Before Desmond Child was the superstar producer/songwriter who worked with heavyweights like Bon Jovi, Cher, and Alice Cooper, he was the leader of Desmond Child & Rouge -- an interesting but little-known pop-rock vocal quartet that recorded for Capitol in the late '70s. Child was the only male in the group; Rouge members Myriam Valle, Maria Vidal, and Diana Grasselli were all women. Their lack of commercial success probably had a lot to do with the fact that their R&B-influenced pop-rock was so unique -- at least in the beginning. The group's lyrics had a street-wise quality that reflected its New York base, and much like Billy Joel, Child was a storyteller who really knew how to capture life in the Big Apple (although Child and Vidal had actually met in Florida before hooking up with Valle in New York). Child's lyrics, while Joel-influenced, had a grittier, more inner-city quality -- boxers, gang members, and graffiti artists were some of the people he wrote about. Plus, Joel wasn't as R&B-influenced as Desmond Child & Rouge, which was formed in 1977 and recorded its self-titled debut album for Capitol in 1978. When the LP failed to sell, the group ended up taking a more conventional pop-rock/arena rock approach on its second album Runners in the Night. That album didn't do any better, and Desmond Child & Rouge broke up in 1980. Vidal pursued a solo career, recording the title song of the 1984 film Body Rock and providing an album for A&M in 1987. Child, meanwhile, became one of pop-rock's hottest producer/songwriters of the mid- to late '80s and '90s. ~ Alex Henderson