Songoftheday 3/31/17 - What you’ve been missin’ in a man, I can supply it your wish is my command...
from the album Johnny Gill (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from R&B singer Johnny Gill, who had started out as a solo singer as a teenager in the early 80s, releasing a self-titled debut album in 1983 for Cotillion Records. His first single, the bubbly "Super Love", reached the top-40 on Billboard's R&B chart (#29). The following year, he recorded a "duet" album with pre-fame friend Stacy Lattisaw Perfect Combination, which not only reached the albums chart, but landed him his first pop hit single with the title track, which also went all the way to #10 on the R&B list. Another track from the set, "Block Party", got them into the club chart at #48. Another solo set, Chemistry, followed, with another R&B top-40 solo hit in the ballad "Half Crazy" (#26). Two years later, in 1987, after the departure of Bobby Brown from the vocal group New Edition, Gill was recruited into the act for their Heart Break album, which garnered them a top-10 pop/R&B hit with "If It Isn't Love". But by the end of the decade, the various members of the quintet took a break to work on outside projects. The trio of Bell Biv Devoe were the first out of the gate, scoring a top-3 pop/#1 R&B hit with "Poison" in June of 1990. Not long after, Gill released his next solo single, "Rub You The Right Way". As opposed to his pre-Edition squeaky-clean image and sound, the salacious new jack swing dance tune got down and dirty with its intentions, without having to throw a curse word in at all. Written and produced by Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson's ex-Time production gurus), the singer showed more skin and lit R&B radio on fire...
"Rub You The Right Way" became Johnny's first and biggest top-40 pop hit in August of 1990. The single spent a week at #1 on Billboard's R&B chart, replacing Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" in May. The 12" remixes climbed to #16 on their Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in the Netherlands (#26), and was a minor hit in Australia (#59) and the UK (#77). His Motown self-titled album was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B male performance in 1991, losing out to Luther Vandross' "Here And Now".
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Here's Gill appearing on the Arsenio Hall show back in 1990 to promote the single...
...and again on Arsenio's revived show a couple years back...
Up tomorrow: Dance-pop singer is livin' the good life.
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