Lee Ritenour with Eric Tagg -- Is It You?

 

I couldn't quite believe it when I realized that I had yet to cover this particular AOR classic, especially since I did post Ambrosia's "Biggest Part of Me" all the way back in 2021. Time to give myself a Gibbs slap up the back of the head!

Both "Biggest Part of Me" and this song were included on those BRIO compact disc compilations of those nostalgic radio-friendly AOR tunes that I'd bought years ago in Japan. And this song here is "Is It You?" by jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour and his languid playing, with Eric Tagg providing the mellow vocals. Ritenour, Tagg and another AOR veteran Bill Champlin created "Is It You?" for Ritenour's 1981 album "RIT". And indeed, the song saw some fairly high rotation on the radio stations here when I was a teen. It hit No. 35 on Canada's RPM charts while in America, it reached No. 15.

Ritenour was a name that had kept floating here and there within my musical consciousness for years before I finally found out who he was...kinda like Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）whose name had possessed this rather legendary presence before I bought her BEST compilation years later. He, like many other folks in the American music industry, had also helped a lot of Japanese artists such as Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and the fusion band Casiopea（カシオペア）.