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98.7 KISS FM ARTIST BIOS
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8/13/2009
Harold Melvin was one of the driving forces behind Philadelphia soul, leading his group the Blue Notes to the top of the charts during their stint on Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International label. Despite Melvin's billing out front, the Blue Notes' focal point was lead singer and onetime drummer Teddy Pendergrass, whose surging baritone graced the Blue Notes' recordings during their glory years of 1972-1975 and gave them a truly distinctive sound. Their output ranged from sweeping, extended proto-disco dance tracks to silky, smoldering ballads, all wrapped up in Gamble and Huff's lushly orchestrated production. When Pendergrass left for a solo career, Melvin && the Blue Notes' commercial fortunes largely reverted to the pre-Pendergrass days (of which there were quite a few), although they did continue to record for a time. They never really disbanded, and by the time Melvin passed away in 1997, he'd been leading the Blue Notes for over four decades.
Melvin was born June 25, 1939, in Philadelphia. A self-taught pianist, he began singing doo wop as a teenager with a group called the Charlemagnes, and put together the very first edition of the Blue Notes in 1954. The original lineup was a quintet featuring Melvin as the lead singer (for a time), songwriter, arranger, and choreographer; ironically, he would mostly relinquish those duties by the time the group achieved its greatest success. The Blue Notes cut their first single, &"If You Love Me," for Josie in 1956, and scored R&&B chart hits in 1960 with &"My Hero" and again in 1965 with &"Get Out (And Let Me Cry)." Numerous personnel shifts kept the group in flux despite steady recording activity, and Melvin kept assembling new versions of the Blue Notes. During the late '60s, the group toured often with the Cadillacs, whose young ...
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8/6/2009
A-Keys
Nine-time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys returns with her long-awaited third studio album, As I Am, set for a worldwide release on November 13 on J Records. Within 10 hours of being serviced to radio, Alicia first single, “No One,” became one of the fastest moving and highest charting single on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. This also marks the highest first single debut for a female artist in 2007 on the R&B Monitor’s Urban Mainstream chart!
“No One” was written and produced by Keys, longtime collaborator Kerry “Krucial” Brothers and Dirty Harry. The Justin Francis/The Saline Project-directed video for “No One” was recently shot in LA and will premiere on national video outlets on September 17.
Her first studio album since the critically-acclaimed 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, Alicia showcases her songwriting and producing talents on all 13 songs on As I Am, but also joins forces on several tracks with her longtime collaborator Kerry “Krucial” Brothers, award-winning songwriters Linda Perry, John Mayer, Harold Lilly, Sean Garrett and producers Mark Batson, Dirty Harry, Swizz Beatz and Jack Splash.
One of the few artists who can capture an old-school vibe and make if feel refreshingly new, Alicia tackles this feat once again with an album she describes as “Janis Joplin meets Aretha Franklin.” Punctuated with rich powerful vocals, Alicia’s vocal muses can be felt on songs ranging from the anthemic “Superwoman” and power-charged “Go Ahead” to the misty-eyed ballad “Like You Never See Me Again” and the soulful “Sure Looks Good To Me.”
Tonight on CBS’s Fashion Rocks, Alicia mesmerizes the audience with a soul-stirring performance of “The Thing About Love” from As I Am and joins the incredible Carlos Santana in an amazing duet of “Black Magic Woman.” Keys will also rock the MTV Video Music Awards on ...
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8/10/2009
Teddy Pendergrass started singing gospel music in Philadelphia churches, becoming an ordained minister at ten years old. While attending public school, he sang in the citywide McIntyre Elementary School Choir and in the All-City Stetson Junior High School Choir. A self-taught drummer, Pendergrass had a teen pop vocal group when he was 15.
By his late teens, Pendergrass was a drummer for local vocal group the Cadillacs. In the late '60s, the Cadillacs merged with another more-established group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. In 1970, when the Blue Notes broke up, Melvin, now aware of Pendergrass' vocal prowess, asked him to take the lead singer spot. It's no secret that Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff wanted Marvin Junior of the Dells for their Philadelphia International Records roster. Since the Dells were signed to Chess, they were unavailable. When the gruff'n'ready vocals of Pendergrass came their way, they eagerly signed the group.
Beginning with "I Miss You," a steady stream of hit singles flowed from the collaboration of Pendergrass and Gamble & Huff: "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost," "Bad Luck," "Wake Up Everybody" (number one R&B for two weeks in 1976), and two gold albums, To Be True and Wake Up Everybody.
Unfortunately, the more success the group had, the more friction developed between Melvin and Pendergrass. Despite the revised billing of the group, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Theodore Pendergrass, Pendergrass felt that he wasn't getting enough recognition. Around 1976, Pendergrass left Melvin's Blue Notes and formed his own Blue Notes, featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Briefly, there was some confusion as to which Blue Notes were which. The resolution came when Pendergrass disbanded his Blue Notes in favor of a solo career and Melvin's group signed a recording contract with Source Records, ...
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8/10/2009
It has been two years since sultry voiced singer Chrisette Michele released her stunning gold-certified debut I Am. Blessed with a gorgeous instrument and described as a “soulful songbird” by Entertainment Weekly, the Long Island native proved to the world that she could live up to the hype. Nominated for a BET Award for Best New Artist as well as two Grammy’s, I Am was both a critical success and a fans delight.
Still, when it came time to begin recording her follow-up, the aptly titled Epiphany, she realized the need to challenge herself. “I felt like I was a little too shy and laidback my first time out,” confesses Chrisette. “On my new project I wanted to raise the bar and step-out of my comfort zone. I wanted to make songs that were more edgy, youthful and urban.
Recruiting talented collaborators that include Ne-Yo, the singer/songwriter has infused her jazz vocal style with more pop. Marking a transition away from her traditional leanings to a fuller integration of hip-hop soul, Chrisette Michele was clearly conscious of the next level. Yet, as can clearly be heard on her newest single “Epiphany (I’m Leaving),” the 26-year-old has expanded her musical palette.
Constructed by Ne-Yo and Chuck Harmony, the title-track is a beautiful broken-hearted song that reveals the emotional misery behind Chrisette’s lovely smile. “Ne-Yo took out time from his crazy schedule to talk about direction for some of the songs, including the pain of break-ups and the joys of new love,” says Chrisette.
Opening with spacey keyboards and girl group backgrounds, Chrisette’s bold declaration of fly girl independence (“It’s over,” she sings) on “Epiphany (I’m Leaving)” sets the tone of most of the disc. “That word ‘epiphany’ just meant so much to me, because it was during the time that I ...
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8/11/2009
Freddie Jackson (born Frederick Anthony Jackson, October 2 1956, Harlem, New York) is an American soul singer. He was an important figure in R&B during the 1980s and early 1990s. Among his well-known hits are "Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake)", "Jam Tonight", "Do Me Again," and "You Are My Lady". He is also known for Outkast's line in their song "So Fresh and So Clean", "cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin' milkshake in a snowstorm."
Jackson was trained as a gospel singer from an early age, singing at the White Rock Baptist Church. There he met Paul Laurence, who would later become his record producer and songwriting partner. After completing school, Jackson joined Laurence's group LJE (Laurence-Jones Ensemble) and played the New York nightclub scene. During the early 1980s, Jackson moved to the West Coast and sang lead with the R&B band 'Mystic Merlin', but soon returned to New York to work with Laurence at the Hush Productions company. He sang on demo recordings of Laurence's compositions, and also served as a backing singer for Melba Moore after she saw his nightclub act.
In 1985, Jackson landed a recording contract with Capitol Records, and issued his debut album, Rock Me Tonight. The Laurence-penned title track stormed the R&B charts, spending six weeks at number one, and made Jackson an instant hit on urban contemporary radio. "You Are My Lady" gave him a second straight R&B chart-topper, and also proved to be his highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 13. With "He'll Never Love You (Like I Do)" and "Love Is Just a Touch Away" also hitting the R&B Top Ten, Rock Me Tonight topped the R&B album chart and went platinum. Jackson issued the follow-up Just Like the First Time 1986, on the heels of ...
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9/21/2009
First formed in the early '50s, the Isley Brothers enjoyed one of the longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music -- over the course of nearly a half century of performing, the group's distinguished history spanned not only two generations of Isley siblings but also massive cultural shifts which heralded their music's transformation from gritty R&B to Motown soul to blistering funk. The first generation of Isley siblings was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH, where they were encouraged to begin a singing career by their father, himself a professional vocalist, and their mother, a church pianist who provided musical accompaniment at their early performances. Initially a gospel quartet, the group was comprised of Ronald, Rudolph, O'Kelly, and Vernon Isley; after Vernon's 1955 death in a bicycling accident, tenor Ronald was tapped as the remaining trio's lead vocalist. In 1957, the brothers went to New York City to record a string of failed doo wop singles; while performing a spirited reading of the song "Lonely Teardrops" in Washington, D.C., two years later, they interjected the line "You know you make me want to shout," which inspired frenzied audience feedback. An RCA executive in the audience saw the concert, and when he signed the Isleys soon after, he instructed that their first single be constructed around their crowd-pleasing catch phrase; while the call-and-response classic "Shout" failed to reach the pop Top 40 on its initial release, it eventually became a frequently covered classic.
Still, success eluded the Isleys, and only after they left RCA in 1962 did they again have another hit, this time with their seminal cover of the Top Notes' "Twist and Shout." Like so many of the brothers' early R&B records, "Twist and Shout" earned greater commercial success when later rendered by ...
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8/31/2009
Shalamar was the creation of Dick Griffey, the booking agent for the television R&B program Soul Train, and British R&B producer Simon Soussan. The group's first single, the 1977 Motown medley "Uptown Festival," featured a bevy of faceless studio musicians; once it became a hit, Griffey decided to form a performing group under the name Shalamar. Through Soul Train, Griffey found Jody Watley, Jeffrey Daniels, and Gerald Brown, the three vocalists that became Shalamar; Brown was quickly replaced by Howard Hewitt in 1978.
Shalamar's string of poppy dance-soul hits began in 1979 with "Take That to the Bank"; later that year, "The Second Time Around" hit the Top Ten. Throughout the early '80s the group were favorites on the U.S. R&B scene, as well as scoring a number of British hit singles. Watley and Daniels left the group in 1982 and were replaced by Delisa Davis and Micki Free in 1984; Watley went on to stardom as a solo act. The following year Shalamar won a Grammy award for "Don't Get Stopped in Beverly Hills," which was featured in Beverly Hills Cop. Hewitt left for a solo career in 1986, signaling the end of the band's career as hit-makers. Sidney Justin replaced Hewitt and the group recorded 1987's Circumstantial Evidence, which was a commercial disappointment. The group faded away soon after the release of 1990's Wake Up.
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8/31/2009
Vocalist Taana Gardner was one of the leading lights of West End Records, a New York label that released some of the finest and most influential disco during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. At a very young age, the Newark, NJ-born Gardner knew that she wanted to act and sing. Her grandmother, a former opera singer, began giving her vocal lessons at the age of five. Before she hit her teens, she was already a playwright; her work was featured at the Lincoln Center and also at the Apollo.
Despite having such an accomplished background at such an early age, it was something of a fluke that she became involved with the disco scene. Producer and songwriter Kenton Nix had a song, "Work That Body," that needed vocals. An early instrumental version of the track had been auditioned and approved by the beyond legendary Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan, and Levan immediately introduced Nix to West End (and part Paradise Garage) owner Mel Cheren. Cheren set Nix up, but the singer who was slated to record the vocals fell ill on the day they were supposed to be laid down. Nix's brother, who worked for Gardner's father, called up the Gardner household that day --Thanksgiving Day, 1978 -- and invited Taana down. Taana accepted, recorded her vocals, and also gained another gig that same day when members of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band overheard her voice and asked her to sing on the record they were working on. (This record actually turned out to be Spooks in Space by the Aural Exciters, released on Ze).
"Work That Body," remixed by Levan, was an instant hit at the Paradise Garage, sparking a succession of West End classics helmed by Nix, sung by Gardner, and tweaked for maximum dancefloor effect by ...
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8/31/2009
The only positive byproduct of an industry asleep at the wheel is a dream. With over a decade of hit–making experience and a certified smash in Rihanna’s #1 single, “Umbrella” Terius “The–Dream” Nash is stepping from behind the scenes with a wake–up call.
“Music is uninspiring right now” says the confident Atlanta native. “The bar needs to be raised; a creative standard should be set in music. I’m hoping that the real quality in these songs shines through, and leaves a sounding impact on the listeners.”
His debut CD, Love Hate, is a sonic gauntlet thrown down against complacent, cookie cutter music. Propelled by the first single “Shawty is a Ten,” the mastermind behind the explosive J. Holiday single “Bed” will do nothing short of redefine R&B for 2007 and beyond.
Born in North Carolina, Terius Nash was raised in the Bankhead section of Atlanta, Georgia. Before he found his calling in music, the industrious young man made ends meet doing everything from working at Checkers to becoming a collections agent.
After graduating from H.S., Dream joined a singing group, Guess Who, signed by local rapper Raheem. They sang the hook to “Most Beautiful Girl,” which became moderately successful. “It did pretty good, got a lot of spins,” says Nash.
A few years later, The–Dream began writings songs for up–and–coming rappers and hooks for his peers. He got his first publishing deal in 2003, when he signed to Peer Music after writing B2K’s single, “Everything.” The song, off B2K’s platinum sophomore album, Pandemonium, truly put The–Dream on the map.
“My grand daddy told me I would never make any money in this business. Music just wasn’t a reality for him. I never knew until I was 21 or 22 that I could actually be successful in the music business.”
With ...
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8/31/2009
This vocal quartet formed as high school students in Oklahoma City before relocating to New York. They proved adept at both churning dance tunes and sincere ballads. Signing to Giant Records, they broke through in 1991 with their performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" on the soundtrack of New Jack City. Released as a single, the song topped the R&B charts, went Top Five pop, and enjoyed double-platinum sales. They followed it with the gold-selling "I Adore Mi Amor," which hit 1 on both the pop and R&B charts. The singles set the stage for the first Color Me Badd album, C.M.B., which sold over three million copies and spawned the gold-selling number one pop hit "All 4 Love" as well as the Top 20 singles "Thinkin' Back" and "Slow Motion." Color Me Badd's next single was another movie soundtrack song, "Forever Love" from Mo' Money, their sixth consecutive single to reach the Top 20. They finished 1992 second only to Boyz II Men as the top pop singles act of the year. After slating fans' thirst for a new album with the remix collection Young, Gifted and Badd - The Remixes, the group issued their second album of new material, Time and Chance, in November 1993. It featured two Top 20 pop singles, the title track (which also made the R&B Top Ten) and "Choose," and went gold, but that was a commercial disappointment after the enormous success of the first album. Now & Forever (1996) gave Color Me Badd a final Top 20 pop single in "The Earth, the Sun, the Rain," but it barely registered in the charts. The group switched to Sony for a final album, Awakening, but its commercial failure led them to disband.
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