Robbed Hit of the Week 9/29/14 - Meli'sa Morgan's "Do Me Baby"...

Meli'sa Morgan - "Do Me Baby"
from the album Do Me Baby (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46

This week's "robbed hit" is brought to us by R&B singer Meli'sa Morgan, a Queens native that was a member of two charting acts before her own solo success. First, in 1982, as one of the three in Shades Of Love, who climbed the charts with "Keep In Touch (Body To Body)", which peaked at #26 on the club chart and #52 on the R&B chart in Billboard. The following year, she sang on the High Fashion, and landed in the top-40 on the R&B list with "Feelin' Lucky Lately". (Another member of that group, Alyson Williams, would also have solo success later on in the 80s.)

After stints as a backup singer, Morgan got her chance to record her first solo album on Capitol Records (who were enjoying success with labelmates Freddie Jackson and Melba Moore). The title song from that record, "Do Me Baby", was a remake of a Prince song from his Controversy album. The oversexual track stiffed as a single for him in '82, but with a more lush production and Morgan's more nuanced cooing that turned the sex into romance, the single found a home on R&B radio...

While "Do Me Baby" went all the way to #1 on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine, the record stopped on the Hot 100 a few steps away from the top-40 in March of 1986. It would turn out to be her sole appearance on the pop chart, though she continued to have success on soul radio stations, with a total of nine top-40 hits, and five that made the top-10. Her last top-40 R&B hit came in 1992 with "Through The Tears", but as hip-hop and new jack was crowding out traditional soul, so did her fortunes on black radio. However, in 1994 a rework of her Shades Of Love single "Body To Body" went all the way to the top of the dance club play list in Billboard. In the "naughties", she reappeared with a couple of duets that made the chart, and most recently in 2006 she scaled to #86 with "I Remember"...

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In 1996, 2Pac sampled "Do Me Baby" on a single from his last album he recorded before his death. The single, with Val Young on vocals,  went to #10 in the UK and #9 in New Zealand...

...and here's Meli'sa singing live in Japan with sax-man Sadao Watanabe...