Songoftheday 6/5/18 - Well I'm livin' in a world of ghetto life everyone is so uptight, nothin's wrong it's alright my man...

"Giving Him Something He Can Feel" - En Vogue
from the album Funky Divas (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 17

Today's song of the day comes from the female R&B vocal group En Vogue, whose sophomore album Funky Divas had already landed them a top-5 pop hit with the classic "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" in the spring of 1992. The second single from the album was a remake of a song that originally appeared in the musical film Sparkle. "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" was written and produced by soul legend Curtis Mayfield, and while the movie had stars Lonette McKee and Irene Cara performing, on the soundtrack the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, provides the vocals. Released in 1976, the single was Aretha's biggest pop hit of the second half of the 1970s, and her only one to make the American pop top-40 at #28...

En Vogue's version of the hit allows all four women to have their vamp time on the song (though Dawn Robinson takes center stage), with the laid-back groove, produced by Thomas McElroy and Denzil Foster, still intact...

The group's version of "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" became their third top ten pop hit in the U.S. in September of 1992. The song was their fifth to top Billboard's R&B chart, spending a week at the summit (Aretha's was at #1 for four), while it was the first from the group to reach their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list at #32. Internationally, the single was their biggest success in New Zealand, spending two weeks at #2, and spent a couple weeks at #19 in Canada. It also reached the top-40 in the UK (#16) and Ireland (#23), both as a double-sided single with "Free Your Mind".

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Here's the version from the original Sparkle movie featuring Irene Cara and Lonette McKee...