Ric Ocasek

Ric Ocasek didn't fit the rock star template. There could hardly be a more antithetical one than the 6'4” Richard Theodore Otcasek from Baltimore, Maryland. After his family's relocation, he graduated from high school in the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles doldrums of 1963 Cleveland.

Even Alan Freed had skipped town.

Ocasek attempted college, but was drawn to music even if music wasn't initially drawn to him. He spent the remainder of the decade searching for the right assemblage of musicians that would nurture his creative flame.

He and eventual Cars' vocalist and bassist Benjamin Orr (who met in 1965) relocated to Boston in the early seventies. There, they assembled a folk-rock outfit called Milkweed who became popular enough to record an LP.

It sank without a trace, but provided the groundwork for the Cars. Future keyboardist Greg Hawkes played on the LP, which led to meeting future guitarist Elliot Easton. Drummer David Robinson and Ocasek met up in Ocasek's last pre-Cars band, and the musical aggregation Ocasek had been looking for for over a decade was complete.

So combustible was their sound that the mere demo for “Just What I Needed” received regular airings on Boston's influential WBCN. A signing to Elektra Records followed soon thereafter, and the Cars' debut LP sizzled throughout the summer of 1978.

Of note is the fact Ocasek was thirty-four years-old upon the album's release. The Cars was the culmination of a fifteen-year slog through crappy bands, crappier clubs and too many false starts to count.

Like Ian Hunter (who was thirty when Mott the Hoople got off the ground) and Bob Seger (who was thirty-one when “Night Moves” clicked), Ocasek was a lifer who didn't know how to do anything else but make music.

With less of a track record than either, his persistence is made even more remarkable.

We all know the story of the Cars, and Ocasek's eventual rock star turn in his marriage to Czech model Paulina Porizkova. But even in this he was the outlier: they remained married for nearly thirty years.

Ocasek hit it big after a long climb. He played in front of millions of adoring fans, sold millions of records and married one of the most beautiful women on Earth. There was even a successful reunion LP, which in the long history of pop music can be counted on less than ten fingers.

As the Cars' primary songwriter, Ocasek never had to shop Goodwill or stomach generic spaghetti sauce. I doubt he ever cross-shopped his car insurance.

From my side of the glass, things looked pretty good.

Of course, appearances can be misleading. There was a faded friendship rendered irreparable by an early death and the inevitable long, slow fade endured by so many in the performing arts. Two failed marriages. And a spotty solo career.

It was a life.

I hope you were okay with it, Ric.