Mr. Mister
Pull

THE REVIEW

The singer, bassist, and songwriter Richard Page had the chance to join both Toto and Chicago, as the two hugely successful bands offered him, almost simultaneously in 1985, to become their lead singer (and in the case of Chicago, also their bassist).

But he turned them down: the second album of his band Mr. Mister had done very well in sales, with a couple of chart-topping singles, so he wanted to consolidate the fresh success achieved with his own group, which he had founded and where he was the main figure. And besides, according to him, he didn’t feel like going around performing “Rosanna” or “25 or 6 to 4” on stage, because “they didn't belong to him and he would have felt like he was at a karaoke” (sic!).

If he was happy with that… A noble choice, but the result was that the third, albeit valid, Mr. Mister album—“Go On”—sold poorly, the record company promptly dropped them, their guitarist left as well, and the tapes of this fourth album, nearly finished, ended up on the shelves of some record warehouse.

It was Page himself who, at his own expense and effort, fought to exhume, complete, and finally release them on his own label, managing to do so only many years later, in 2010. His fans and those of his band, myself included, thanked him, but personally, I still think that a close collaboration with geniuses like Lukather and Paich—or alternatively Robert Lamm and James Pankov—would have only done him good. Above all, there would be many more albums out there with him on vocals, instead of just finding him credited in the liner notes for having contributed some background vocals here and there (which actually happened even on some Toto and Chicago albums!).

His tenor voice vaguely resembles that of Sting—slightly less piercing since it isn’t sung in semi-falsetto like the ex-Police frontman’s, and instead is smoother and silkier. His way of phrasing and structuring vocal lines is also related to the Newcastle superstar. As a bassist, he’s just as good—no doubt—but everyone in Mr. Mister played well, like drummer Mastellotto, who later joined King Crimson.

Mr. Mister came onto the scene during the golden age of Duran, Spandau, Wham, etc., but with a completely different musical caliber. However, they weren’t able to accumulate a streak of songs with that memorable, winning melody—no real evergreen hits, apart from that “Broken Wings” on their second album, which did wonders on the charts.

This album too has no masterpieces. It stays firmly in the realm of mediocrity—a 7- at best. There’s class and taste in abundance, sure, and the songs are as melodic and lyrical as you’d like, but not one of them is memorable.

Blond Mr. Page (no relation to maestro Jimmy) took too much of a gamble at the time by relying only on his own strengths, and it didn’t pay off—let me repeat that. No one cares about him anymore, and this “epitaph” album for his band doesn’t even exist in LP format… Never released on vinyl, and on the other hand, in digital format it’s quite rare. I had to make do with a Japanese edition… in that country, after all, they print everything, even Voyager, Guru Guru, and Michel Laurent.