Eddie Money

Eddie Money emerged toward the close of the 1970s, riding the peak popularity of album-oriented rock. Though his vocal abilities were unexceptional, he excelled at crafting hook-driven, working-class rock & roll that he rendered with unexpected studio polish and broadcast appeal. He navigated the dawn of MTV by producing a run of humorous story-driven clips, a step his fellow AOR acts largely avoided. Yet the excesses of rock excess took their toll, and his standing declined through the middle of the decade amid ongoing substance issues. After achieving sobriety he staged a strong resurgence by the late 1980s, when “Take Me Home Tonight” and “Walk on Water” both climbed into the Top Ten. Those proved to be his final major successes; by the early 1990s his following had waned, leaving only sporadic independent releases and steady work on the oldies circuit.

Born Eddie Mahoney, he initially planned to emulate his father by joining the New York Police Department. He enrolled at the Police Academy in the early 1970s while performing nights in local rock bands under the stage name Eddie Money. After several years he abandoned the academy, relocated to Berkeley, California, and began playing regularly in Bay Area clubs. There he caught the notice of promoter Bill Graham, who placed him under his management company and arranged a Columbia Records contract. Money’s self-titled debut appeared in 1977.

Through the remainder of the decade he scored several album-rock radio successes and crossed into the pop Top 40 with “Baby Hold On” and “Maybe I’m a Fool.” Early in the 1980s he continued issuing comic narrative videos that became fixtures on the fledgling MTV network, propelling “Shakin’” and “Think I’m in Love” onto the charts. A mid-decade downturn followed as drug dependencies mounted, yet he returned in 1986 with the album Can’t Hold Back. The set included the duet “Take Me Home Tonight” with Ronnie Spector and the Top 20 single “I Wanna Go Back,” reaching the Top Ten and restoring Money’s profile as a blue-collar hitmaker. He followed it in 1988 with Nothing to Lose, highlighted by the Top Ten entry “Walk on Water.” Two years afterward “Peace in Our Time,” drawn from the 1989 compilation Greatest Hits: The Sound of Money, peaked at number 11.

“Peace in Our Time” marked Money’s last substantial chart showing. Audience interest steadily eroded through the early 1990s, and both Right Here (1991) and Unplug It In (1992) passed largely unnoticed. Columbia ended the relationship mid-decade, after which Money concentrated on oldies-package tours. He re-emerged with Ready Eddie in 1999 and the soul-tinged Wanna Go Back in 2007, supporting the latter with repeated appearances on the summer classic-rock shed circuit. Beginning in 2008, assorted labels issued a stream of compilations and reissues. In 2016 Real Gone Records brought out the double-disc anthology The Complete Hits and More!