#1: Strange Way by Firefall

City: Smithers, BC
Radio Station: CFBV
Peak Month: January 1979
Peak Position in Smithers ~ #1
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #11
YouTube: “Strange Way”
Lyrics: “Strange Way”

Firefall was a soft rock band from Boulder, Colorado. They were founded by Rick Roberts and formed in 1974. Roberts was born in 1949 in Clearwater, Florida. He was a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and on their self-titled 1971 album and 1972 album Last of the Red Hot Burritos. Roberts dissolved the Flying Burrito Brothers in 1973. Concurrently, Roberts released two solo albums in 1972 and 1973. He got the name for the band from the Yosemite Firefall, a summertime event in which burning embers were pushed from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to the valley 3,000 feet below. Roberts co-founder was Jock Bartley, who was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1950. His family moved to Colorado Springs in 1959. Later, he began guitar lessons there (notably with jazz legend Johnny Smith), and later became deeply involved in the music scene when he moved to Boulder. When the pair met in 1973, Bartley was in a band with Gram Parsons called Fallen Angels.

Other bandmates in the classic Firefall lineup were Larry Burnett, Mark Andes, Michael Clarke, and David Muse.

Larry Burnett was born in 1951 in Washington DC. He began writing songs as a teenager. His first band, the Broken Limbs, formed during high school at T.C. Williams in Alexandria, Virginia. They played R&B covers at school events and local spots. He continued to perform into his 20s, notably at the legendary Cellar Door nightclub in Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s. He was working as a cab driver in the Alexandria area at the time while pursuing music when Rick Roberts heard Burnett perform at the Cellar Door and invited him to join Firefall.

Mark Andes was born in Philadelphia in 1948. At the age of 18, he was an early member of Canned Heat from 1966 to 1967, prior to that band’s self-titled album release in July ’67, and release of “On The Road Again” in 1968. In the summer of 1967, Andes formed Spirit with other Los Angeles musicians. He was with Spirit for four albums, including their Top 30 hit “I Got A Line On You”, and then Andes formed Jo Jo Gunne in 1971. Andes was recruited to join Firefall in 1975.

Michael Clarke was born Michael James Dick in 1946 in Spokane, Washington. He began drinking alcohol at the age of 14, and usually had a bottle of vodka each day. He ran away from home at that age of 17 and hitchhiked to California. He took on the surname of Clarke. Michael Clarke met David Crosby on a beach in northern LA while playing bongo drums. Crosby offered him a chance to audition and join The Byrds. It was then he changed his surname from Dick to Clarke. However, he was fired from the band at the end of 1967 and went to be a painter in Hawaii. However, ex-Byrd bandmate Chris Hillman wrote in his 2020 memoir that Clarke that after the recording of the album The Notorious Byrd Brothers, “Not long after the photo shoot (for the album cover), Mike announced that he… would be leaving us. To this day, I’m not entirely sure why he made that choice. I know he was disillusioned and burned out, but I hated to see him go.” Mike Clarke eventually would join the Flying Burrito Brothers – from 1969 to 1972 which included a set at the Altamont Free Concert headlined by the Rolling Stones and made infamous due to Hell’s Angels as security and the stabbing of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter. Michael Clarke was later invited by Rick Roberts to join Firefall in 1975.

David Muse was born in 1949 in Rome, Georgia. Some of David Muse’s early musical ventures included J.R. & the Newtrons (featuring future Firefall singer Rick Roberts) and The Sons of Man (also with Roberts). After attending St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida, he performed as a member of Too Much Boogie. He was later invited to join Taxi, the house band at Scarlett O’Hara’s in the original Underground Atlanta, where he remained for nearly four years until joining Firefall in 1975.

Firefall released their debut self-titled album in 1975. The second single release from the album, “You Are the Woman”, reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100, #6 on the RPM Canadian Top 100 Singles chart, and Top 20 in New Zealand. In 1977, “Just Remember I Love You” reached #11 on the Hot 100, and #6 in Canada.

On their album, Élan, Rick Roberts wrote “Strange Way” which was released as a single.

In contrast to their earlier hits, “You Are The Woman” and “Just Remember I Love You” – where love is completing both romantic partners, “Strange Way” serves up an abrupt departure. In “Strange Way,” a relationship has turned sour. The guy feels like he’s being used. The woman sounds like she’s wallowing in self-pity, and he’s telling her that she’s bringing him down and doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. It’s a far cry from “just remember I love you and it will be alright.”

The flute, played by David Muse, is a big part of “Strange Way”. In concert, Muse would stretch out his solo, doing a long improvisation. Live versions could run about 10 minutes.

“Strange Way” reached #1 in Smithers (BC), Dayton (OH), San Bernardino (CA), and Tucson (AZ), #2 in Birmingham (AL), #3 in Cleveland, Oklahoma City, and Milwaukee, #4 in Atlanta, San Diego, and Flagstaff (AZ), #5 in Amarillo (TX), Oklahoma City, Dallas, Fresno (CA), Fredericton (NB), and Wichita (KS), #6 in Nashville, Salt Lake City, Anchorage (AK), Phoenix, Buffalo, Saskatoon (SK), and Ukiah (CA), #7 in York (PA), Minneapolis/St. Paul, Livermore (CA), Windsor (ON), Toronto, Springfield (MA), and Baltimore (MD), #8 in Burbank (CA), Davenport (IA), Grand Rapids (MI), Albuquerque (NM), St. Cloud (MN), Chicago, and Allentown (PA), #9 in Flint (MI), Denver, Cincinnati (OH), Winnipeg (MB), Fort Lauderdale, and Easton (PA), and #10 in Bangor (ME), Des Moines (IA), Vancouver (BC), and St. Louis.

At the height of their commercial success, Firefall toured variously with The Band, Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Beach Boys and others. The band struggled to equal their commercial success from the mid-70s as the eighties began. Both “Headed for a Fall” and “Staying with It” barely cracked the Top 40 in the USA. Unrest and tension among band members led to the breakup of the original band in 1981. While Firefall has reformed and over the years had a revolving lineup, except fro Josh Bartley, the other original bandmates have moved on to other projects.

Jim Roberts has written songs recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Barry Manilow, and former Byrds bandmates who recorded as the trio McGuinn, Clark & Hillman. Rick Roberts has also provided backing vocals in the studio for Stephen Stills, and others. In 1985, he was a member of “A 20th Anniversary Tribute to The Byrds”, a band co-founded by ex-Byrds Gene Clark and Michael Clarke. n 1987, he teamed up with ex-Eagle Randy Meisner in the short lived Roberts-Meisner Band and then rejoined his bandmates in Firefall from 1989 to 1992. In 2006, Roberts suffered a brain injury that set him back for a few years. He released three more solo albums between 2010 and 2012.

Mark Andes joined Heart in 1983. He was in the recording studio along with Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson (and other Heart bandmates) for some of Heart’s biggest hits. These include the number-one singles “Alone”, and “These Dreams”, as well as “What About Love”, “Never”, “Nothin’ at All”, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You”, “Stranded”, “Who Will You Run To”, and  “There’s The Girl”. In 1993, Mark Andes left Heart. Over the decades he has appeared on a number of albums as a session musician. These include with former member of Spirit, Jay Ferguson, with folksinger John Fahey, Kim Carnes, Joe Walsh, Eliza Gilkyson, Dan Fogelberg, Iain Matthews and others.

Larry Burnett left Firefall in 1981 while the band was on tour. His struggle with drugs began when he was sixteen and with Firefall’s success, he was able to further fuel his addiction. But the non-stop recording and touring coupled with increasing drug use began taking a physical toll on Burnett. According to Burnett’s website, “I began to believe I would die if I stayed with this one more day. The band got up one morning after a show in Orlando FL, headed to the airport and got on a plane for Nevada. I got on one for Washington DC (my home) and checked myself into a psychiatric hospital’s drug rehab unit.” Burnett’s battle to end his drug addiction lasted four years. His last drink and drug was August 1985.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Burnett became a popular Washington, DC, disc jockey for classic rock station 105.9 WCXR. He was also the host and producer of a weekly specialty program heard on the station called “The Blues Room.” Burnett resisted the urge to produce music for several more years opting for a more “normal life”. He dabbled in a variety of careers including real estate, sales and copywriting until, in August 2004, Burnett released his first solo ep entitled Confidence Game. Larry Burnett’s most recent release as a solo artist is 2009’s Guitars and Vocals. He has also participated in several Firefall reunion concerts.

David Muse released two solo albums in the early 80s, Tonal Alchemy (1981) and Fantasies of Love (1983). He released three more albums starting in 2016, with his last Ninety Degree Phase Shift in 2021. He joined the Marshall Tucker Band from 1996 to 2000, and again from 2003 to 2008, appearing on seven of that band’s albums. And in 2012, he joined the Boulder County Conspiracy. Muse was diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and died in 2022 at the age of 73.

While still with Firefall, Michael Clarke’s excessive drinking meant he missed out on the entirety of a 1979 tour of Japan. A year later, after the release of their Undertow album, Clarke left the band. His departure from Firefall was followed by a period as the drummer for Jerry Jeff Walker, ending in 1982. Between 1983 and 1985, Clarke joined former Byrds singer Gene Clark in The Firebyrds, a touring band which had been put together to promote Gene Clark’s 1984 solo album Firebyrd. In 1985, following the breakup of The Firebyrds, Clarke and Clark again joined forces for a series of controversial shows billed as a “20th Anniversary Tribute to The Byrds”. From 1987 until his death in 1993, Clarke toured as The Byrds featuring Michael Clarke. Clarke died in 1993 at the age of 47, after years of heavy alcohol consumption that led to liver failure.

August 21, 2026
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Obituaries : Michael Clarke; Drummer With the Byrds Rock Group,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1993.
Angeline Sicily, “How Did David Muse Die? Firefall Multi-Instrumentalist’s Last Days Explored,” Music times, August 8, 2022.
Gary James, “Interview with Mark Andes,” ClassicBands.com.
Oakland L. Childers, “Seven Years After a Devastating Brain Injury, Legendary Songwriter Rick Roberts is Back,” Westword, August 14, 2014.
Shawna Ortega, “Larry Burnett of Firefall,” Songfacts.com, July 1, 2007.
Hannah Means Shannon, “Interview: Jock Bartley Of Firefall On The Freedom Of 1970s Songwriting And “Friends And Family 2,” American Highways.org, May 19, 2025.

CFBV 1230-AM Smithers (BC) Top Ten | January 1979