Remembering "Almost Paradise"

It’s a song that took me from the beet fields of Coaldale to the streets of Brooks.

The first time I heard “Almost Paradise” by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, it was coming from 1090 CHEC, playing on a small radio in my breast pocket while I hoed sugar beets in the summer of 1984.

Before the end of that summer, I had heard it while cruising the streets of Brooks after dark, on the way to the beach at Kinbrook Island, and while holding hands with the first girl I ever dated.

To say “Almost Paradise” by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson holds a special place in my heart is an understatement.

The beet fields
One of the rites of passage on our farm north of Coaldale was to work in the sugar beet fields. They were planted in long quarter-mile rows that we hoed by hand, taking out weeds and beets if they were too close together with no chance of growing.

It was monotonous work, but I was a pretty chatty teenager and had good chats with my Mom. The challenge was that both my Mom and Dad were really fast, so I sometimes found myself outside speaking distance. I had to find another way to pass the time.

I think it was my sister who left behind this pocket radio, or maybe my Mom got it cheap at the SAAN Store in Coaldale. In any event, I brought that to the field. Since I wore a full sleeve shirt with a breast pocket, I stuck the radio in there and listened to music.

That was actually my entré into popular music.

The only station that radio could pick up was 1090 CHEC, an AM outlet in Lethbridge, so it played the same songs over and over, as Top 40 stations do. That was good for me, because I was just getting into music.

One of the songs I heard, over and over, and really fell in love with was this duet called “Almost Paradise”. It was a ballad that could touch my soul.

The singers were Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, and their voices just meshed beautifully.

I had never heard of them before, but that would soon change.

Summer in the city
After the sugar beets were done, I still had most of the summer left. By then, I started spending two weeks every summer in Brooks with various cousins on my Dad’s side.

That summer of 1984 was a special one. My cousin Fred, who was always the cool cousin, not only had his licence but his own car to drive.

When I got to Brooks, I spent a lot of nights with my cousin cruising the streets of town, listening to music and talking.

One day, early in my stay, we were at the Red Rooster and this car pulled up full of girls. Fred knew two of them, but the third was a visitor from Red Deer.

To make a long story short, we hung out with them a bunch, first on the beach at Kinbrook Island Provincial Park then at the Brooks Drive-in Theatre watching “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” and “Ice Man”. I ended up holding hands with a girl for the first time, that visitor from Red Deer, and really discovering girls for the first time.

Through it all, one of the songs that seemed to play in the background was “Almost Paradise.”

Getting “Footloose”
By the summer of 1984, “Footloose” was everywhere. The movie starring Kevin Bacon as a rebel in a town that outlaws rock music was a hit, and the soundtrack had just exploded. The title track by Kenny Loggins had gone to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Three more top 40 hits would follow – "Holding for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler; “Dancing in the Sheets” by Shalomar; and “Let’s Hear it for the Boy” by Deniece Williams, which had also gone to number one.

No movie soundtracks had that much success. I was surprised to discover on “Solid Gold” one Saturday night that “Dancing in the Sheets” was also a part of the “Footloose” soundtrack. Little did I know, or even suspect, there could be more from that soundtrack. There was no way for me to know, without seeing the movie, which would not happen for another 12 years, surprisingly.

I hadn’t even seen the album cover for the soundtrack, beyond pictures of it on music shows on TV, where I learned it was the same as the movie poster.

Then, the first day I arrived in Brooks, I saw it sitting there in the corner of the kitchen on a little table.

It was the “Footloose” soundtrack. My cousin Fred had bought it.

I picked it up, flipped it over, and found out.

“Almost Paradise” was the fifth single off that soundtrack.

Still, I wondered, who are Ann Wilson and Mike Reno?

Dynamic duo
It is almost ridiculous to believe. If I heard “Almost Paradise” today, I could easily identify who sang it by the sound of their voices. Yet, in the summer of 1984, I was just starting out.

To be honest, I am not sure where I first learned it, or if it came in pieces as I listened to more and more music.

For the record, Mike Reno was the lead singer of Loverboy and Ann Wilson was the lead singer of Heart. Back then, everyone knew Loverboy from junior high dances and the radio. I don’t think I had actually heard Heart before then.

That has all changed dramatically.

Thinking back, that was one of the things that got me more and more interested in wanting to know more about music and bands.

The song
“Almost Paradise” was the fifth single off the “Footloose” soundtrack, released in March of 1984. It would go up the charts and peak at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the third top 10 single off the album and the fifth top 40 song of six from the album.

Parting thoughts
“Almost Paradise” may have been part of the soundtrack of “Footloose”, but it was also part of the soundtrack of the summer of ’84.

When I hear the song, it still gets to me, melting my heart just a bit as I think back to cruising with my cousin, holding hands with a girl at the drive-in, and how all that was an escape from the beet fields.

Life was simple then.

It was almost paradise.