1970s
Crack the Sky traces its roots to early-seventies bands called Uncle Louie and Sugar. Uncle Louie featured John Palumbo on vocals and Rick Witkowski on guitar, while Sugar featured Joe Macre on bass and Jim Griffiths on guitar. Witkowski and Palumbo had auditioned for Terry Minogue, a nephew of Terry Cashman of CashWest Productions. Minogue convinced CashWest to give them a development deal so they could get a band together and record demos. Minogue later said, "They played some of the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life." Words (as the band was then known), initially a 10-piece band, downsized to five core members. The first incarnation of Crack the Sky included drummer Joey D'Amico, bassist Joe Macre, John Palumbo, Rick Witkowski and Jim Griffiths on guitar. During that time, CashWest Productions started Lifesong Records, and Crack the Sky became the first band to release an album on that label.
In 1975, the band released their first album, the critically acclaimed eponymous Crack the Sky, which reached 161 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Although praised by The New York Times and declared the "debut album of the year" by Rolling Stone, promotion and distribution problems with Lifesong Records prevented its widespread success. According to Terry Minogue, "Records were promised but never arrived at the distribution centers. The record would be on the radio but there would be no product on the store shelves or visa versa [sic]. When people wanted it, it would never be available." By what some termed blind luck, the marketing did work in Baltimore, only because a surplus of records was shipped there and put on display in stores when the album was receiving radio play. Subsequently, the album became very popular in Baltimore. Laidback Larry Allen, music director at WYDD in Pittsburgh, professed love for the album and played Crack the Sky in heavy rotation, but no other place did.
In 2015, their debut album was ranked number 47 in the Rolling Stone list of "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time".
Animal Notes, the band's second album, was intended originally as a rock opera about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but in production, the concept was reduced to only one song, "Rangers at Midnight". Like the band's debut release, it too was critically acclaimed, reaching number 142 on the Billboard 200 album chart, performing better than their first album. This time, the high concept and lack of "radio singles", due to the band's disdain for commercial music, contributed to lack of sales. The song "We Want Mine" was a slam at Lifesong Records for royalty withholdings.
By this time, Crack the Sky had finished two cross-country tours and had opened for Styx, Supertramp, Rush, Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra, Yes, ZZ Top, Kansas, Edgar Winter, Frank Zappa, and Boston.
As a result of a breakdown in communications with the band's record label, and a divergence in creative approaches to the music, Palumbo left the band in 1977 to pursue a solo career. The remaining band members, with new vocalist Gary Lee Chappell, Philadelphia guitarist Barry Siegfried, and Pittsburgh keyboardist Vince DePaul, released Safety in Numbers in 1978. Safety in Numbers reached 126 on the Billboard 200 album chart, their highest-charting album. Promoting Safety in Numbers, Crack the Sky opened for Heart's 1978 Dog and Butterfly tour. Later that year, the band released an album of live concert performances, Live Sky.
Due to ongoing contractual difficulties with Lifesong, members of Crack the Sky agreed they had no choice but to disband. Following the band's dissolution, Classic Crack, a greatest-hits compilation, was released by Lifesong in 1980.
