Song:Love Always
Album:Icon
Most music fans should be familiar with El Debarge as the lead singer of his family group DeBarge. After he scored a top five hit with the 1986 single Who's Johnny, Motown owner Berry Gordy convinced DeBarge to go solo. Love Always was the next single and it was a top ten R&B hit. He wasn't as successful after that and then personal problems landed him in prison. He was born June 4, 1961 in Detroit the sixth of the ten DeBarge siblings. He grew up singing in church. In the late 70s, he moved to Los Angeles with his brothers and Debarge signed with Motown. They had success in the early 80s with hits like Rhythm of the Night and El was lead singer on most of them. So it's not surprising that Gordy wanted him to go solo. When Who's Johnny from the popular film Short Circuit reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, that convinced El to record an album. His success was causing tension in the band anyway. Who's Johnny was written and produced by Austrian producer Peter Wolf who started out in Frank Zappa's band. Wolf, session guitarist Jay Graydon and session pianist Robbie Buchanan produced the 1986 album El Debarge. Love Always was the exception to this. That was written by Burt Bacharach, his wife Carole Bayer Sager and Bruce Roberts. Bacharach produced and played keyboards along with Buchanan and David Foster. The sax solo is by Ernie Watts. Love Always reached #7 on the R&B Singles chart. The album El DeBarge was certified Gold. Things didn't go so well after that. When the 1989 album Gemini flopped, Motown dropped DeBarge. El wrote and produced most of the album himself. And that was also true of the two albums he recorded for Warner Bros. In the early 90s. He did appear on the 1990 Quincy Jones hit The Secret Garden and the 1991 Fourplay hit After The Dance. But El was addicted to painkillers and that would eventually land him in prison. After his release from prison, DeBarge released the 2010 album Second Chance. He still tours but obviously he should have been a much bigger star. His personal problems and his insistence on writing and producing himself instead of working with top producers as he did on his debut album didn't help. Here's the video for Always Love by El DeBarge.
No comments:
Post a Comment