Songoftheday 12/7/16 - Lately I feel so alone can't find the joy, you know that I'd be with you now if I had the choice...
from the album Larger Than Life (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song of the day comes from Jody Watley, who had left the dance act Shalamar to find huge success as a solo artist, winning a Grammy Award for Best New Artist for her first solo album (though you can argue the "new", you can't argue the artist). She had kept the momentum going on her sophomore effort, Larger Than Life, with two top-10 hits already with "Real Love" and "Friends". The third single from the set would be her first down-tempo song to be sent to radio, "Everything". Written by Gardner Cole and soon-to-be film score king James Newton Howard, the lush heartbreak ballad had just enough groove for that make-up dance at prom...
"Everything" became Jody's sixth and so-far most recent top-10 pop hit in the U.S. in January of 1990. The song also climbed to #3 on Billboard's R&B chart, and crossed over to #11 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list (her first and biggest hit at that format). Internationally, the song stopped just short of the top ten in Canada at #11, and was a minor hit in the UK at #74. One more single from the Larger Than Life album, the mid-tempo soul jam "Precious Love", was a minor pop hit in America at #87 and made it to #51 on the R&B chart.
(Click below to see the rest of the list)
Here's Jody performing the song live on the Soul Train Music Awards (a rarity on that program)...
...and lastly, from a more recent show in the 2000s...
Up tomorrow: A foreign American keeps it close.
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