Featured Highlight - Chiefs @ Raiders, 1987 (Replacement-Game Week 1)
John Colby apparently loved playing underscores throughout the first year of NFL Primetime. By my count, there were 7 underscores/submixes/rhythm-only versions of songs used at least once throughout the show's 1987 season. In fact, the underscore of Powerhouse was used most every week of 1987 while the regular version was seemingly used just once. The Solar Winds underscore, the only one of those seven that I hadn't posted about yet, was used a couple times during the strike. It's a pretty standard underscore in that it just removes the solo melody parts from the original and leaves the rhythm and bass stuff intact. It's not like the bizarro Action Scene submix that sounds like some sort of abstract experiment in minimalism. The Solar Winds underscore doesn't work with highlights as well as the regular version, but it's passable and not off-putting.
Throughout the 1987 players' strike, NFL fans had a lot of fun coming up with mocking nicknames for the replacement squads. For example, there were the San Francisco "Phoney-Niners," the Miami "Dol-Finks," and—as you'll see at the end of the highlight below—the Los Angeles "Masque-raiders." (credit to this article for giving me the first two). The game itself wasn't that interesting, but at least it had some humor attached.
One of my posts last week mentioned that a couple songs used in NFL Primetime's first year (1987) eventually returned. One of those was Powersurge, which I already profiled, and the other was the similarly titled "Powerhouse." There's a twist here, though, in that three different versions of Powerhouse were ultimately used on the show. The original, base version and the underscore (no horn section) accompanied highlights in 1987, but then ESPN brought back the song in a cut-and-paste edited form that increased the excitement and removed the quiet bridge section in 1991. Powerhouse, though a simple song in many ways, provides more energy than most NFL Primetime music and is particularly suited toward games with frenetic comeback attempts.
Powerhouse was composed by early FirstCom regulars John Bähler & Mary Therese Matthews, who I've mentioned multiple times on this blog already. This song never officially made it off of vinyl, as far as I know, so it isn't easily accessible. There is an updated remix, titled "Powerhouse 2K" available on FirstCom's website, but it sounds quite a bit different. It wasn't written by the above artists, either, and is instead credited to associated (related?) FirstCom composers James Griffith, Mark Matthews, and Kathryn Matthews. I don't know who was responsible for the custom ESPN edit used in the '90s, but I would guess it was then-ESPN music director John Colby.
In honor of the holidays—or something—this post gets a whopping three(!) highlight videos. Also, in an unintentional oddity, all three have one of the secondary hosts presenting the game instead of Chris Berman. The first, which features the original version of Powerhouse, features Gayle Gardner showing the Cowboys visiting Busch Stadium & the Cardinals in the 1987 opener. The highlights really underplay the craziness of how that game ended; the Cardinals overcame a 13-3 deficit by scoring 3 unanswered touchdowns in the final 2 minutes! This was also their first home opening win in 12 years in what would also be their final home opener in St. Louis. The Powerhouse underscore highlight has John Saunders showing the Bills, in their last bad season for a while, losing a close game to the Jets at home. The final video, profiling the '90s custom edit version of the song, has Robin Roberts accompanying the post-Moon Oilers in their last "Battle of Texas" in Irving against the defending champion Cowboys.
