Ravinia 2019, Issue 1, Week 2

Can I Find a Like That? Rick Springfield is always writing up, never off COV E T I NG Y OU R B E S T F R I E ND ’ S G I R L can lead to some sleepless nights. For Rick Springfield, his desires led to “Jessie’s Girl,” one of pop-rock’s most iconic anthems of unrequited love. And his greatest hit. But it wasn’t all glitz and glamour. Success has a funny way of serving up the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. For the 69-year-old Australian-born Richard Lewis Springthorpe (his real name), the Grammy Award–winning song would be life-changing. At the same time, however, Springfield was still an unproven entity; prior album releases did well, but radio play and massive sales were not yet happen- ing for him in the age of MTV. So, the singer-songwriter took a role as the uber-handsome and dashing Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime soap opera General Hospital —just to ensure he got a steady paycheck, he says. And then it happened. “Jessie’s Girl” catapulted to number one on the charts in 1981, and Springfield to rock and roll star (and sex symbol) sta- tus. And then the hits kept coming: “Affair of the Heart,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “I Get Excited,” “I’ve Done Everything for You,” “Human Touch,” “State of the Heart.” But even with legions of female fans drowning out his concerts with screams of approval (and desire), there was a dark side to Springfield, something he would not speak of for decades, until the release of his autobiography Late, Late at Night in 2010, when he revealed a failed suicide attempt at 16 (“the rope broke”) and the depression that led to that moment, which still “sits on his shoulders” every now and then. In a 2018 interview on the Sirius XM show Feedback , Springfield revealed he was “real close” to taking his life in 2017. The interview, which came on the heels of the suicides of rockers Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington as well as comedian Robin Williams, was put into perspective by Spring- field in the annals of Billboard magazine: “I didn’t go, ‘Ugh, that’s terrible.’ I went, ‘I get it. I get being that lost and dark.’ ” For now, Springfield says he’s in a much lighter place and life is all about the release of his album, a greatest-hits caval- cade featuring symphonic takes on the songs that put him on the map. Mind you, Orchestrating My Life (his 17th studio effort, released April 26), is not a simple anthology. Springfield and the production team behind it completely reworked the songs: new charts, new attitudes, and, above all else, new, sweeping orchestrations courtesy of a full symphony. Trust this listen- er—“My Father’s Chair” will make you weep, and you’ll marvel at the “newness” of “Jessie’s Girl.” The album, dedicated to his late parents, features a new song, “Irreplaceable,” in memory of his mom, Eileen, who recently passed away, and 1985’s haunt- ing “My Father’s Chair” for his dad Norman Springthorpe, who passed away in 1981, just as success had found its way to his son. The singer, married since 1985, is also the proud papa of two sons himself, and he’s back out on the road, due to arrive at Ra- vinia on June 15 for a co-headlining stand with Chicago’s own pop legend Richard Marx. It’s a greatest-hits event for both, and Springfield has “the best band I’ve ever played with” in tow, namely Jorge Palacios on drums, Siggy Sjersun on bass, Geroge Nastos on guitar, and Tim Gross on keyboards. And before he hopped on the tour bus, Springfield hopped on the phone with Ravinia to chat about the new album, his life, and coveting. MAY 31, 2019 – JUNE 16, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 29