Songoftheday 12/9/14 - Ain't it funny destiny is pulling you back to me, time waits for no one I hope that nothing has changed...

Gavin Christopher - "One Step Closer To You"
from the album One Step Closer (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7

Today's Song of the Day is by R&B singer Gavin Christopher, who started out in his hometown of Chicago in a band with future Rufus singer Chaka Khan. He would end up writing a couple of their top-40 hits, "Once You Get Started" and "Dance Wit' Me", but his own solo career had a slow start, placing a minor hit in 1979 with "Feelin' The Love" (R&B #77). Signing with EMI-Manhattan Records in the 80s, he released his third album One Step Closer in 1986. The title track, lengthened to "One Step Closer To You", was a bouncy piece of pop goodness with enough of his soulful delivery to water down the sweetness. The track was co-written by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken, who would go on to be a part of a hitmaking act of their own as the Rythm Syndicate ("P.A.S.S.I.O.N.")...

"One Step Closer To You" became Gavin's first and only pop hit, reaching the top-40 in August of 1986. The single also climbed to #25 on Billboard's R&B chart, and scaled to #9 on the Dance Club Play list. In 1988, he released a follow-up album, which spawned a top-ten R&B hit with the slow-jam "You Are Who You Love". After that, he concentrated on behind-the-scenes work after that, though his sister Shawn would go on to top the dance chart three times, including the classic "Another Sleepless Night".

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Here's Gavin performing the song live in 1986...

Before Gavin released his version, singer and Stevie Nicks protege' Marilyn Martin released the song on her self-titled album earlier that same year...

...and finally the top-10 dance version of the song, which I bought on 12" vinyl when I lived in Chicago...

Up tomorrow: a former brother is running scared.