Songoftheday 10/18/15 - Every time I see you walking by I get a thrill, you don't notice me but in time you will...
"I Want To Be Your Man" - Roger
from the album Unlimited (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's Song of the Day comes from R&B artist Roger Troutman, who got his first break as a late member of the Parliament/Funkadelic band, before starting his own group Zapp with three of his brothers (Larry, Lester, and Terry) in Ohio. With Parliament 'prime minister' George Clinton signing the band to a record deal, they scored their first hit in 1980 with "More Bounce To The Ounce", which went to #2 on the R&B chart, #19 on Billboard's Dance Club Play list, and nicked the pop Hot 100 in America at #86. With his voice modified by vocoder years before Cher and T-Pain, Zapp carved a niche in funk fast, with their debut album reaching the top-20 on the Albums chart and selling over a million copies. A year later, Roger released his own solo album The Many Facets Of Roger, also made the top-10, and reached the top of the R&B chart with his cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine". Through the first half of the 80s Troutman had hits both with Zapp and on his own, with Zapp's "Dance Floor" topping the R&B list in 1982, and a year later went top-10 with "I Can Make You Dance". In 1984, Roger's solo "In The Mix" climbed to #10 R&B. Then in 1986 Zapp's "Computer Love" popped in at #8. Unlike some acts that had different sounds for their different acts, Zapp and Roger's work were totally similar, both having funk and ballad numbers, and both used the vocoder (though at times each didn't).
With "Computer Love" a cult R&B classic and his production on Shirley Murdock's debut album giving him more exposure, the time was right for Roger's third solo album, Unlimited. The first single, "I Want To Be Your Man", written by brother and Zapp member Larry, brought out the talk box yet again, and this time pop radio was ready...
"I Want To Be Your Man" became Roger's first and only top-40 pop hit as a lead artist, reaching the top-3 in February of 1988. The single also topped the R&B chart for a week in December of the preceding year, and even crossed over to Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart at #22. Across the pond, the single crawled to #61 in Britain.
Roger would have a couple more solo top-40 R&B hits, as well as one with Zapp, but by the end of the decade, their sound had been edged out on radio by the likes of rap and new jack. However, the former genre got them noticed in a different way, as act sampled and interpolated the group's hits on to many a song, and capitalizing on this, a greatest hits set was released from both acts together, and two new singles did respectable business, with "Slow and Easy" almost making the pop top-40 at #43 in 1993. Two years later, Roger returned to the pop charts as a featured artist on 2Pac's #1 hit "California Love". In 1996, he appeared on Johnny Gill's #19 R&B/#43 pop hit "It's Your Body". Zapp also had their final minor R&B hit that year with a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City" (#70). The next year Roger appeared on a couple more minor R&B hits (like Nastyboy Klick's "Down For Yours"), but sadly, in 1999, brother Larry, the man who wrote his biggest hit, ended Roger's life in a murder/suicide.
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Here's Roger along with Zapp (with his son in the band) playing "I Want To Be Your Man" live...
In 2001, the single "Down 4 U" from Irv Gotti with Ja Rule and Ashanti, which sampled the Roger song, reached #6 on the pop chart, #3 on the R&B chart, and #4 in Britain...
Two years later, Charlie Wilson (from the Gap Band) covered the band with American Idol Fantasia..
Mark Morrison, the British singer of "Return Of The Mack" fame, also revised his own version of the song in 2012...
Up tomorrow: A power-pop hairball has some ravenous pupils.
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