“In 1987, after hearing a demo tape of Robert Vaughn & The Shadows, The 77s’ Michael Roe and Jan Eric Volz traveled from Sacramento – home of Exit Records – to San Diego to see the band perform live. Returning to Sacramento impressed with their sound and talent, Roe and Volz encouraged their label – also home to Charlie Peacock, Vector, and others – to sign the band, making Robert Vaughn & The Shadows the first band outside the Sacramento area to be signed to Exit, which had recently inked a distribution deal with Island Records, U2’s parent label. (As fate would have it, Robert Vaughn & The Shadows was also the last band Exit signed.)
Given a large recording budget and significant nationwide radio play on AOR radio, Robert Vaughn & The Shadows even garnered an appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Their first album for Exit, Love and War, was even slated for a CD release. However, given the Exit/Island distribution deal’s limitations, there wasn’t enough money and promotion to propel them further, leading to the deal’s untimely demise. As such, Exit dropped all of its signed acts and abandoned plans to release Love and War on CD.
Now free agents, Robert Vaughn & The Shadows landed on my label, Alternative Records, and recorded Songs from the Riverhouse, which helped them sign a short-lived deal with CBS Records (unreleased), then with Miramar and distributed by RCA – Robert Vaughn & The Dead River Angels’ eponymous album – before effectively retiring from the music business altogether.
In the intervening decades, nearly every Exit act had received their master tapes back and worked diligently to remaster and reissue their back catalogs. Love and War was a major exception. However, in early 2021, we worked out a deal with Exit to obtain the multi-track master tapes – and everything else Robert Vaughn-related from that era that languished in Exit’s vaults – so that we could remaster Love and War and produce a limited-edition run of CDs containing a ton of extras!
This Indiegogo campaign marks Alternative Records’ official return after a long period of dormancy. The only reason for coming out of dormancy is two-fold: (1) Love and War deserves the CD treatment, and (2) I really want to get this album out there! I have already spent months using the best sources to achieve the best possible sound, and the new CD artwork will match that effort. In terms of extras, songs and mixes not found on the original LP are simply jaw-dropping. My hope is that Robert Vaughn fans will be as excited as I was to listen to the original album once again, in a fresh way. You will hear so much more of the mix, and I guarantee you that this remaster will blow you away sonically and musically.”
See the IndieGogo campaign to help make this remaster a reality!