Songoftheday 4/18/14 - Sometimes a love won't get cold hard as I try I know for sure...

DeBarge - "Who's Holding Donna Now"
from the album Rhythm Of The Night (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's Song of the Day comes from the sibling soul group DeBarge, whose fourth album Rhythm Of The Night had scored them their first top-ten pop hit with the title track. They followed that upbeat dance number with another ballad, "Who's Holding Donna Now", written by its producer Jay Graydon ("After The Love Has Gone") along with soft-pop king David Foster and Randy Goodrum....

"Who's Holding Donna Now" became DeBarge's second and so-far latest pop top-10 single in August of 1985, while topping the adult-contemporary (or "easy-listening") radio chart and spending four weeks at the runner-up spot on the R&B genre chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, while the single went top-ten in Canada, it was only a moderate mid-chart hit Down Under in Australia and New Zealand, and stalled way down at #83 in Britain.

Their next single, "You Wear It Well", would go to #1 on the Dance Club Play chart in America, but miss the pop top-40, though it would be their last top-10 as a group. The fourth release from the album, "The Heart Is Not So Smart", would be a moderate A/C hit (#17), and be their last in the Hot 100. At this time both El and sister Bunny would take off for solo careers, and the rest of the brothers would be dropped from the label. In 1987 adding brother Bobby they would release Bad Boys, which gave them a top-40 R&B hit with "Dance All Night" (#33), but after the second single "You Babe" fizzled at #75, the group fell upon bad times, with various members either in jail or rehab from drug charges fueled by their addictions. Bobby had it the worst, going on to die from AIDS resulting from his heroin addiciton. El, who had his bouts with addiction and crime, has nonetheless had the most fruitful career outside the group, reaching the top-3 with "Who's Johnny" in 1986, while Bunny went to #18 on the R&B chart a year later with "Save The Best For Me"...

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..and here's DeBarge on their Solid Gold taping...

Up tomorrow: the Fab Five side-project goes to the dinosaurs.