I bought it for Patrick Adams. The name above his is the real story.

Patrick Adams is the name I chase now. If I see it on a sleeve, string arrangements, production, even just arranger credit tucked in small print, I move toward that record without thinking twice. So when I flipped this one over, his name being there felt like the whole reason to buy it.

Then I actually read the credit.

Produced by Greg Carmichael. Arranged by Greg Carmichael and Patrick Adams. Adams is the name I already knew. Carmichael is the one I didn't, and it turns out he's probably on more of the records I love than I ever gave him credit for.

When they met, Carmichael was working as a legal clerk. Not in the industry, just a guy who loved music. Adams was one of the busiest arrangers in New York, strings, brass, commercials, film scores, and still couldn't get hired to produce.

Carmichael kept telling him to just put the strange ideas out himself. Adams said he didn't have the head to run a label on top of everything else. So he told Carmichael to do it instead.

Carmichael did. He started Red Greg and put out Dance And Shake Your Tambourine by the Universal Robot Band, a group that existed mostly on paper. Instant hit.

That's the moment the whole thing split in two. Adams sent his serious orchestrated work to the majors, and everything else went to the independents.

This record landed in the second pile, which is probably exactly why I like it.

Their partnership ran about eight years, Universal Robot Band, Bumblebee Unlimited, Inner Life, Phreek, records by Donna McGhee and Fonda Rae. Carmichael also ran a second label, TCT, first home to Inner Life's I'm Caught Up before Prelude bought it.

Then the ending. The two of them wrote Touch Me All Night Long for Fonda Rae. In 1991 Cathy Dennis remade it and it sat at number two on the pop chart for two weeks. By the time his one real mainstream hit landed, Carmichael had already left the business.

So now when I see Patrick Adams on a sleeve, I'm going to start looking right below it too.