Songoftheday 6/20/16 - For the life of me I never thought that it could be, the way it stands right now...

"Dreamin'" - Vanessa Williams
from the album The Right Stuff (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from Vanessa Williams, who had gone from the shame of being stripped of her Miss America crown (quite wrongfully) after becoming the first black woman to win the title, to starting out on a music and acting career that would eventually lead her to outshine any previous pageant queens. Releasing her debut album in 1988, the dance-pop gem and title track "The Right Stuff" became a top-10 R&B hit and nearly reached the pop top-40 in the summer of 1988. A second single, the new jack swing exercise "(He's Got) The Look", also reached the R&B top ten but didnt make a dent on the Hot 100 at all. But the third time was actually the charm, as the adult soul nugget "Dreamin'", was just was she needed to break through on pop stations. Written by Lisa Montgomery and Geneva Paschal, the song brought her to her eventual adult faithful fanbase...

"Dreamin'" became Vanessa's first top ten pop hit in the U.S. in April of 1989. The single also was her first to top Billboard's R&B chart, and stopped at #2 on their Adult Contemporary radio list (her first entry there). Internationally, the track made the top-40 in Canada (#16), New Zealand (#19), and the Netherlands (#40), and was a minor hit in the UK at #74. In 1989 she was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy, and the next year "Dreamin'" also got a nom for Best R&B Female Vocal Performance (she did the same the previous year with "The Right Stuff").

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Actually, Williams' "Dreamin'" wasn't the first released version of the song. Motown group Guinn recorded it on their 1986 album...

 Lastly, here's Vanessa performing "Dreamin'" live at the Apollo...

Up tomorrow: A rich rocker is visually enamored.