biography
Zip Records releases Ron Flynt’s new album L.A. Story on October 5, 2004. LA Story is a song cycle about hope, dreams, and redemption. It is loosely the story of Flynt’s own musical career with his band 20/20. It’s been a long and tortuous journey, reaching the brink of great commercial success, only to suffer repeatedly because of label problems and bad decisions made along the way. Yet 26 years later, he’s still making some of the best music of his career, and L.A. Story is undoubtedly his best album yet. Flynt explains the record’s themes: “On the surface this record is about my time in Hollywood. The friends and associations, the search for and acquisition of a recording contract, the moderately successful records, the loss of the record deal, the dissolution of the band, and the journey back home. But the true meaning of the record is, hopefully, more universal. We all have hopes and dreams that we protect and shelter deep inside our hearts. And that is what L.A. Story is about. It is about a dream that is sustained by hope. It’s about the first touch of success and the crushing blows of failure. It’s about the powerful bonds of friendship and the deepening fog of loneliness. It is about our darkest hour when we feel abandoned. And finally it’s about redemption and the power of faith.” The album was influenced by The Kinks’ under-appreciated 1969 masterpiece, Arthur. Both albums tell a story through a series of songs in a linear fashion, but each song can stand alone without any knowledge of the whole story. You don’t need to know the particulars of the 20/20 story to appreciate the songs. Falling in love with a disastrous ending, bad business decisions, the sustaining power of friends and family -- it’s a story we’ve all lived in some fashion. Flynt’s partners in 20/20 -- Steve Allen and Bill Belknap -- join Flynt as the album’s primary musicians. Come with us, then, on a long, strange ride to Hollywood and back with Ron Flynt and L.A. Story.
