REO Speedwagon released Hi Infidelity on November 21, 1980, through Epic Records. The band’s ninth studio album arrived in the United States with “Keep On Loving You,” a song that had initially met resistance inside the group. Its combination of Kevin Cronin’s piano melody and Gary Richrath’s guitar would give REO their first No. 1 single.
The album’s relationship troubles came from the lives of the people making it. In a 2016 interview with SongwriterUniverse, Cronin described bandmates turning to one another for support as years of touring and recording strained their personal lives. That shared experience gave their writing a common subject. They hadn’t planned a concept album; the songs belonged together because the musicians were working through similar problems. “Keep On Loving You” began with three piano chords Cronin heard in his head after waking during the night. He took them to a small home studio and played them on a red Wurlitzer electric piano he’d owned since high school. Although he’d taken guitar lessons as a child, he had taught himself piano, the instrument behind several of his biggest songs.
Persuading the band to record this one took persistence. Cronin told Guitar World that his bandmates considered it too soft, but he kept playing it until Richrath joined in with a Les Paul through a double stack of Marshall amplifiers. Cronin remembered the guitar as an attempt to overpower him. Instead, hearing the two parts together gave him the arrangement he’d been looking for. Discussing the apparent hit-making formula, he said, “the truth is it was an accident.”
That combination also left keyboardist Neal Doughty with a practical challenge: finding space around the guitars. Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock in 2011, Doughty explained that the band often waited until late in recording to add keyboards, when the arrangements made it clearer where they would fit. For “In Your Letter,” he worked out his part at home after the other instruments were recorded, then played it in the studio to the band’s approval. The song’s finished arrangement grew from a recording that already worked without his contribution.
The album’s singles drew on both principal songwriters. Alongside “Keep On Loving You,” Cronin wrote “Don’t Let Him Go”; Richrath wrote “Take It on the Run” and “In Your Letter.” All four reached the U.S. Top 40. “Keep On Loving You” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981, while Hi Infidelity spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the album chart.
Epic also asked the band to make videos for four songs. In a 2021 account on REO’s website, Cronin recalled having no say in the concepts and arriving at Burbank Studios to discover that “Keep On Loving You” cast him as a patient describing a dream to a psychiatrist. Cronin remembered finding the role embarrassing and assuming the clip would go largely unseen. It was filmed before MTV began broadcasting in August 1981.
The recordings beneath those finished songs eventually became a release of their own. Doughty described the original demos as quick performances intended to show the label that REO had material ready; those takes became the foundation of the album. Epic/Legacy’s 2011 expanded edition paired Hi Infidelity with nine of those recordings on a second disc, The Crystal Demos, including an instrumental version of “Shakin’ It Loose.”
