User:Jack Sebastian/Children of the Sun

Children of the Sun
Studio album by Billy Thorpe
Released	1979
Genre	rock space music
Length	6:45

All compositions written by Billy Thorpe 1.Wrapped in the chains (Thorpe) 3:38 2.Dream-Maker (Thorpe) 3:45 3.Simple life (Thorpe) 5:38 4.Goddess of the night (Thorpe/Proffer) 4:22 5.Children of the sun (Thorpe/Proffer) 6:45 6.We're leaving (Thorpe) 3:45 7.We welcome you (Thorpe) 4:42 8.Solar anthem (Thorpe) 0:55 9.The beginning (Thorpe) 4:15

Billy says "It was spontaneous. We had one cut, 'Children of the Sun' the title cut, and essentially we were going to the studio to cut a fairly conventional record. We were going to cut 16 tracks and pick the best ten or twelve, depending on how many we could get on the album. When we cut 'Children of the Sun', it was so strong when we cut the rhythm section. I did some rough vocals and decided along with my producer, Spencer Proffer, to break recording. I went home and worked on some other material that I had for three or four days and came up with the whole side. We decided then and there to do something conceptual on one side of the record and have the other side of the record fairly conventional. So it was once again a spontaneous thing. It wasn't something that was planned in any way. It came out of the sessions themselves. I was very much surprised at the success of the album. You can never plan anything like this. There is no way to know. I thought the A side of the album would have been picked up and then people would have gone over to the "Children of the Sun" side and hear that. The fact that radio, particularly the AM radio now ,is jamming 'Children of the Sun' to me is phenomenal. 'Children of the Sun' was nearly sixty minutes long and we had to cut it down to twenty minutes to get it on the side. There is a possibility that 'Children of the Sun' could become a trilogy taken over the next two albums."

The following are on 1979's "Children of the Sun" which was only released in America on Record, casette, and 8-track. It has NEVER appeared on Compact Disk in America. 1.Wrapped in the chains (Thorpe) 3:38 2.Dream-Maker (Thorpe) 3:45 3.Simple life (Thorpe) 5:38 4.Goddess of the night (Thorpe/Proffer) 4:22 5.Children of the sun (Thorpe/Proffer) 6:45 6.We're leaving (Thorpe) 3:45 7.We welcome you (Thorpe) 4:42 8.Solar anthem (Thorpe) 0:55 9.The beginning (Thorpe) 4:15

There is an interesting story behind "Children of the Sun."

Billy came to America in 1977, expecting it to open her arms up & welcome him like a conquoring hero. Wrong. Nobody ever heard of him, nor did anybody care. Basically he had to start all over as if he had never recorded anything before. While writing songs, a friend of his was working on a record for Pasha. Billy did a guitar solo on the record, met the producer/owner, Spencer Proffer, and the 2 of them began writing songs & recording "Children of the Sun". At that time, Pasha was just a recording studio and a Management company, not yet a label. They recorded artists, and then sold the album to a label to be released by them. Nobody wanted "Children of the Sun" except a small "Country-rock" label, Capricorn. They released it, and sales went really well. However, the other artists on the label didn't sell anything, so Capricorn, despite having a record climbing the charts, went bankrupt. At the time, sales were aroung 350,000.

Then the album became unavailable for a few months, while Capricorn's European company took over the rights to "Children" and re-released it under their label, Polygram. The momentum had slowed, and it only sold another 200,000.

So, technically, if you own a copy of this out-of-print album on Vinyl, check the sticker to see which version you have: Capricorn, or Polygram.

Here in America, you are presented with a "Gold" album for 500,000 copies sold domestically. BUT, since the record was released by two different companies, the RIAA has determined it should be treated as two seperate releases. Therefore, no Gold album.

Billy went in to record the follow-up, "21st Century Man", which was sold to Electra Records. But the fiasco gave Spencer Proffer the drive to start his own label, Pasha, and have total control over his artists. It worked - look at the success of Quiet Riot. over 12 Million copies sold of "Metal Health" in 1983.

In 1987, Spencer Proffer kept getting pestered for "Children Of The Sun" to be released onto CD. He contacted Billy, and the two of them discussed it, and Billy added he had regretted that the "Children" Project was supposed to be a Trilogy, which only reached stage Two. He did have 3 songs that he felt would provide a little closure.

"Children... Revisited" was released on Record, Casette, and Compact Disk. It has the entire "Children Of the Sun" Suite (tracks 5 through 9), the 3 "new" Billy songs, and then the re-release of the title track from Billy's 1982 release , "East Of Eden's Gate."