practices and home demos. During a nighttime session, Todd’s partner Johanna Pigott jokingly sung the children’s rhyme “It’s raining, it’s pouring” over the yet unnamed instrumental track and the lyrical concept was born.Studio time was booked to record ‘Rain’ and the band opted for “American in town” Alan Mansfield to produce. A graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music, Alan came to Sydney with Bette Midler’s band in 1979, “dug the place” and spent some time in the city producing and playing keyboards and guitar in various sessions, when he wasn’t touring the world with English blue-eyed soul singer Robert Palmer.

He was co-producing a Doug Parkinson album when he first encountered the towering Marc Hunter, who suggested Alan come over and do some work on his new album. Marc was immediately captivated by the American’s supreme assuredness and the street cred his Palmer association brought.

With the Dragon reunion in full swing, Marc introduced Alan to the rest of the band and they too were impressed. And he came with no preconceived ideas, as he had no awareness of the band whatsoever, a fact the band embraced.

‘Rain’ was a bit of a departure for Dragon. It owed more to the current new wave sounds with its throbbing bass line than any connection with the band’s back catalogue. Todd was leading the band into new territory although most of them were unsure how it would be received.

On the day of the session at Rhinoceros Studios, Kerry Jacobson turned up with a bad headache – the last thing he felt like doing was playing the drums. He took some Panadeine and settled in for a long day behind the kit.

In the control room, Alan was blown away when the band nailed the backing track on the third take. Todd, Robert and Kerry laid down an aggressive bed to which overdubs could be added and, mercifully, Kerry could go home.

Alan, who had played a big part in the arrangement of ‘Rain’, left Todd, Marc and Johanna to complete the lyrics in the verses while he recorded Paul’s low, menacing synthesiser parts. Although Paul was present, he had no inclination to join in on the writing. Alan then played a guitar solo on the outro of the song, which Robert later replaced.