Music Reviews

After Michael passed in 2009, I began to dig deep into The Jackson 5’s catalog and discovered the vocal vigor in Jermaine’s voice.

Most people think 112’s debut song was the classic “Only You” the group’s first recording was actually “Making Love” from the Money Train soundtrack.

California-based R&B group Con Funk Shun was already profoundly established in the industry when album number eight arrived in record stores in June of 1981. The album carried the moniker 7.

R&B singer Chris Brown is somewhat of an enigma when it comes to music. As Brown prepares to headline the “One Of Them Ones Tour” and release his tenth album, Breezy, I wanted to spotlight one of the singles from that album, “Warm Embrace.”

Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio were amidst a successful career when album number four, A Woman Needs Love, hit stores in 1981.

I was delighted to see that the nineties duo Men At Large recently released a new single, “Faded,” in support of their upcoming fifth album, Love Benefits, scheduled for release on June 24th.

That is right, folks, I am speaking of none other than Justin Guarini, whose self-titled debut arrived in stories on June 10th, 2003. While Guarini was never necessarily a front on the show, he was a constant presence when he covered artists such as Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Nat King Cole, and Al Green.

For this week’s Slow Jam Saturday, I wanted to give some flowers to Season 2 contestant Corey Clark. While Clark’s disqualification from the show was highly publicized, he could always carry a tune, and it would have been great to see how far he could have gotten on the show.

There was a singer who shall remain nameless set the tone for the nineties slow jams. However as nineties R&B fans know there were tons of singers who provided quality albums and tracks when it came to making a playlist via audiocassette. Lincoln Browder, better known as Link, was one of the singers.

R&B group New Edition was at crossroads in the summer of 1987. The group’s fourth album, Under the Blue Moon, and their only one as a quartet, had only achieved gold sales. Those numbers were very different from the platinum sales of their previous two albums.

No matter what the musical genre is when it comes to groups, there is always a clamoring for a member to pursue solo endeavors. Kci Hailey of Jodeci is a singer in this category ever since Jodeci made its debut. Like most R&B fans, when Kci delivered his first solo record (a cover of Bobby Womack’s “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” on Jason’s Lyric soundtrack in 1994, I thought a solo debut was right around the corner.

Chico DeBarge made a fantastic comeback to the music scene in the late nineties with two solid solo albums in the form of Long Time No See and The Game. Around late summer 2000, Chico seemingly stopped promoting his recent release.