Without further ado, lets jump straight into Stranger In This Town!

Hey Mister, can you tell me what this world’s about? Stranger In This Town review

At the beginning of the 90s, while Jon was busy drawing his music inspiration from the likes of Elton John and Jeff Beck, Richie decided to embrace his biggest musical influence: the blues. Richie’s blues influence had only been glimpsed in the band’s work, most notably on I’ll Be There For You, but it was on this album that Richie really unleashed his inner bluesman. Enlisting Dave and Tico, as well as Randy Jackson, who also performed on Blaze Of Glory, on bass on One Light Burning; and writing with Dave, members of Richie’s old band Shark Frenzy, and appropriating one song written originally as a Bon Jovi song; Richie set about unleashing his musical vision.

It’s not hard to see who Richie’s biggest influence was for this album: quite apart from the fact that Richie’s vocal and guitar style are pure Eric Clapton, the man himself guests on the guitar solo of Mr Bluesman, a song which is arguably about him. Elsewhere, there are songs about loneliness (the title track, Church Of Desire, One Light Burning), lost love (Father Time, Rosie), and reflections on life (One Light Burning, Ballad Of Youth, The Answer). Although there are some lighter songs (Mr Bluesman, River Of Love), all in all it’s an emotional set. It was at the beginning of the 90s that Richie was dating Cher, and while I don’t know the status of their relationship during the recording of Strange, I do think it’s unlikely to be a coincidence that in 1991 Richie came out with this album, while Cher released an album entitled Love Hurts. While Jon was hiding behind a character in order to get his emotions out on Blaze Of Glory, Richie’s here seem sometimes more real, more raw.

This album showed how good a songwriter and musician Richie really is, and proved that he didn’t need Jon in order to shine. Of particular revelation is his voice, possessed of every bit as much power, depth, maturity and range as Jon’s, but in a different way; in many songs moving effortlessly from a low bluesy growl to the higher register more familiar to fans of the band. And freed from the conventions of Bon Jovi, Richie’s songwriting and guitar work soared into magnificent new territory.

Listening to both this album and Blaze Of Glory, you can see how Keep The Faith could not really have been any other album than the one it was: rawer, leaner, and harder edged than the 80s material. Stranger In This Town showed that Richie was not just a hired hand hanging on to Jon’s coattails, instead it showed him as a valuable songwriter, guitarist, musician and vocalist – which of course we all knew anyway, but this album cemented that fact.