Desmond Child & Rouge

Long before Desmond Child achieved renown as a producer and songwriter collaborating with acts such as Bon Jovi, Cher, and Alice Cooper, he fronted the little-known pop-rock vocal quartet Desmond Child & Rouge, which issued material on Capitol during the final years of the 1970s. Within the ensemble the sole male member was Child himself, while the remaining voices belonged to Myriam Valle, Maria Vidal, and Diana Grasselli. The quartet’s initial failure to reach wide audiences stemmed in part from the singular character of its R&B-inflected pop-rock sound, at least during its earliest phase. Its lyrics conveyed an urban edge rooted in the band’s New York origins, and Child functioned as a narrator in the manner of Billy Joel, adept at rendering scenes from life in the Big Apple, even though he and Vidal had first connected in Florida prior to joining forces with Valle in New York. Though shaped by Joel’s example, Child’s words carried a harder, more street-level tone, chronicling figures that included boxers, gang members, and graffiti artists. Unlike Joel, however, Desmond Child & Rouge drew more heavily on R&B; the group itself coalesced in 1977 and delivered its debut, self-titled album for Capitol the following year. After that release met with negligible sales, the foursome shifted toward a conventional pop-rock and arena-rock stance for the follow-up, Runners in the Night. Commercial fortunes remained unchanged, prompting the dissolution of Desmond Child & Rouge in 1980. Vidal subsequently launched a solo path that included the theme for the 1984 film Body Rock as well as an album issued by A&M in 1987, while Child emerged during the mid- to late 1980s and 1990s as one of pop-rock’s most sought-after producer-songwriters.