Robbed hit of the week 1/30/17 - Skyy's "Real Love"...
from the album Start Of A Romance (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #47
This week's "robbed hit" comes from the post-disco/R&B band Skyy, who came together in New York in the early 70s anchors by siblings Bonnie, Delores, and Denise Bunning. They released their self-titled debut album at the end of the decade, and the first single "First Time Around" was a respectable R&B hit at #20 and knicked the disco chart at #50. The following year, the sophomore effort Skyway scored them a second R&B hit with "High" (#13), but it came right at the waning days of the disco boom, and the song just missed the pop Hot 100, "bubbling" under at #102 in Billboard. But instead of changing their sound to match the mainstream mood, they just continued in their nook, thankfully, for in 1982 they had one of the great final hits of the post-disco era of the early 80s with "Call Me", which climbed to #26 on the U.S. pop chart, while spending two weeks at #1 on the R&B list, and peaking at #3 on Billboard's Dance Club Play tally (their biggest club success). They continued to have success through the 80s, landing a second top ten dance hit with "Show Me The Way" (#10) in 1983, but as the final flickers of disco went out, they switched over from the dance label Salsoul to Capitol, where they made it back into the R&B top ten with "Givin' It To You", which brought out a meatier funk like the Flyte Tyme/Jackson sound of the time, but weren't able to keep it up, so after a three-year break re-emerged on yet another label, Atlantic, which was successful in dance-pop at that time. With the title track from their Start Of A Romance album, Skyy grabbed the new jack swing sound to get their second #1 R&B hit in May of 1989. The second release from the set, "Love All The Way", sounded a little too much the same and missed the R&B top-40, but the group got their "footing" back on the third single "Real Love". Written by the band's guitarist/singer Solomon Roberts along with their longtime producer Randy Muller, the slow-dance charmer not only gave "quiet storm" adult soul radio a big hit, but also got mainstream stations notice...
While "Real Love" gave Skyy their third #1 R&B hit, the single just missed the American pop top-40 in March of 1990. After another three years from the release of Start Of A Romance, they recorded their second Atlantic album, Nearer To You, but after lead single "Up And Over (Stronger and Better)" stopped at #16, and the title track followed at #73, they haven't returned to pop or soul radio with new material.
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Here's Skyy appearing Live At The Apollo to promote the single...
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