It's been almost 33 years since we saw patrick Swayze and jennifer Grey grace the movie screens with the big dance finale to the big smash hit by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes "(I've Had) The time Of my life", which is according to ASCAp the 15th most played song still to this day on radio stations everywhere, but let's take a look at the guy who wrote that big smash hit for the movie plus another big one for that same film as well 'hungry Eyes" which was also a huge hit by Eric Carmen who had two music successful careers the first being in the 1970's being the front man of the power pop group the raspberries and then in the 1980's with a solo career which gave him some pretty big hits as well including "hungry eyes', which was written by new jersey's own franke previte who up to that point of those two critically acclaimed hits was in his own band Franke and the knockouts, who also scored hits in the 1980s including hit 'Sweetheart' in 1982. Franke finally just got released on friday music the complete collection of all his Franke and the knockouts releases in one affordable box collection and not only does it include his versions of (I've had) The time of my life" and " hungryEyes", it also contains 6 previously unreleased live recordings and 11 studio demos. Franke had said for years people would ask him where could they obtain his records as they were being sold online websites like e-bay for large amounts of money, so he finally got a deal with friday music and released everything that Franke and the Knockouts had recorded along with the bonus material we've mentioned. We should also mention that if you purchase the collection that $1 of every sale of the collection goes to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in memory of Patrick Swayze, whom Franke was good friends with and if you are looking to give more to this charity Franke has a facebook page called Dirty Dancing Demos and if you purchase any of the demos the entire amount of the sale will benefit the cause as well.
We here at Talking hendrix recently spoke with franke and he said for the Dirty Dancing movie patrick Swayze had told him that they had gone through 149 demo tapes for the final dance scene in the movie and when they heard (I've Had) The Time Of my life" the cast and crew fell in love with it infact they shot that scene first when they were filming the movie and Patrick Swayze said that part where you see him lip synching the words to (I've Had) The Time Of My Life", he wasn't doing it to the Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes version he was doing that to the Franke and the Knockouts version so when they recorded the final version for the movie soundtrack they had to keep it in the same style as the scene was already shot and if it was off they would have had to reshoot the scene again, they again were dancing to the Franke and the Knockouts version of "Hungry eyes' as Eric Carmen had not recorded it for the soundtrack yet either so again they kept it pretty true to the original demo. These songs remain classics to the radio but they are also used in many television shows and commercials around the world, as this writer puts it a recording artist could just live off the royalties of a couple of big successful hits such as these but Franke continued on writing songs for movies and other artistts like Cyndi lauper, and wrote some music for even a Sylvester stallone movie called 'Avenging Angela'.
Franke is now currently on the road as co-producer with singer, dancer, producer Lisa Sherma and their musical review 'calling all divas", which celebrates THE FEMALES OF MUSIC FRom Etta James, Aretha Franklin right up to the present says Previte, it's not a broadway musical as it's about four different girls who are competing against each other trying to become the next big star, and they're living through these songs and this one guy has to pick one out of these four girls and decide which one he wants to be be the next big star and at the end of the day he can't make up his mind which one he really likes so he turns them in to a group and calls them 'The un4gettables", that is the first act and the second act is a concert of the un4gettables. To see if "Calling All divas" is coming to a city or town near you you can check out their website at; www.callingalldivas.com This was not a show thrown together said Franke it took almost three years to just find the right girls to do this we ended up finding a girl that was a finalist on nbC's The Voice, we found another who could just sing gospel and the blues like you wouldn't believe, we also found a girl from nashville from the Curb recording artist group Cowboy Crush, so just hearing about those three alone you'd have a hard time picking just one as well. if you are interested in hearing the whole interview that Franke did with us on Talking hendrix you can click on the link below, we intend to have Franke back for a follow up interview down the road, but until the follow up interview go and check out this one for now you won't be disappointed.
https://archive.org/details/talkinghendrixshow191neverhaditbetterwithfrankepreviteoffrankeandtheknockouts8162019
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