Desmond Child Discusses Career at Grammy Museum: Desmond Child's name is one that recalls a time, pre the downloading and streaming age, when you'd buy an album and set aside some time for it. You'd open up the sleeve notes, whether that be the vinyl inner sleeve or the CD booklet or the fold-out cassette cover, lie back and read it all while you listened. And for a large portion of the '80s and '90s in particular, you'd often see Child's name next to the songs in parentheses.

Not that Child has ever stopped working. He's not a nostalgic figure; the man, as we were told at the Grammy Museum on Thursday evening, always has about ten projects on the go. But it's certainly true that Child oversaw the meteoric rise of Bon Jovi, penning or co-penning the biggest hits from the enormous Slippery When Wet album, including "Livin' on a Prayer," the song that gives his new book it's name.

Child also wrote the songs that helped both Aerosmith and Alice Cooper enjoy their '80s comebacks, and gave Kiss a helping hand too. He wrote Michael Bolton's best song (by a distance) -- "How Can We Be Lovers if We Can't Be Friends." Some might not know that he co-wrote "Livin' la Vida Loco" for Ricky Martin in '99. The man is a songwriting machine.

At the Grammy Museum, Child was sat next to writer David Ritz, who authored the book with him. Ritz, incidentally, is also the guy who fought for a songwriting credit on Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," and won. President of the Recording Academy Panos Panay was the able moderator.

The release of the book Livin' on a Prayer: Big Songs Big Life was the catalyst for this event, and Panay and Ritz are great talkers. But really, everyone was there to see and hear Child. Like Jim Steinman and Bernie Taupin, Child is primarily known as a songwriter but of course, he's a musician too. He told us on Thursday that he's tried to learn guitar but still can't play a note -- piano is Child's instrument.

Before he played it, he told us about his initial meeting with Paul Stanley of Kiss, and how Stanley introduced him to Jon Bon Jovi. He detailed his complicated relationship with his mother and her influence on his career. And he stressed that he doesn't consider "failure" a part of his life, in response to a question from the audience.

All of those stories and many more are detailed in the book, and Child and Ritz signed copies afterwards. But the real treat was hearing him perform some of his songs. We're not used to seeing and hearing the songs coming directly from Child, and it really is a wonderful thing to witness.

Child started things off by performing "Livin' on a Prayer," alone at the piano. Then Rita Wilson joined him for a rendition of "Angel," recorded by Aerosmith. Finally, Child stood at the mic to sing "Livin' la Vida Loca" while that song's original arranger, Randy Cantor, played piano and sang backing vocals.

And that was it. Again, it was a rare treat to see Child in this environment -- it'd be great to see a full show in the future.

Desmond Child Discusses Career at Grammy Museum: For more info, visit grammymuseum.org.





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