Friday Nite Retro

TGIF! (Thank God it's Forbert that is!) Tonight's featured FNR artist is native Mississippian Steve Forbert. You likely know him for his song "Romeo's Tune", which reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1980. That was a very special song to this then 15-year old young man. . .

Although Forbert wrote the song about a girl from his home town of Meridian, Mississippi, he dedicated it "to the memory of Florence Ballard" on the sleeve of the album, Jackrabbit Slim. Forbert admits that Ballard became a timely connection for "Romeo's Tune". Ballard spent much of the last five years of her life in relative poverty before dying in 1976 at the age of thirty-two. "That seemed like such bad news to me and such sad news. She wasn't really taken care of by the music business, which is not a new story" .

Critics hailed him at the time as "The new Bob Dylan" because of a similar vocal timbre and thoughtful songwriting. The front cover of his second album, Jackrabbit Slim encourages such comparisons with its simplicity: a black and white photo of Forbert playing a well-worn Martin acoustic guitar with a capo on it, his shirt tinted green. The record was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee and produced by John Simon who had worked with The Band.

Romeo's Tune


This song, well under the radar of nearly everyone, was the flip side of Romeo's Tune. Though usually not one for B sides, I absolutely loved this heart breaker:

Make it all so Real


Forbert also made a cameo appearance in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video, playing her boyfriend - Steve makes his entrance at 3:48 in the video:

Steve doesn't much care for the oil companies. This is an older song of his, updated for this performance:

Oil Song


Here's a more recent song:

It Sure Was Better Back Then


As well as a recent interview:



Steve is still very active - check out his official website for more information.