Player

Player is a British-American rock band that was formed in the late 1970s. The group scored several US Hot 100 hits, three of which went into the top 40; two of those single releases went top 10, including the No. 1 hit "Baby Come Back", written by group members Peter Beckett and J.C. Crowley. Career Player first came together in Los Angeles, California. The original members included Peter Beckett (vocals, guitar), John Charles "J.C." Crowley (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Ronn Moss (vocals, bass), and John Friesen (drums). Beckett, a transplanted Englishman from Liverpool, had been in a progressive rock group called Paladin, then Skyband in 1974 with Australian Steve Kipner (who had also played with the Australian band Tin Tin, of which Beckett had also briefly been a member). At that time, Beckett, Kipner and Skyband were based in Los Angeles. After Skyband broke up in 1975, Beckett was still living there and met Crowley at a party. He and Crowley teamed up in a new band called Riff Raff, which soon changed its name to Bandana and released a single, "Jukebox Saturday Night", on Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter's Haven label. Steve Kipner and former Grass Roots guitarist Reed Kailing were also members of Riff Raff/Bandana, but Kipner was gone before the single's recording and Kailing was aced out after its release, though some of the Bandana tracks with Kailing's playing and co-writing later appeared on Player's debut. When the Haven label folded soon afterward, Lambert and Potter brought the others over to RSO Records in 1976, and Beckett and Crowley started anew as Player with manager Paul Palmer, who brought in Moss and Friesen (a former percussionist and musical director for the Ice Follies). Wayne Cook, a keyboardist/session player and former member of Steppenwolf, was an additional band member for its live performances; he is the curly-haired keyboardist in the band's videos from the 1970s.