Shadow King

Shadow King Rock candy

Foreigner and Dio stars’ early90s supergroup.

The biggest name in Shadow King was Lou Gramm, formerly the singer in Foreigner. Second banana was Vivian Campbell, previously the guitarist with Dio and Whitesnake, third was bassist and keyboard player Bruce Turgon, formerly with Gramm’s pre-Foreigner band Black Sheep, and fourth was drummer Kevin Valentine, who in the mid-80s performed in The Innocent with a young Trent Reznor.

Together the quartet made this one album, released in

1991, and played just one gig, at London’s Astoria theatre. After Campbell jumped ship to Def Leppard in 1992, Shadow King split. The album they left behind is, like so much of Rock Candy’s catalogue, a cult classic.

Campbell, who first played alongside Gramm on the singer’s 1989 solo album Long Hard Look, says Shadow King was originally conceived as “a heavy, blues-based band, like Free”.

This much is evident in two of the best tracks on the album, the slow-burner I Want You and the lean-and-mean Anytime, Anywhere. Inevitably, there are also shades of Foreigner in classy, melodic numbers such as Once Upon A Time and the beautiful acoustic Russia.

Gramm did record with Foreigner again, but for this great rock singer the Shadow King album was his last great act.