Dwight Twilley -- "Girls" (1984)

In the 80's, Tom Petty did a Quentin Tarantino by pulling some of his heroes out of the mothballs and reviving their careers. Tarantino did it with Pam Grier, John Travolta and Robert Forster. Petty revived the careers of Del Shannon ("Runaway"), Roy Orbison and Dwight Twilley.

Twilley was a die-hard rock and roll fundamentalist from Tulsa who believed in a few simple chords, a ridiculously catchy melody, thumping electric guitar notes, and plenty o'slapback reverb. Along with his buddy, drummer Phil Seymour, they had one huge classic hit, "I'm On Fire," and unfortunately fell victim to record company runarounds and rejections, so he was unable to follow-up his initial success. Seymour split and had a one-hit solo career around "Precious To Me."

Finally in 1984, after being tossed around record labels and finally landing on EMI America, Twilley, along with his amazing lead guitarist Bill Pitcock IV, put out his second big hit single, "Girls." Ironically following the musical blueprint he created several years before that, Petty's endorsement of his friend and contributing background vocals finally put Twilley back on the well-deserved map.

Yes, it's got about three chords, an insane guitar hook matched by the one-syllable chorus ("Girls!"), and just about nothing in common with the big-sounding artists of the day like Phil Collins, Wham, Van Halen and Duran Duran.

That was Twilley's last roll through the Top 40. Since then,he's put out a number of fine independent albums (including a couple of cover collections), and compilations of unreleased material.

Two fun videos below. The first, the official 80's style video, seemingly modeled on Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher," where it's all frisky babe cheerleaders with big hair cascading through the gym locker. The second, the required appearance on weekly music TV show "Solid Gold," all rolled up jacket sleeves, lip-synched away, while Tom Petty's distinct nasal background vocals drift over the audio.

Phil Seymour -- "Precious To Me" (1981)

Phil Seymour is an important footnote in the history of power pop music. Although nowhere as well known as the big names of The Raspberries and Badfinger, Seymour was much loved in his brief career before passing away in 1993.

Seymour was one of the two power pop guns to come out of Tulsa -- the other was Dwight Twilley. As a matter of fact, Seymour and Twilley were signed to Shelter Records as The Dwight Twilley Band, both of them playing nearly all the instruments (Seymour played drums and bass). Out of nowhere, they had a huge single with "I'm On Fire," which would mark their style of simple major chord power pop with a distinct twangy guitar, usually courtesy of Bill Pitcock IV.

The pair fell out and Twilley hit the road as a studio musican, singing backup on a number of albums, including early Tom Petty. Signed to Boardwalk Records, Seymour's first solo album was like a poppier, cleaner version of the music he'd been doing with Twilley. For some reason, his adopted that striped half-sleeve shirt not only on his album cover, but his videos and live performances. I guess in a weird symbolic way, the style fit him, as his music was still quite simpley arranged power pop.

"Precious To Me" was his only big hit off the record, although there were many other great little songs on there. If "Precious To Me" was released 10 years earlier, it may have been some Frankie Valli hit (with a little of Bob Gaudio's production razzle dazzle, of course) or perhaps would have seemed right on the "Urban Cowboy" soundtrack in a honky tonk version a year earlier. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to keep it basic and simple, which "Precious To Me" is, not deep, not ornamented, but lots of Seymour vocal overdubs, a nice tambourine on the two and four beats, and an easy guitar lick.

Two "Precious To Me" videos: the first, the official black and white version, and then Seymour -- in red and black stripes -- performing it on a TV show.