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Excerpt of “From Larry’s Perspective”
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Coming off Still the One becoming a huge hit in 1976, Orleans began rehearsing in Woodstock in March of 1977 for upcoming dates we already had on the books. While we sounded fine on the new material brought in by all of us, there were some mounting tensions about what direction we’d go and how best to present ourselves live. One day that summer, John Hall suddenly announced that he was leaving the band to pursue a solo career!
Obviously, this decision had not been made on the spur of the moment, but with considered forethought and discussion with others. At the time of the announcement, it was already a foregone conclusion and one we all had no choice but to accept as “the new reality”.
This was a turbulent time for all of us. Orleans finished its contractual obligations. John went his way as did Jerry Marotta, who had no stake or long history with the band. Jerry landed on his feet with Hall & Oates and eventually went on to work with Peter Gabriel (among others).
Wells, Lance and I [Larry] were left with the question of how we would go forward both individually and collectively.
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Eventually, in late 1977, we brought in our Ithaca friend, Bob Leinbach, former Boffalongo-mate and now a Woodstock neighbor, to play keys, trombone and sing. We also added R. A. Martin, a fabulous keyboardist/singer from L.A., who also played great French horn and tenor sax.
We cut some new tune demos with the legendary house engineer for Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, Stuart “Dinky” Dawson (who had been mixing Orleans live before we disbanded). To this package we added home tapes of still more new tunes. Our New York lawyer then went shopping for a new contract.
As it turned out, it was the home demo of “Love Takes Time” that became the deal-clincher with the newly formed MCA-owned firm, Infinity Records. We cut an album with famed Producer/Engineer Roy Cicala at the Record Plant in Manhattan in late 1978 and eagerly anticipated its release. We very much wanted to continue to build on the momentum of “Dance With Me” and “Still The One” at radio, so we were thrilled when “Love Takes Time” was a hit ‘out of the box’ in early ‘79.
