Southwest Airlines

Here is an interesting tidbit. Like I have said before, our manager, Art “Smart” Stenstrom, was always looking for a way to promote our band. Back in the late 70’s, not a lot of rock bands were doing music for commercials let alone authorizing name brands to use their hits to sell products. My, how times have changed!

So we were a bit reluctant when we were told that Art was going to take one of our songs from “Handle With Care” and try to sell it to Southwest Airlines. The idea was to change the lyrics of “Grey, Cloudy Skies” to say, “I just flew in on Southwest Airlines”. Looking back, perhaps he was ahead of his time. The carrier had not yet morphed into its current maverick outfit, so the pitch probably made it to the trash bin since it was not introduced by one of the leading ad agencies.

But if you think about it, the bouncy tune coupled with the modified lyrics would probably do very well in a television spot!

Mick Orton

Categories: History

Tags: 70's music, Commercial, davenport, Fanfare, Handle With Care, Independent, iowa, Jon Ludtke, Ken Wiles, Kim Ludtke, Lyrics, Mick Orton, Mike Orton, original music, Paul Staack, Quad Cities, rock and roll, Silver Laughter, Southwest Airlines