Firefall

With three singles reaching No. 11 or higher on Billboard's pop chart between 1976 and 1978, and three Top 30 albums during the same period, Boulder, Colo.'s Firefall were, for at least a short time, probably the most popular soft-rock band following in The Eagles' desperado footsteps. Their flute-flighty "You Are the Woman" and sax-sparked "Just Remember I Love You" were high-school crush-worthy slow-dance material; with "Strange Way," Firefall proved equally fluent in tougher, Styx-y pomp. Mellow softies or no, they were a real band, featuring musicians whose resumes included The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds, Jo Jo Gunne! and Spirit. Firefall's commercial peak came early -- after their third album, 1978's platinum Elan, they only put one more long player in the Billboard 100 and two more singles in the Top 40, and they stopped charting entirely after 1983. But tracks like "Cinderella," "Sweet and Sour," "Headed for a Fall" and "Runaway Love" managed to bring Zeppelin-esque Celtic folk, jazz-ish Latin percussion undercurrents, ominous minor keys and new wave-y keyboards to the table. Despite several lineup changes, the band continued in some form or other into the '00s