Classic R+B, Soul, Hip-Hop, etc

[numberthirty]

[PaulBullion]

Ok...it's no secret that NKOTB exist because New Edition fired Maurice Starr as manager and out of spite he said, "I'll show you, I'll start a white group!" And he was quite successful at it. After being at it for a couple of years, the guys were actually able to pull off a number of the blue eyed soul points they were trying to hit in a convincing way. Fun things ( yet obvious ) things to note...Jordan doing Bobby Brown, Donnie wearing a Public Enemy shirt ( we're going to have to PE shirt were a thing in the 90's)...

What a weird coincidence... I read Starr's wikipedia page just yesterday after digging out Jean Carn's "Closer than Close" vinyl where his track is the only one not produced by sax grat Grover Washington, making it the weakest song on the album.



I don't think the sound worked for a 40-something soul diva at all. But hey, Jean could sing the phone book and I'd sit up.

[Mr. Soul]

RIP Mary Wilson.

You Are The Heart Of Me. Mary on lead.

[ed2962]

[PaulBullion]

Edwing Starr and Chaka Khan duet on a classic:

[PaulBullion]

I have quite a few albums by brilliant instrumentalists, albums that did not age well except for that one track with vocals that was usually the reason I got the album.

Like Joe Sample's Oasis, which featured Phyllis Hyman on "Survivor".

[PaulBullion]

Or Grover Washington's Sacred Kind of Love, also with Phyllis, from the very dated album "Time out of Mind."

[PaulBullion]

Or when Grover recruited Phyllis' good friend and Philly legend, Jean Carn, on this Bacharach/David classic on the slightly better "Strawberry Moon" album:



Really digging this version.

[PaulBullion]

Same album had a smooth track with BB King:

[PaulBullion]

Bob James (Theme From Taxi) albums are very good background music when you need to focus, and there is a lot of material for sampling artists, and occasionally a gem like this Patti Austin cover of a Gladys Knight song:

[PaulBullion]

Grover got some of the best vocalists.

[Surf]

Paul loves him some Patti Austen, I can dig it. Shoutout to Bob James. Lemme see, 1-James Brown, 2- George Clinton, that Bongo record Apache came out with is up there, Nile Rogers... Bob James in most definitely, in the top 10 of most sampled artists in Hip-Hop. Mans got a lifetime achievement coming. I love the videos where they play a song using one of his samples and his reactions are pretty much all the same lol.

Shoutout to Grover Washington Jr. too. Surprised he's only 56, in my house he was a favorite, one of the few things my folks agreed on. He was a young cat at what might be called the height of his popularity back in the day.

[Surf]

[PaulBullion]

The gorgeous Jasmine Guy turned 59 last week, so here is a duet she did with Peabo Pryson. Not a ballad! I did not know Peobo did mid-tempo duets.

[PaulBullion]

That other king of duets, the late James Ingram was a "featured vocalist" (think: cameo appearance) on Jasmine's ballad single a short time later.