I listened to a lot of music as a child. Particularly during my 4th through 6th grade years. My brother is six years older than me, and so he was in his high school years during that time. We also shared a bedroom, so I had access to all of his LP’s and 8-tracks. A lot of that music he (we) listened to during those years is stuff I still love, or at least still listen to from time to time. Boston, Kansas, Foreigner, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Bad Company, Peter Frampton, Styx, KISS, ZZ Top, and many others. I grew up on 70’s rock.

However, during my junior high years, for whatever reason, I didn’t listen to a lot of rock. In part, I suppose, it was because my brother took most of it off to college with him. But, I also recall becoming more interested in church music around that time, and growing up in the Church of Christ denomination here in the South, that meant acappella music. We had various acappella cassettes (8-tracks were dying out by then) from different CoC singing groups, including some stuff from Howard Publishing and one or two from Ray Walker. I loved those, and they taught me how to sing, eventually driving me to lead singing occasionally on Wednesday nights at church and joining the chorus when I began attending Harding Academy as a 9th grader.

Eventually, I got over that. Sure, Acappella and AVB were somewhat of an attraction in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but I’ve never been much of a Keith Lancaster fan. And, if you’re going to make all of the noises to sound like instruments, just pick up some instruments already. Real instruments sound much better than this vocal manufactured crap anyway. But I digress. It wouldn’t be until the late 90’s and the music recorded by The Zoe Group that I would listen to much acappella music again.

Why am I talking about this? I’m starting to ramble, but when I rejoined my peers in listening to popular music again my junior year in high school, one of the first cassettes I bought was Synchronicity by The Police, released earlier that year (1983). I had heard Police songs from time to time in previous years, but Synchronicity was huge that year with hits like “King of Pain” and “Every Breath You Take”. I quickly became a huge fan, eventually acquiring all of their previous titles.

Therefore, it was quite a disappointment when they effectively disbanded after the Synchronicity tour the following year. I enjoyed Sting’s early solo work, but would have liked to have seen more albums from The Police as well. They were together less than a year after I started listening to their stuff. They’ve done nothing new together (to speak of) since 1984, and it didn’t appear that they ever would.

But now, over 20 years later, the rumors have been swirling - a reunion. There was a brief reunion for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago. But this time the talk is of a real reunion - a world tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of “Roxanne”, their first single. Clearly, I would welcome such news. I would love to see these guys back together again.

One this is certain - they will reunite to perform at the Grammy’s in a couple of weeks. I’ll be setting my DVR for that. But whether or not there will be anything to follow, or just another one-time show, remains to be seen. Hopefully, the rumors are true and, at some point, there will even be some new music released as well. It’s been too long.