--- title: Kevin Cronin description: Discover Kevin Cronin, REO Speedwagon's longtime lead singer and songwriter behind Keep On Loving You and Can't Fight This Feeling. canonical_url: https://marktheday.info/kevin-cronin language: en-GB date: 2026-10-05T16:48:16Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://marktheday.info/kevin-cronin. Schema.org structured data included at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. markdown-tokens: 3538 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://marktheday.info/kevin-cronin. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Structured data** as JSON-LD may be found at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. Kevin Patrick Cronin was born on October 6, 1951, in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in Oak Lawn, southwest of Chicago. Long before his voice became inseparable from REO Speedwagon, Cronin was another Midwestern youngster learning guitar and discovering the music that would determine the direction of his life. He attended Brother Rice High School in Chicago, but the education that ultimately mattered most came through records, guitars, local musicians and the explosion of rock and roll surrounding him during the 1960s. Cronin began taking guitar lessons as a youngster, and the arrival of the Beatles in America had a profound influence on him. He has described Lennon and McCartney as enormously important to his understanding of songwriting and being part of a band. Music also provided something more personal: a way for Cronin to express emotions he found difficult to communicate in ordinary conversation. That combination of melody and emotional directness would eventually become one of the defining characteristics of REO Speedwagon's biggest songs. REO Speedwagon had already formed at the University of Illinois in Champaign before Cronin entered the picture. The band's unusual name came from the REO Speed Wagon, an early motor vehicle designed by the company associated with automotive pioneer Ransom E. Olds. Founding keyboard player Neal Doughty and drummer Alan Gratzer were among the musicians who built the group into a hardworking Midwestern rock band, while guitarist Gary Richrath became a major creative force in its developing sound. Cronin first joined REO Speedwagon in 1972, after the band's debut album. According to Cronin, songwriting played an important part in getting him the job. Richrath recognized that the group needed more original material, and Cronin arrived carrying songs. Rather than winning his place through an elaborate audition, he recalled sitting with Richrath and playing songs on acoustic guitars. One of them, “Music Man,” helped convince Richrath that the young singer-songwriter had something useful to contribute. Cronin made his recording debut with REO Speedwagon on the band's second album, R.E.O./T.W.O., released in 1972. In addition to singing and playing guitar, he wrote three songs for the record, including “Music Man.” The song was never one of REO's major chart hits, but it remained personally important to Cronin and became a favorite among dedicated fans. His first stay with the group did not last long. Cronin left during work on the band's next album, Ridin' the Storm Out, amid creative differences. Mike Murphy subsequently handled lead vocals for the group, while Cronin spent several years outside REO. It could easily have been the end of his association with the band. Instead, it became an intermission. Cronin returned to REO Speedwagon in 1976, beginning the period that would eventually transform both singer and band. His first album after returning was R.E.O., which included his composition “Keep Pushin'.” The song became an enduring concert favorite and demonstrated the increasingly melodic direction Cronin brought to the group. The partnership between Cronin and guitarist Gary Richrath became central to REO Speedwagon's identity. Richrath supplied a powerful rock-guitar presence, while Cronin brought a strong melodic instinct and increasingly confident songwriting. The band spent years touring relentlessly, building its audience town by town throughout the American Midwest before national success finally caught up with all those miles on the road. Cronin's “Roll with the Changes,” released on the 1978 album You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish, became one of REO's signature songs. The title was remarkably literal. Cronin later explained that he began writing the song while driving from Chicago to Los Angeles after rejoining the band. He wanted to experience the move rather than simply flying west, and the words began arriving while he was on the road. He wrote some of the lyrics on a brown paper bag while traveling through New Mexico. The same album contained another Cronin composition that became an enduring favorite, “Time for Me to Fly.” Written on acoustic guitar, the song addressed the painful recognition that a relationship had reached its end. It was not initially a huge pop hit, but years of radio play and live performances turned it into one of the most recognizable songs in the REO catalog. By the end of the 1970s, REO Speedwagon had become a formidable touring band with a growing audience. What it did not yet possess was the enormous crossover album that would transform a successful rock group into one of America's biggest bands. That changed with Hi Infidelity. Released in 1980, Hi Infidelity became a commercial phenomenon. It blended the harder rock elements of REO's earlier records with melodic songwriting ideally suited to both rock and pop radio. The album spent 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and ultimately sold millions of copies. For a band that had spent years grinding its way around America's concert circuit, apparently the long drive had finally reached a very large destination. Cronin's “Keep On Loving You” became the album's breakthrough single. Built around piano rather than the guitar-heavy arrangement one might have expected from REO, the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Cronin has explained that he originally brought the composition into rehearsals as a piano-based song, leaving his bandmates somewhat uncertain about what exactly they were supposed to do with it. They figured it out. “Keep On Loving You” combined the emotional directness of a ballad with the power of a rock band. Cronin wrote it from personal experience, but the resulting song proved universal enough to be sung by enormous audiences who presumably brought their own relationship problems to the chorus. Hi Infidelity also produced “Don't Let Him Go,” written by Cronin, while Gary Richrath contributed major hits including “Take It on the Run” and “In Your Letter.” The combination made the album a defining record of early-1980s American rock and permanently changed REO Speedwagon's commercial fortunes. Suddenly, the group that had spent years steadily building an audience was playing arenas as one of the biggest rock bands in America. Cronin's high, clear voice became instantly recognizable, while songs that had originated from private emotional experiences were being shouted back at him by thousands of strangers. Success continued with albums including Good Trouble, which produced Cronin's “Keep the Fire Burnin'.” But another enormous song was still waiting. “Can't Fight This Feeling” appeared on the 1984 album Wheels Are Turnin'. Cronin had wrestled with the song for years before finally completing it. The lyric deals with friendship developing into romantic love and the difficulty of admitting feelings that have become impossible to ignore. Once again, Cronin turned a very personal emotional problem into something millions of people could recognize. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for several weeks. Along with “Keep On Loving You,” it became one of the compositions most closely associated with Cronin and REO Speedwagon. Both songs also helped define the power-ballad era, when rock bands discovered that enormous guitars and vulnerable feelings could occupy the same record quite comfortably. Cronin wrote many other important REO songs, including “In My Dreams,” “That Ain't Love,” “Keep Pushin',” “Roll with the Changes” and “Time for Me to Fly.” His songwriting frequently drew directly from his own emotional life, which helps explain why so many of the songs remained relatable long after the circumstances that inspired them had disappeared. He has described his songwriting process as beginning with inspiration rather than formula. Sometimes he writes on guitar and sometimes on piano. Curiously, despite never receiving formal piano training, he wrote several of REO's biggest songs at the keyboard, including “Keep On Loving You,” “Can't Fight This Feeling” and “Roll with the Changes.” Cronin has joked that the only songs he can really play on piano are the ones he wrote himself, which is one way of keeping the set list under control. REO Speedwagon's career naturally experienced changes as musical tastes shifted. Gary Richrath left the band in 1989, ending one of the most important creative partnerships in REO's history. Guitarist Dave Amato subsequently joined, while Bryan Hitt became the band's drummer. Cronin remained the highly visible frontman, continuing to perform the songs that had made the group famous. The band's enormous catalog proved remarkably durable. Classic-rock radio gave REO Speedwagon a permanent home, while younger listeners repeatedly encountered its music through movies, television programs, streaming services and their parents' record collections. Songs such as “Keep On Loving You,” “Take It on the Run” and “Can't Fight This Feeling” became cultural shorthand for a particular era of American rock without becoming confined to that era. Cronin and his bandmates even appeared as themselves in the television drama Ozark. The appearance provided one of those peculiar moments when a band that once dominated arenas suddenly enters a fictional crime story and somehow seems perfectly at home. Cronin has also appeared in documentaries, music programs and other television projects while remaining primarily identified with his work as a performer and songwriter. REO Speedwagon continued touring for decades, developing into one of classic rock's most dependable live attractions. Generations of fans attended shows built around songs that had been written when vinyl records, FM radio and enormous touring rigs ruled the music business. Eventually, however, that extraordinary touring run came to an end. REO Speedwagon announced in 2024 that the band would cease touring at the beginning of 2025. The decision followed a complicated period involving bassist Bruce Hall's health and disagreements concerning his return to the road. Both Hall and Cronin had indicated that they had not intended to walk away from the band, making the conclusion particularly bittersweet after so many decades together. Whatever happens under the REO Speedwagon name, Cronin's contribution to American rock music is already thoroughly established. He was not merely the man standing at the microphone when the band's biggest records were made. He wrote or co-wrote a substantial portion of the material that gave REO its identity. That distinction matters. “Keep On Loving You” and “Can't Fight This Feeling” were not songs handed to a singer by outside writers. They came from the same person whose voice ultimately carried them around the world. “Roll with the Changes,” “Time for Me to Fly” and “Keep Pushin'” likewise reflected Cronin's own experiences and outlook before becoming part of millions of other people's lives. His voice is equally important to the story. Cronin's clear, high tenor gave REO Speedwagon an instantly identifiable sound, particularly when paired with the band's layered harmonies and Richrath's guitar work. Within a few notes of one of the major hits, there is rarely much doubt about who is singing. The band's commercial achievements were enormous, but numbers alone do not explain its endurance. Plenty of successful records eventually disappear into their decade. REO Speedwagon's best songs continued circulating because their themes remained stubbornly ordinary and human: love, heartbreak, uncertainty, persistence, leaving when it is time to leave and hanging on when it is worth hanging on. Cronin once wrote a song called “Music Man” imagining the life he hoped to have. The young songwriter could hardly have known how accurately that title would describe the decades ahead. He joined REO Speedwagon, left it, returned, helped turn it into one of America's biggest rock bands and spent much of his life singing songs that became fixtures of popular culture. It was a long road from Oak Lawn, Illinois. But Kevin Cronin apparently knew what to do when the changes came along. 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