Player

Best remembered for the late-'70s chart-topper "Baby Come Back," Player were formed in Los Angeles in 1976 by singer/guitarist Peter Beckett (formerly of the U.K. group Skyband), bassist Ronn Moss, and guitarist/keyboardist J.C. Crowley. After adding drummer John Friesen, Player signed to impresario Robert Stigwood's RSO label and issued "Baby Come Back," which sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in early 1978. Their self-titled debut LP appeared that same year, as did the follow-up, Danger Zone. Crowley exited Player soon after and enjoyed a solo career as a country artist; the remaining trio issued Room with a View in 1980 before Moss and Friesen both departed as well. Beckett, the lone remaining founding member, continued the group for one final LP, 1982's Spies of Life, before retiring the Player name to mount a career as a songwriter and solo performer. Moss, meanwhile, joined the cast of the daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful in 1987. He and Beckett re-formed Player in 1995, and soon thereafter issued the LPs Electric Shadows (1995) and Lost in Reality (1997). Player toured sporadically during the remainder of the decade and the 2000s. In 2013, Beckett, Moss, and company released Too Many Reasons, the band's seventh studio album. ~ Jason Ankeny