Ratt Guitarist Succumbs to AIDS

Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby died of AIDS yesterday. He was forty-one. Crosby had been living with the HIV virus for seven years and announced that he had AIDS last summer.

Ratt was formed in 1983 by Crosby, singer Stephen Pearcy, guitarist Warren DeMartini, bassist Juan Croucier and drummer Bobby Blotzer. Their first self-titled album was released independently in 1983 and led to a major-label contract with Atlantic Records. In 1984 they released Out of the Cellar, which hit the Top Ten and sold over three million copies. "Round and Round," the first single drawn from the album and MTV staple, reached Number Twelve.

While Ratt were absent from the music scene for most of the Nineties, they reformed to release Collage in 1997 and Ratt in 1999.

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Song Stories

“Let My Love Open the Door”

Pete Townshend | 1980

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."

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