Best known for their #1 hit “Baby Come Back” and other top hits since 1977
WEBSITE: www.Playertheband.net
CURRENT MEMBERS: Peter Beckett(Original lead singer/songwriter, Rob Math(Lead guitar and vocals), Buster Akrey(Keyboards and vocals), Mark Winley(Bass and vocals), Burleigh Drummond(Drums)
Player was formed in 1977 by Englishman Peter Beckett, who came to the United States after the demise of his popular English band Paladin, along with J.C. Crowley. He was soon joined Ronn Moss and John Friesen. After many rehearsals and songwriting sessions, Player was born.
In January 1978, Player had an international number one hit with their first single: "Baby Come Back", which was co-written and sung by Beckett. The self-titled album went platinum and the band toured extensively. These classic outings included Boz Scagg's Down Two Then Left Tour, Eric Clapton’s Slowhand Tour, Heart's Dog & Butterfly Tour and Kenny Loggin's Nightwatch Tour, playing always to sold out arena audiences. Four albums followed rendering four more top forty singles, including "This Time I'm In It For Love", which reached number ten on Billboard's chart.
Peter Beckett has written hit songs for many artists including: Heart, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rodgers, The Temptations, Poco, Janet Jackson, The Commodores, Cliff Richards, Survivor, Grace Slick, and more recently Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" fame.
Between the years 1989-1997, Peter was a featured member of The Little River Band and has written several singles for them.
Peter has also garnered many movie credits as artist, producer and/or writer. These include: The Karate Kid, Two of a Kind, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Major League, St Elmo's Fire (Grammy Nomination), Frankie and Johnny, Rock Star, Terminator 3, Basic, Beyond Borders, Life or Something Like It, Dirty Dancing 2 and Transformers to name a few.
Player started performing again in the year 2003, always featuring an all star line-up, which has included at various times members of The Cars, REO SpeedWagon, Foreigner and Little River Band. Peter and Ronn were part of Sail Rock 2013 and toured the country with Christopher Cross, Orleans, Firefall and many other great musicians.
PLAYER toured Australia for the month of November 2014 and joined Rock The Yacht 2015 to tour with Little River Band, Ambrosia, Robbie Dupree, and Stephen Bishop.
Now called Peter Beckett’s PLAYER, they are still actively touring. Between tours, Peter Beckett is working on a new CD.