Christopher Cross playing for Deep Purple

[Scott Bails]

[JSS]

The shit you learn on PE.

Yeah, really.

And Cross also performed on EJ's albums. I think he also has some co-songwriting credits on some of those records. Of course, those typically to be EJ's "pop song" excursions. I remember reading in Guitar Player where EJ was asked why he insisted on doing pop songs that weren't going to get played on the radio and would serve only to alienate guitar geeks (not me, I always dug EJ's pop songs). EJ simply said "It's part of who I am, if I leave those off the records, you're not getting a full picture of who I am", or something like that.

I always kind of wondered about that. I got used to EJ's "pop" stuff eventually, but not at first.

[MindFur]

I saw CC live several years ago as part of one of those all-star lineups. I was amazed at how good he was. Never knew. I remember thinking at the time that he would make a great Prog guitarist with some really nice melodic leads.