The journey Niels Lan Doky and Gino Vannelli have undertaken in this album is - most of all - a rejoining journey. A reunion with their own roots ("A Word To My Father"), with their most intimate affections ("Tout Depend De Nous"), with Nature ("The War Of A Lonesome Dove"), with the World ("Close Your Eyes") and Spirituality ("Karumi"). To rejoin all this is to perceive Opposites and Conflicts as mere appearances. As such, melody and dissonance, sound and silence, perfect and unperfect, sacred and profane share the same, radiant Light. Recognising such differences means to solve them, to focus where the beauty and unity are coming from. This is "Haitek Haiku": at the same time an ideal Myth, a Project and a Sound.
In the heterogenity of its ten tracks, hypertechnological and hyperhuman coexist with one another…

Crazy Life was Gino Vannelli’s debut album for A&M. Word has it that Gino, frustrated with being unable to secure a record deal in Los Angeles, hung out early in the morning at A&M’s lot and waited for someone of importance to show up. When a startled Herb Alpert encountered Vannelli in the parking lot, he agreed to an audition, signed Vannelli, and produced the debut album. Crazy Life was the gamble that A&M took on this relatively unknown talent, one that would pay off in future years with hits like "People Gotta Move" and "I Just Wanna Stop" for A&M.
Looking back on much of Gino’s mid-era A&M output, Crazy Life actually sounds less dated than many of his other albums. All the elements were there in the beginning: jazz inflections, "pop" vocals about love and relationships…

This release from the BGO label combines two of Gino Vannelli's albums for A&M, Powerful People (1974) and Storm at Sunup (1975). Both releases peaked in the Top 60 of the Billboard 200, while “People Gotta Move” – the lead song on the former – was one of Vannelli’s biggest singles and narrowly missed the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Those who pick up a well-chosen Vannelli compilation can get the essential songs, but soft rock diehards can obtain a fair amount of Vannelli’s choice album-bound material right here.