Player
was formed in 1977 by Englishman Peter Beckett,
who came to the United States after the demise of his popular English band Paladin. He was soon joined by J.C. Crowley, Ronn Moss and John Friesen. After many rehearsals and songwriting sessions, Player was born. January 1978, the band had an international number one hit with their first single:
"Baby Come Back", which was co-written and sung by Beckett.
The self titled album went platinum and the band toured extensively. These classic outings included Boz Scagg's Silk Degrees Tour, Eric Clapton's Slowhand Tour, Heart's Dog & Butterfly Tour, and Kenny Loggin's Footloose Tour, playing always to sold out arena audiences.
Four albums followed rendering four more top
forty singles, including "This Time I'm In It For Love",
which reached number eleven on Billboard's chart.
Peter Beckett has written hit songs for many artists including: Heart, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rodgers, The Temptations, Poco, Janet Jackson, The Commodores, Cliff Richards, Survivor,Grace Slick, and more recently Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" fame.
Between the years 1989-1997, Peter was a featured member
of The Little River Band and has written several singles for them. He has also garnered many movie credits as artist, producer and/or writer. These include: The Karate Kid, Two of a Kind, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Major League, St Elmo's Fire (Grammy Nomination), Frankie and Johnny, Rock Star, Terminator 3, Basic, Beyond Borders, Life or Something Like It, Dirty
Dancing 2, to name a few.
In the mid eighties, bassist Ronn Moss took on another
career as Ridge Forrester, the male lead in the daytime CBS TV drama "The Bold And The Beautiful", and still plays
the role to this day. He has also made many
feature movies.
Player started performing again in the year 2000,
always featuring an all star line-up, which has included
at various times members of The Cars, REO Speed Wagon, Foreigner and Little River Band.
A new Player CD is in the making.
