''Niagara Falls'' is the first solo album released by

Greg Hawkes Gregory A. Hawkes (born October 22, 1952) is an American musician who is best known as the keyboardist and founding member of the American new wave band the Cars. Hawkes is credited with helping popularize new wave and synth-pop in American popu ...

, best known as an original member of

the Cars The Cars were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the New wave music, new wave Subculture, scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (l ...

. It was released in 1983 by Passport Records. Hawkes plays all instruments (with one exception—see below), with programmed drums and multiple layers of keyboard parts, as well as rhythm guitar. It was recorded at

Syncro Sound Syncro Sound was a recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts, active from 1981 through 1986. It was owned by The Cars, who recorded their fourth album, '' Shake It Up'', there. Various other musicians, both nationally known and from the local scene, ...

, a Boston recording studio owned by

. Tuneful and not overly experimental, it sounds (despite the instrumental nature of the material) very much like the '' Shake It Up'' era of the Cars. "Jet Lag" and "Voyage Into Space" are the only tunes to feature lyrics: ''"Jet lag / It's a real drag"'' and ''"Voyage into space / Check out some other place"''—sometimes processed through a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

. "Voyage Into Space" also features the artist's wife, Elaine Hawkes, on

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

. Hawkes would not release another solo album for 25 years. His second solo album, though also instrumental, was very different in sound than this, his first: ''The Beatles Uke'' (2005) featured Hawkes playing instrumental versions of Beatles songs on the

ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...

. As of 2025, Niagara Falls is only available via the original LP and

Cassette Cassette may refer to: Technology * Cassette (format) (or ''cassette tape''), a format that contains magnetic tape for audio, video, and data storage and playback * Compact Cassette, a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback ...

pressings, having never been officially reissued on

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

or CD.

Track listing

# "Niagara Falls" (3:42) # "Twenty-Seven Shirts" (3:55) # "Ants in Your Pants" (3:12) # "Llamas" (1:55) # "The Missing Link" (1:50) # "Block Party" (3:53) # "Jet Lag" (3:00) # "Beep Beep" (1:41) # "Bee System" (4:31) # "Voyage into Space" (3:34) # "Let There Be Lights" (3:54)

Personnel

– keyboards, drum machine, guitar, occasional vocals, noises, design * Elaine Hawkes – additional flute (10) * David Heglmeier, Roger Merritt – assistant engineers * Walter Turbitt – recording and mixing engineer * Thom Moore – recording engineer *

Elliot Roberts Elliot Roberts (born Elliot Rabinowitz,Tom King, ''The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood'', p. 54, Broadway Books (New York 2001). February 25, 1943 – June 21, 2019)''The Guardian'' article:Lady of the Canyon ...

, Steve Berkowitz – management *

Greg Calbi Gregory Calbi (born April 3, 1949) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey. Biography Greg Calbi was born on April 3, 1949, in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Bayside, Queens, New York. He graduated in 1966 from Bishop ...

– mastering

References

{{Authority control 1983 albums Greg Hawkes albums Passport Records albums