MUSIC / Nine on a Ten Scale / Sammy Hagar

Sammy reflects back on the album in 2021 for the 45th anniversary:

“Aynsley Dunbar (Journey, Jefferson Starship, Frank Zappa, etc) played drums on ‘Silver Lights’. Jimmy Hodder (Steely Dan) played drums on ‘Flamingos Fly’.

Carter wrote the lyrics on the album for ‘Keep On Rockin’ and Bette Midler covered my original demo version of that, which I wrote the music.

‘Flamingos Fly’ Van Morrison wrote for me. He played it for me on the acoustic guitar, and we had to overdub all the instruments to that and then in the end he wouldn’t let us use anything but the song, so I put acoustic guitar in place of his and sang the whole thing myself instead of a duet.

Jerry Shirley from Humble Pie (who Montrose toured with) played most of the drums on the record.”

Check out Sammy’s anniversary posts on socials: 

Sammy’s Instagram post

A message from Tower of Power’s Emilio Castillo

Other notes:

• “Keep On Rockin'”, a Hagar original, was covered by Bette Midler on the classic soundtrack to The Rose- albeit in a vastly different version. On Sammy’s version on this album, Bay Area friends and horn section Tower of Power guested.
• The track penned by Van Morrison, “Flamingos Fly”, was not released by Morrison until after this release. Morrison included his version of the track on the 1977 released, A Period of Transition.
• The track penned by Fleetwood Mac alumnus Bob Welch, “China”, was not released by Welch until after this release. Welch included his version of the track on the 1979 album Three Hearts.
• “Young Girl Blues” is a Donovan cover.
• A demo version of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Romeo” was released as “Thinking of You” on The Essential Red Collection in 2004.